Tom Holland is not the sort of person you would expect to have a healing testimony. He is a historian. The author of Dominion, a critically acclaimed book about the lasting impact of Christianity on Western civilisation. Co-host of The Rest Is History, one of the most popular history podcasts in the world. A man who deals in evidence, argument, and footnotes.
He describes himself as a "Protestant agnostic."
And in December 2021, he was diagnosed with bowel cancer.
The Diagnosis
Bowel cancer. The doctors told Holland he would likely need surgery — part of his gut would need to be removed. But first they needed to find out whether the cancer had spread. That meant waiting. And waiting, when you have cancer, is its own kind of torment.
Christmas Eve
While he waited for the results, Christmas came. On Christmas Eve, Tom Holland went to midnight mass at the Church of St Bartholomew the Great in central London — one of the oldest churches in the city, founded in 1123. According to tradition, a vision of the Virgin Mary was seen there in the twelfth century.
Holland knelt at the Lady Chapel. He was not a Catholic. He was not even sure he was a believer. But he was frightened. And sometimes fear is the most honest prayer you can pray.
He prayed two words: "Come on. Please."
The Results
Within weeks of that Christmas Eve prayer, Holland received his medical results. The cancer had receded. It had not spread. The planned surgery — the removal of part of his gut — was no longer needed.
Two years later, he was declared clear.
What He Made of It
Holland is a historian. He deals in cause and effect. He is fully aware that cancers sometimes recede without explanation. He knows the medical profession would not call this a miracle. He has said that "if it is true, God must have the most wonderful sense of humour" — a Protestant agnostic receiving what might be a Marian intervention at a medieval Catholic church.
He does not claim certainty. He claims honesty. Something happened that he cannot explain. He prayed, and the cancer went away.
What This Means for You
You do not need perfect faith to pray. You do not need to have all your theology sorted. You do not need to be a lifelong churchgoer or know the right words. Tom Holland knelt in a nine-hundred-year-old church and said "Come on. Please." That was enough.
If you are sitting with a diagnosis and you are not sure what you believe — pray anyway. God does not wait for certainty. He responds to honesty. And sometimes the most powerful prayer in the world is just two words from someone who is scared and does not know what else to do.
