New beginnings...

Back in December 1992 I became a Christian…it was a day that I remember very fondly as it changed everything….nothing would ever be the same.  At the time I was 24 years old.  I had been friends with the lovely Karena for some time through work; we got on like a house on fire - she was so full of life, was fun to be around, made me laugh and she was a Christian.  Over many months as our friendship developed she shared her faith with me….and challenged me to look into the evidence for Jesus' life, who he was and evidence for the resurrection.  Over time, I came to understand not only the historical evidence for Jesus' life, but also who he was and why he came…and it culminated with me praying a prayer to ask Jesus into my life whilst sitting alone in my car at 11pm one winter evening.  It was a complete new beginning and I have lived in the wonder of the gospel message ever since. 

Not only did Jesus turn my life upside down -  but 6 months later I married the lovely Karena to share my life with….she really was a gift to me from our Father in heaven.  It was another new beginning.

 

On 31st Dec 2008, Karena was diagnosed with cancer - that's 5 years ago now.  A lot of time has passed since then.  A lot of change has come.  My wife died and my three children lost their mother. I am now re-married to the lovely Ellie and I have inherited (a good word to describe it!) two more beautiful children.  We are a 'blended' family but much of the time for Ellie and I, everything can feel somewhat tainted by our combined history. 

 

Next month it will be 4 years since my Karena died and 14 years since Ellie's Ben died.

 

God promises us in the bible that he will never leave us nor forsake us.  It's an ABSOLUTELY HUGE promise.   Both Ellie and I bear witness to the truth of this through what has felt to us like the most bitter of circumstances.  Every day still we are confident of God's presence and of his favour, and every day in a myriad of ways the good news of Jesus breathes life afresh into our hearts, and gives us confidence and hope for the future. 

Every day with Jesus represents a new beginning to us.

 

Nothing can ever come remotely close to replacing those that Ellie and I have loved and lost of course.  Our lives, our hearts & our emotional capacity are forever changed, and every day presents emotional challenges as a result  (which reminds me, I must blog on our "Precipice Proximity Index" aka "PPI" sometime soon!)

We are very glad for all that we have been given though….we treasure one another and we have five teenage children who delight and exhaust us in fairly equal measure.  It still feels like new beginnings for us as a combined family and we are looking to the future, and trying not to look back too hard most of the time….yet we are acutely aware that the pain of the past invades each and every new day.

 

So here's one more new beginning to make you smile….

A long time ago Ben promised Ellie that he would buy her a puppy when their 2 children were a little older and when they'd settled down out of bible college.  Last weekend, we 'fulfilled' this promise as Ellie and I left the house at 5.15am along with our dog, Sam, for a 200+ mile journey to west Wales….our mission was to collect a 9 week old rescue puppy called Horace.  We reserved him before Christmas and told the children about him on Christmas day….and as expected, they are all utterly besotted with him ! 

I know he's 'just a dog' but for us he is also a part of our new family identity and our new beginnings together….and he is also very cute and cuddly (even though he yelps at bedtime and leaves unwelcome little packages around the place !!)

Christmas in pictures....

Stockings in bed !

 

From a friend : "I bought it because it had 7 flowers on it - reminded me of you all"

A favourite Christmas present - Guess who ?!

Craig and Ellie in their new Onesies (I always wanted one!) :-)

Last year's present from me to Ellie was a house sign - a promise of something yet to come....installed on our new house 1 year later to the day - promise fulfilled !!

Feasting !!!

 Merry Christmas from us all !!

Christmas is coming...

Long time no blog.....

The last few weeks seem to have flown by...here's a few highlights ....

• Ripping the 18" thick ivy off the house (what a job that was!)
• Finishing painting all the internal replacement doors and stairway banisters
• A day out at a local Spa a week ago after crazy amounts of DIY
• Putting up our Christmas tree in our new house (a potted living one)
• Taking down our Christmas tree due to excessive shedding :-(
• Putting up fake Christmas tree (no shedding issues!)
• Putting up outside Christmas lights !
• Installing new Log burner in front room, which gets its inaugural lighting tonight !
• Meeting all the neighbours - who are lovely !
• Bible discussions around the dinner table all around the advent story
• Decorating our outside cabin to look like Santa's Grotto
• Crazy amounts of Christmas shopping for family and extended family.
• Completing drawings for our downstairs extension - will be submitted for planning this week
• Ordering a huge turkey :-)

Roll on Chrimbo !

What a crazy week....

Ahhhh, what a crazy week it's been....

 

In pictures :- 

Flowers given to us from the Estate Agent when we picked up the house keys....we had some of these at our wedding....it reminded us that this is a new day for our family....

Even the cat got packed...

First meal on lounge carpet surrounded by absolutely nothing...

 

An insane amount of painting and DIY (with a lot of help, we painted the entire house white in 7 days!)....

Ripping out dodgy electrics....

...and some of the more unusual features....

 

Yesterday removals men finally emptied our old house....interesting sculptures appeared around the old rented place from the dust and dog hair left behind :-)

 

A slightly odd area in the loft above our bedroom which we are using to keep our 'danger boxes' :-

 

 

The removals men finished yesterday - we now have boxes coming out of our arm pits !

 

Today we have the  carpenter coming to do some jobs, we have the plumber coming to finish the new bathroom (the one and only Ben Patterson - a top man doing a fabulous job !!), we have to clean the rented house, we have the architect coming to measure up for an extension, and I have a physio (or is it psycho?!) appointment....so a fairly quiet day all in all ! :-)

 

Stuff we are so very grateful for :-

 

• Our home...we've at last spent our first night in our new home !
• Our friends and family who have cooked us loads of meals and helped with decorating and DIY (we couldn't have got this far without you all !)
• Enough energy to keep going (we have been waking up very early with activity lists in our heads !)
• Time off from working. 
• People who have been praying for us
• A warm house....

 

 

The rear-view mirror

House completion date - 18th October - is slowing approaching…at least, it seems very slow to me!

I will be finishing my job (by choice) on the same day….Whilst we clearly won't be able to manage financially forever without me working…for this next phase, having a month or two (hopefully) out of work in order to settle the children and ourselves into our new home feels like the right thing to do.  It's not about money…..fortunately we have enough to tide us over for the time being.

These last few days, I have been pondering something….. The photos shown here are on my desk at work.  I realise that most people probably don't have a photo of two different wives on their desk….but like most other people, the photos on my desk tell a story of people that I love and treasure.  In the collage-type frame above, the top strip are consecutive yearly photos of me and my 3 biological children taken in December each year from 2003 onwards with us all crammed into a passport photo booth once a year; the last one was taken with us all smiling in Dec 2009; at the time Karena was in the hospice but I wanted her to have an up-to-date photo of us all by her side for the hours when we weren't there; she had it by her bedside (such a hard memory!).  The other photos also tell a story - the big one in the middle was taken on our last proper family holiday together in Ireland in 2008 a few months before Karena was diagnosed.  In addition to that I have photos of Ellie and I and our 5 children on our wedding day also on my desk.  

These photos all stare out at me as I work at my desk….and each time I glance at them I react - sometimes with a smile, sometimes with a wince, sometimes with a feeling of deepest anguish, sometimes with a feeling of deepest appreciation. 

The photos tell my story, my pain and my joy. 

Fairly often, people ask me about my family as I clearly have a lot of children!  Sometimes I tell edited highlights of our story, sometimes I just can't be bothered if I'm honest….reactions to the more detailed story are quite varied - apologetic, uncomfortable, sympathetic, sometimes quickly changing the subject etc etc.  I don't mind really but in truth I don't really have the energy to keep sharing the story time and time again anyway, but at the same time, I don't want to deny it either, as it's all been so life-changing.

Of course, it's not just at my desk that these mixed up feelings jump out at me…it's just about everywhere else too….which anybody who has experienced this particular journey, would also relate to, no doubt.

What I've been pondering is what to do with the photos on my desk - do I just have photos of the "current life" or do I keep the photos of the "previous life"…those photos which so often make me sad and remind me of painful things that I would really rather forget.  Tricky.  I want to honour and be true to the past, and to love lost.  I also must live in the present and must continue to move into the future. 

Recently we've been trying to pack up some bits and pieces at home ready for the move again…we have a lot of photos and sad 'memorabilia' (for want of a better word) in various places, many of which are wrought with pain and anguish…some of our things need to be packed up into a strongbox with a lock and key, and posted with a health warning - 

"Beware, Memories may seriously damage your sanity."  

For example, we were packing some things up in the attic a few days ago, and, amongst other things, we came across first-time-around wedding photos and a memorial order of service…..  Anyway, we both ended up fairly quickly putting everything down again not really knowing what to do with it all, and then decided the best thing was to go and do something else completely different…  so it's all still waiting to be packed.

But pack we must, because we are moving forward.  Recently I read a something  which I found quite provocative : "Live with only the odd glance in your rear-view mirror (Phil 3:13-14)"

So I guess we'll keep working at it, then perhaps we will crash less often ! 

Exchanged !

This is our new house !  <>

Late on Friday we exchanged contracts at last !

We are very pleased and quite relieved that we have found a more permanent home after about two years of trying!
Completion isn't until 18th October which seems like a long way off at the moment....but it leaves us time to do some organising and to get prepared.

Ellie and I have been talking about what we've been learning through this process of being disappointed so many times on houses we'd hoped to buy...it's a fairly long list but here's some highlights :-

• God's plans are not our plans, nor are His ways our ways (Isa 55:8)
• God's timing is not our timing (we planned to rent for a maximum of 6 months...15 months later!)
• Sometimes we don't see the path ahead very clearly but in faith we keep moving forward
• There's not necessarily one 'right' way to go; God is much bigger than that.
• In all things, seek peace and pursue it (Ps 34:14)...which is Ellie's family motto !
• Money is simply a tool (Rental costs have been huge!); we need to thank God for this provision that had enabled us to rent a house rather than worrying about the future (Matt 6:27).

Time to go and do some packing !

A bit of this and a bit of that...

Photo is of Ellie and the children at Center Parcs for a very long and very enjoyable time last weekend !

Yesterday I read a very good article on grief...possibly the most helpful thing I've read since 'it all happened'….

My paraphrase :-

- Grief is normal, necessary, unavoidable…

- Grief is hard work – it ‘flattens you’, affects your thinking, your concentration  and emotional wellbeing. It makes you feel like you’re going crazy…. you can’t just “get on with your life”

- There’s no closure - Grief is never short - it’s always there – lifelong, sometimes overwhelming, sometimes very raw ("Closure is relevant to business deals but not to the human heart")

- It's good to stay ‘connected’ to the person who has died...eg talking, photos etc (“their physical presence may be gone but…you remain in relationship in a new way beyond form…”)

- Grief changes you irrevocably and gives you a whole new perspective. “It teaches about living and dying, about pain and love and about impermanence. While some people are changed by grief in a way that makes them bitter and shut down, it is also possible to use grief as a springboard for compassion, wisdom, and open-heartedness"

As Ellie and I read it, lights seemed to be going on all around - it all sounded so very very familiar !

For the full article – click here – it’s really a very good read.

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As for the house situation – it still seems to be progressing but is slow…contract documents and searches/surveys are all complete and no outstanding issues.  Today’s news is that the current owners have finally advised that they are now willing to exchange contracts before the end of August….with completion to be agreed but likely to be mid-end October.  So...we're still waiting!!