On Friday I had my first set of meetings in London since the funeral. Re-entry felt premature. I think it would have done no matter how long I’d have left it. Having bought my train ticket I stood on the platform at 7am feeling like it was my first day at school, hoping that getting on that train might help the process of getting on with life. But the jury’s still out on that one.

All in all, since the harrowing weekend we lost Dad, things have gone ok. The Thanksgiving Service went like clockwork with many old friends and family travelling a long way to be with us. The song, the tributes, the catering, the flowers, the hymns… all went as planned. The whole family so appreciates the support we’ve been given – the messages and particularly the prayers.

The devotional on the day Dad died was painfully relevant (see below). I still struggle to reframe the last couple of weeks as a ‘pimple-level problem that will pass’… the rawness we all feel I’m sure will only make sense in Eternity. Though my father’s faith was a source of great strength when he was alive, it is such a comfort now. Seems ironic that when Monty comes bounding into our bedroom first thing in the morning I can almost see heaven shining out of his big blue eyes.

S.

****

GOD’S VIEW OF YOUR LIFE
Sunday, August 17, 2008

“You are my place of safety and protection. You are my God and I trust you.” Psalm 91:2

Have bad things really happened to you? You and God may have different definitions for the word bad. Parents and children do. Look up the word bad in a middle-schooler’s dictionary, and you’ll read definitions such as “pimple on nose,” or “pop quiz in geometry.” “Dad, this is really bad!” the youngster says. Dad, having been around the block a time or two, thinks differently. Pimples pass…

What you and I might rate as an absolute disaster, God may rate as a pimple-level problem that will pass. He views your life the way you view a movie after you’ve read the book. When something bad happens, you feel the air sucked out of the theater. Everyone else gasps at the crisis on the screen. Not you. Why? You’ve read the book. You know how the good guy gets out of the tight spot. God views your life with the same confidence.

He’s not only read your story…he wrote it.

There's a feeling that things are maybe starting to settle down here. Dad had a peaceful burial last Friday in a beautiful wood on the top of the South Downs, overlooking the sea. A place he’d chosen some years ago. In fact he’d taken some time to choose a lot of things about what he’d like to happen at this time. That has made life for us all so much easier. There's nothing worse than worrying over fine details when still struggling with the big picture.

Tomorrow we have Dad's Thanksgiving Service, which looks like being larger than we initially thought. There are people coming from many parts of the country, some staying locally, some getting up at the crack of dawn to make it. I’m looking forward to meeting up with some old friends again.

Life outside of all of this continues. The kids have been wonderful and have enjoyed an extended summer holiday with their cousins. Poppy said it feels like a long Christmas break and the weather has helped... England’s August weather has been, well, just appalling. Suitably appalling, I guess. Several days have felt more like a mild winter than the middle of summer.  

People have been so kind. The scent of flowers has filled our home from day one. And we’ve been given so much support at the same time as much needed space to get through this. Thank you to everyone for your emails, cards, letters, phone calls, prayers, kind messages, offers of help and everything else. It has been extraordinary. 

Thursday is my day for reentry into real life. I’ll check back in then.

S.

Well, most of the phone calls have been made now. It’s been nice catching up with people I’ve not spoken to for a long, long time but being the bearer of such bad news sucks. Is it wrong for me to cheer inside when I get put through to voicemail?

Tonight I’m staying at Mum’s. We’ve made a lot of progress on the ‘jobs’ list, especially the urgent ones. Sometimes I try to kid myself that I’m getting used to the big one – that the big fella I always knew and depended on (more than I realized at the time) is gone. But little things catch me out. Like -

• Looking at my hands and seeing his
• Hearing my breath while I’m out running and remembering his last great fight in hospital
• Hearing myself speak to my kids and knowing it’s just what he would have said and the way he would have said it
• Feeling the ache of my sweet mother missing the person she shared TV moments, beachfront walks, shopping trips and supper with for so long. That just feels unfair.
• Seeing Dad’s favourite food in the fridge and his toothbrush in the bathroom

I’m singing a song at his Thanksgiving Service - a beautiful song Sue and I wrote when she was staying with us and Dad went into hospital for the very first time. It so speaks to us where we are right now. It’s called ‘After’ and it’s here.

S.

After a three-day fight Dad finally passed away on Sunday evening. Thanks so much for all the messages and prayers. The support we have received has been overwhelming.

There will be a service for him on Wednesday 27th August to celebrate his life.

S.

Thursday night we got a 3am call from the hospital to say that Dad had suffered a massive stroke and that he could pass away within hours. The whole family have been at his side for most of the time since then, supporting, remembering, praying, grateful for knowing him for so long and saying our goodbyes even tho there was zero response. Right now he’s in the twilight zone the medics call an ‘end of life plan’ between doctors having done all they can do and him passing away.

Many times his breathing has got so shallow that we thought we’d lost him. Many times his pulse has been so irregular that we couldn’t measure it. He seems to be fighting back but at 78 years old we have to be realistic.

In the middle of all this we have seen God’s mercies in so many ways -

• The timing of all of this
• The incredible support of our wider family and friends
• The care and respect my father has had from staff at the hospital
• The gratitude we feel to have had him in our lives
  
• That we can still see God’s hand in our lives through all of this
  

Please pray for -

• The Comforter to continue to comfort us and especially my mother who is losing a life-partner and friend after 55 years
  
• Strength and faith for us all to see the hope of Glory, especially those with a weaker faith
• A swift resolution to this – whatever God plans in His sovereignty for that to be
• Wisdom in telling our kids about all this
  
• For us to quickly adjust to life without a wonderful, strong, God-fearing, loving father

Thank you.

S.

Barts has had his first haircut and taken his first unaided steps... and I'm blogging from my iPod.

What in the world is going on?

S.

In the City, if you want to be taken seriously, you need a decent pair of shoes.  Doesn’t matter if your shirt’s lost a button, your jacket’s crumpled or even if your underpants poke out the top of your trousers. If you’re wearing the wrong shoes, people notice.

Ideally, you wear shoes made by Church's of Northampton. They’re the king of English shoes. They also produce the king of credit card bills. If it’s not Church's then Loakes will do. After that, you’re into high street brands that make you look cheap, or Italian shoes that make you look slippery.

I had a new pair of Loakes sitting in our dressing room for a couple of months. Clean, unlaced, their pink lining smelling of sweet leather like a new Jaguar XJ6 waiting in a car showroom. But Loakes are stiff and it was that stiffness that kept them clean for so long. Because even tho my old City shoes had a large hole in the left sole, I knew the first day with a new pair of Loakes would get to be as painful as walking on glass.

And yesterday I remembered why I kept them in the dressing room. In the rush to get out of the house in time for the 6.26 to London Victoria I’d hopped around squeezing my feet into these expensive, black, shiny instruments of torture that had cheated me into taking them to London for the day. And sure enough, in the early evening as I hobbled back into the house with my jacket over my shoulder, my shirt crumpled from a busy day trying not to walk, I was staggering like John Wayne.

Tomorrow is a different story. I don’t care if it’s blowing a hoolee or pouring with rain… I’m taking my old shoes. But that’s not what really bothers me. The thing is that I know I might have new shoes to wear in a number of areas of my life over the next few months. I just hope they turn out to be nothing like as painful. 

S.

We had the vicar come to our home for lunch today. He’s a sweet guy who’s transformed our local village church and the vibrant seaside community that worships there.

With three small kids we were guaranteed some bloopers but today Moo won the prize hands down. He noticed that the vicar hadn’t worked out how to lock the downstairs toilet and, after an appropriate pause, in the middle of his business, he flung open the door and shouted,

“SURPRISE!”

I didn’t stop to work out whether the poor man was sat on the pew or standing at the font before ordering Moo to give the man a break in a way that almost qualified me for my very own blooper of the day.

S.

Read this today –

“All the billions of Christ followers over the last two thousand years have this in common – a spiritual gift is given to each of us (1 Cor 12:7).

God’s body has no nobodies. No exceptions. No exclusions.”

I like that. It’s easy to watch what’s going on in the music business today and wonder where we fit in to a world which has the technology to turn talent into a commodity and music into a free good. In the process we can easily lose sight of the significance of our uniqueness.

However imperfectly man tries to organise our giftings… that truth remains: there are no nobodies.

Keep the faith dudes,

S.