The Lightfoot Lane Blog

Forgive me Father, it’s been six months since my last blog…!

There is something confessional in sitting and writing a blog, and for me something personal and liberating in doing so, even though I never expect anyone to be interested in my musings, thoughts or soul searching.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Linda’s death. Wow, a whole year has gone by and at such a pace. Huge amounts have happened that were just not even imagined a year ago – Street Pastors in Preston’s red light district; people responding to Christ at TO3J in the Charter Theatre; incredibly exciting things as this message of real hope begins to be communicated and offered to people.

But it’s a very strange feeling sitting here and looking back over the last few years, and recently I have been doing a LOT of personal reflection. 12-months on, I have discovered a number of things about myself, my life, my feelings, my priorities, my choices. Such as?

Well if you’re interested, for example, I don’t do dates! There is a huge part of me that just wants dates to go past without anyone saying anything. Be that tomorrow, or what would have been our 16th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. I don’t do dates - I’d rather just ignore them and get on with living. That doesn’t mean I don’t care, but sometimes it’s easier to stick your head in the sand, let the past rest in the past ‘cos there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

Yet at the same time I can’t escape dates. Linda’s brother contacted me last week and is donating some money to our old church as a memorial to Linda - great. But that’s not me; my memorial to Linda is to live again, and let her life count for something through what I do, say and share with others. If others can find peace with God through me talking about, and leaning upon, our experiences then I’m being true to Linda and her legacy.

I shared my story at a local Parish church’s men’s group a few weeks ago. The first time I had publicly told my story and invited people to respond to God. Most of the people who were there were already Christians, but at the end of it I found myself being approached by a number of them, relating to different parts of my story. One man had lost his wife to cancer shortly before their Golden Wedding Anniversary and wanted to talk about the loneliness. Another wanted to talk about his wife, who having lost several close people to cancer had turned her back on God.

And then yesterday I visited someone I’ve been walking with for the last 3-years. On Friday he goes for a second MRI scan on what looks horribly like it could be a cancer – and he has no-one. In my mind I sat in that consultant’s room again like I did 6 years ago, and felt again the feelings of helplessness, of fear, of the walls closing in and the terror of the unknown. “I’ll walk that journey with you” I promised him – if there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s that we’re not meant do it alone. I then prayed God would heal him – ‘cos I still believe in a miracle working God.

But there’s also another good reason for not doing dates – we as a family are all moving on with our life, as Linda asked us to. Dragging up the dates again and making a big thing of the anniversary of Lindbut a’s death is not going to help the kids, who are extremely happy. There are times they talk about mummy, and are very respectful, but they are also embracing life, growing up and changing rapidly.

Life moves on. Very fast. But I have also had to accept that what we have been through over the last 6-years is something that will always be with us. It’s part of who I am now. It shapes me, and influences how I approach people; it makes me realise how short life is and makes me want to live life again – yes at a hundred miles an hour, but I don’t want to waste a minute!

OK, I still cry – I just don’t let anyone see. Reliving the feelings will always hurt – when you love someone and lose them, well, it just hurts. Healing is not the absence of pain – it’s being prepared to look into those dark areas of life and know God has given you a second chance.

And that’s something else that I have learnt. Just how amazing God’s grace is, that gives us what we don’t deserve. To start to live again and experience God using what you have been through to help others is great; but to experience Father’s embrace to me personally as his child as he pours amazing things into my lap, my cup running over, it’s just beyond words.

I’ve also found that the logicality of Christian faith, based upon good trustworthy evidence means that we don’t have to base what we believe on feelings. It’s really true, and if that’s the case then God can be trusted even when things don’t go as we want.

And I guess that’s the legacy I want to share with others 12-months on – the God of second chances who gives us what we don’t deserve, who is real and can be trusted no matter how we feel.

I have just spent time in a very wet English Lake District with folk from St Stephen’s Church Preston on their weekend away. A great mix of people from almost 0-90+ - just what church is meant to be. There is no theology of ageist, niche-marketing Christianity in the bible. Anyone, any age, any sex, from any social strata can join.

A weekend in the Lakes is always great. Being with a church, with people who love Jesus and are doing their best to walk with each other in Him is a taste of heaven.

We have been led to believe that heaven is getting away from it all; a turquoise sea with an empty white beach and no people. God’s picture of heaven is quite different! It is a community of His people, from every tribe and language and people and nation in a city so huge it is well over a thousand miles cubed! It is a bright, brilliant, bejewelled, radiant with the glory of the presence of God city, full of His people.

Being with a bunch of people struggling pupa from cocoon like, to become a beautiful butterfly or bride…well it was just a taste of heaven.

PAG

I had my last summer Sunday off over the weekend so I went to a different church.

The vicar - Brian McConkey only preached for ten minutes. He was deep, thought provoking, simple and profound. He preached from Luke 17 about the Ten Lepers being healed by Jesus. Ten were healed, only one returned to give thanks. Maybe, Brian said, nine were healed, but only one - the Samaritan, the odd one out was made whole. We don’t just need healing. We need to be made whole and to be truly thankful to God for the wholeness of salvation he gives us in Christ!

And it only took ten minutes. I have heard it said that a ten minute sermon produces ten minute Christians! That’s usually an excuse to go on and on and take forty minutes to say what you could say in twenty.

I’ve just read an excellent book on preaching. 360 Degree Preaching by Michael Quicke. My model and method is very similar to his - a stream of development of a sermon from start to finish in which we are all, preacher and listener alike, in the flow of the communication of the Holy Spirit. It got me all excited about the privilege and power of preaching again.

But I am stuck. I’d like to preach shorter, I am not sure how.

A minister once got up to preach and apologized for the nicks on his face. He said, “I was thinking about preaching and cut myself shaving,” A crumpled note in the offering box offered this advice, “Next time, why don’t you think about shaving and cut your preaching!”

But, I’m a preacher! Why use twenty words when two hundred will do?

PAG

On Sunday 27th April I preached on one of the most human passages in the Bible. Matthew 26 when Jesus’ disciples fell asleep praying - 3 Times!

I encouraged us all to work at the spiritual discipline of prayer even if it meant we begin by taking ten minutes more regularly to pray.

I guarantee if we did this we would see a great difference in our lives - especially in our relationships with God who loves us to spend time with Him - our heavenly Father.

I closed with the following story of answer prayer. Someone emailed me to ask for it. So I thought I would blog it as well.

Please feed back on your own prayer thoughts!

Andrew Gardner

This beautiful story was written by a doctor who worked in South Africa ..

One night I had worked hard to help a mother in the labour ward; but in spite of all we could do, she died, leaving us with a tiny, premature baby and a crying two-year-old daughter.  We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive, as we had no incubator (we had no electricity to run an incubator).

We also had no special feeding facilities.

Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts.  One student midwife went for the box we had for such babies and the cotton wool that the baby would be wrapped in.
Another went to stoke up the fire and fill a hot water bottle.  She came back shortly in distress to tell me that in filling the bottle, it had burst (rubber perishes easily in tropical climates). ‘And it is our last hot water bottle!’ she exclaimed. As in the West, it is no good crying over spilled milk, so in Central Africa it might be considered no good crying over burst water bottles.  They do not grow on trees, and there are no drugstores down forest pathways.

‘All right,’ I said, ‘put the baby as near the fire as you safely can, and sleep between the baby and the door to keep it free from drafts  Your job is to keep the baby warm.’

The following noon , as I did most days, I went to have prayers with any of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me.  I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about and told them about the tiny baby.  I explained our problem about keeping the baby warm enough, mentioning the hot water bottle, and that the baby could so easily die if it got chills.  I also told them of the two-year-old sister, crying because her mother had died.

During prayer time, one ten-year-old girl, Ruth, prayed with the usual blunt conciseness of our African children.  ‘Please, God’ she prayed, ‘Send us a hot water bottle today.  It’ll be no good tomorrow, God, as the baby will be dead, so please send it this afternoon.’

While I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer, she added, ‘And while You are about it, would You please send a dolly for the little girl
so she’ll know You really love her?’

As often with children’s prayers, I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say ‘Amen’?  I just did not believe that God could do this.  Oh, yes, I know that He can do everything; the Bible says so.  But there are limits, aren’t there?  The only way God could answer this particular prayer would be by sending me a parcel from the homeland.  I had been in Africa for almost four years at that time, and I had never, ever, received a parcel from home.

Anyway, if anyone did send me a parcel, who would put in a hot water bottle?

I lived on the equator!

Halfway through the afternoon, while I was teaching in the nurses’ training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door.  By the time I reached home, the car had gone, but there on the verandah was a large 22-pound parcel.  I felt tears pricking my eyes.  I could not open the parcel alone, so I sent for the orphanage children.

Together we pulled off the string, carefully undoing each knot.  We folded the paper, taking care not to tear it unduly.  Excitement was mounting.  Some thirty or forty pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box.

From the top, I lifted out brightly-coloured, knitted jerseys.  Eyes sparkled as I gave them out.  Then there were the knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children looked a little bored.  Then came a box of mixed raisins and sultanas - that would make a batch of buns for the weekend.

Then, as I put my hand in again, I felt the…..could it really be?  I grasped it and pulled it out.  Yes, a brand new, rubber hot water bottle.

I cried.

I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed that He could.

Ruth was in the front row of the children.  She rushed forward, crying out, ‘If God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly, too!’ Rummaging down to the bottom of the box, she pulled out the small, beautifully-dressed dolly.  Her eyes shone!  She had never doubted! Looking up at me, she asked: ‘Can I go over with you and give this dolly to that little girl, so she’ll know that Jesus really loves her?’  Of course, I replied!

That parcel had been on the way for five whole months, packed up by my former Sunday school class, whose leader had heard and obeyed God’s prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator.  And one of the girls had put in a dolly for an African child - five months before, in answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year-old to bring it ‘that afternoon.’

‘Before they call, I will answer.’  (Isaiah 65:24)

Prayer is one of the best free gifts we receive.  There is no cost, but a
lot of rewards.  Let’s continue praying for one another.

This week saw the six-month anniversary of Linda’s death come and go. Now I’m not someone who normally gets particularly bothered by dates, times etc; things like that don’t tend to get to me (they’re just “another day”). But this time it had a bit more resonance for me as I was asked to take a funeral on Tuesday, 6-months after I’d spent my last night with Linda holding her hand all night as her body packed up.   

The funeral was of the sister of a good friend of mine here at FFMC who together with his wife have been very supportive to me personally. Christine had contracted measles aged 18-months at the same time as Ian; Ian recovered but Christine didn’t and as a result, spent her life effectively as an 18-month old child in an adult’s body, passing away aged 55 on Good Friday.

I know that when you have cared for someone through some of the harder knocks life throws at you, when they pass on from this life for those of us left behind there is a whole range of emotions. On the one hand there is a deep sadness, emptiness. Something triggers a memory and you find yourself crying for seemingly no reason. They are no longer sitting in their chair like they have always done. You walk into their room to speak to them before you remember they’re not there and perhaps walk out again feeling a bit cross with your self. Or perhaps there is a sense of relief, a sense of being set free both for them and for you, or a sense of business-like “that’s life”. And then you feel guilty for thinking such things.

All these things are natural, normal responses to losing someone special, and it’s important that we allow ourselves that time to grieve. To give ourselves permission to do so is an important, healthy decision to make, not to bottle it up but to allow ourselves to express how we feel honestly, openly and healthily.

Times like this also cause us to ask what some people call “the first order” questions of life – or to put it another way, we ask questions of life and death. Perhaps we each stop and ask what life is all about, or what happens when we die. How can we be sure of what happens after we die – does anything happen when we die? Or maybe when we look at Christine we ask questions of life - why – why did God allow Ian & Christine to both contract measles but only Ian to recover and Christine to have her whole life changed in that one moment. Why does God allow lives to be so tragically cut short, potential lost?

As someone who recently had to face these very questions myself, I know that sometimes there are simply no answers that can be given. To listen to a minister or any well meaning person try to trot out trite answers to questions of suffering can sometimes be offensive or hurtful. I have found that chasing answers to these questions can actually sap our energy, and sometimes prove to be a fruitless search.

But what I have found is that as a Christian, God is never far away from us at times like this, and rather than trying to make sense of the pain I have found it more helpful to draw strength from simply choosing to trust God. And so I prefer to focus upon those things we can know, the answers we can find and be sure about.

Who has the right to measure the value of anyone’s life? Who has the right to say that one person’s life is more valuable than anyone else’s? And how do we measure life anyway? I would suggest that the value of someone’s life can be measured by the effect that they have on other people. Seeing Christine at home with Ian and the family, and watching them struggling led their neighbour to begin the Charnwood Trust which has a significant impact working to build bridges between handicapped and non-handicapped children. Without Christine, would others have ever benefited from this care?

I believe it is therefore fair to say that the best of human virtues are wrought through the most difficult of circumstances. And in seeking to share God’s love with people hurt, damaged, disadvantaged in life we are actually walking in a way close to God’s heart.

I think I surprised myself with how I got through the service! My “weepy” moment came at the end when I was on my own at the door looking back at the coffin while everyone else was listening to a reflective CD by Michael W Smith. But I don’t think anyone noticed….

Family news: scary, but my kids are growing up too fast! Olivia dressed up for her school disco last night in a pretty dress, high heels, had her hair done, make up and perfume. She looked really pretty - but she’s not 9 until the end of May! Help!Oh, and I’m being ordained on the evening of Friday 9th May at Renewal Christian Centre!God is good!

One of the exciting new developments for 2008 has been an approach from Preston Police to explore and develop ways in which better relationships between the police and the church in the city can be developed. As a result I have begun to be involved in a new working group with the Police and representatives from other “faith” communities whose aim is to build better relationships between people in the city and in the process begin to tackle some of the social issues that exist, which the Police hope will lead to a reduction in crime and a safer Preston.

One of the objectives of Hope 08 is for better collaboration between the church and the Police and local authorities, and as a result of being part of this new group, the church in Preston was invited to be part of a Police led multi-agency (MAP) Partnership Action Week in Ribbleton last week. This involved the Police, Probation Service, Fire Brigade, Environment Agency, Housing Associations etc. We went along mainly to observe as it was the first time we’d been involved, but a team of people from FFMC, St Stephen’s and Longton Community Church worked together under the Hope 08 banner to give away free teas and coffees to the workforce, to clean up litter and some real grot spots and even helped get the community having a go at cleaning up graffiti etc. for themselves.

An article on this was featured in the Reporter - (alright they got some details wrong calling it Hope Awake which sort of sounds like Hope 08!) - but for more info see Hope 08 - Trees Estate. (Photo above courtesy of the LEP/Reporter!)

I think things like this are really exciting - and present the church with an opportunity to show relevance in the world, and input into communities with the Hope of the gospel in ways which professional agencies can’t. The potential for the church, if we truly believe in the transforming power of Jesus Christ, are immense for the future - parenting courses, community pastoring etc etc - I look forward to watching the church in action in the future and seeing God through His people reaching a hand out to offer a hurting world real, lasting, life changing hope.

Wow! What a busy seven weeks since I last posted - is it really seven weeks? Time goes past so fast these days - but it’s been a fun couple of months with loads going on - theatre show, an amazing training away day with 120 adults and a whole pig…and lots more!

First before I go any further, thanks to all of you who have been praying for me and the kids. When I last posted, I was in discussions with a national publication about featuring a story on us as a family in the national press. I decided eventually to not proceed with this - I just felt that I wouldn’t have been able to get enough of my story in, in the way we would have wanted. At the end of the day, we’ve only coped because of God and anything that doesn’t reflect this is missing the point! We’d just be another same old sob-story without this. Anyway, following some discussions with AOG’s publishing house, I did an interview with them that has just been published in this month’s New Life newspaper - (see New Life Article for a copy of the article) and I have another article being featured all being well in April’s magazine “Prayer“.

So what’s been happening with us? Well firstly we survived Christmas. Mind you, I think over the 2 week period we had almost no time on our own such was people’s kindness and concern for us. The kids were up hourly from 11:30 Christmas Eve to the point I gave up at 3:30 and left them all playing so I could try and get some sleep! Then we had Linda’s birthday in January (which to be honest I just tried to ignore) and now we are getting on with building a new life, with new memories!

Mind you, this policeman business as a single parent gets very wearing!!!! I hate being the “bad-guy” all the time, having to chase the kids - it really is like herding cats sometimes! But we are learning that being on your own means lots of changes. Whereas in a marriage someone is there to talk and interact with the kids while the other gets on with the business of running the home, now by the time you have run the home it’s bedtime, and creating quality time for each other gets eaten away with the mundane cooking/cleaning/washing etc. Then I guess I’m just finding out what all the other mums and single parents have known for a long time.

But we are doing better than just surviving - we are beginning to enjoy life again, make new memories and building a new life. That’s why I resonate so strongly with my role on Preston’s Hope 08 core team - I believe in the hope of the Gospel. It’s not just hope for some far off eternal future, but “hope for today and bright hope for tomorrow!” Trusting in God can mean you can go through life’s hard knocks and come through scarred but strong - and normal.

And that’s the bit I like, feeling normal again….and looking forward to the future.

While I was off on compassionate leave in October, I sat down and wrote an article for our church magazine “Heart” on coping with Linda’s death; the emotions and things that we went through and how our faith had been foundational to being able to cope. I found it incredibly therapeutic to write it!

Well last Monday (10th Dec)  this was picked up by the Lancashire Evening Post who ran the article from Heart almost word for word, cutting out one or two paragraphs but all the same, a fantastic privilege to be able to share something of my story with a wider audience.

See First Christmas without Linda for a copy of the article.

Linda and I always said that if we had to go through this, we wanted it to be something that might bring hope and help to others and that God might use it to bring others to a place of faith in Jesus, and already I have had contact from people as a result of it being published!

Please pray for us though; as a result there is wider growing interest in our story and I need real wisdom to know the best way to allow our story to be communicated!

Well I’ve been back at work a month now, so how’s it been? I have to say, right now I feel normal. I feel normal, my kids are behaving normally, and life feels normal. And I literally thank God for that. After everything that’s gone on recently, to be feeling normal is something to be very thankful for. But what is normal? Our normal is probably different to yours! 

Being back at work has been great. I’m not someone who can sit still easily, or for long, and so for me getting back in the saddle as quickly as possible I’ve found to be so helpful. I know some people have been, and still are, worried for me that “it’s too early” or that “I’m rushing things;” I think some people also think I should be falling apart, and that not to is some form of denial or failing, but to be honest, I think I’d go stir crazy if I didn’t get on with life! And in doing so, it also helps heal the pain and was something that Linda gave me permission to do – so you could say I’m under instructions to get on with life! But I genuinely feel normal, which as I keep saying is possible for a Christian whatever we go through! However, I do genuinely really appreciate people’s love and concern for me, it is amazing to know the sense of being carried and lifted by this. Thank you.

It’s been great to be busy again. And already over the last month I’ve begun to see God opening up opportunities for me to lean on what I’ve been through for the benefit of others. Our next issue of Heart goes out this weekend, and I was asked to write an article to follow up Linda’s article of 2 Christmas’s ago. That was actually therapeutic for me to do, and already I have passed it to a friend who has lost their dad this week. I have also found myself talking to people who have lost close friends and family to cancer this year; to friends facing tough decisions in hospital, or who have emotionally been chewed up and spat out by life.

I also got back in the pulpit at Fulwood – and found myself speaking in our series through John’s gospel on: What would Jesus say about…fear? God seems to have a way of throwing me back into the front line very quickly – and it felt as if I was able to speak from a place of experience rather than theory! But then, isn’t that how it should be? Sermons also usually have a boomerang element for the preacher – I just hope it helped others as much as it did me!

So thanks for your support! We are doing great, and by God’s grace, I pray we will continue to walk hand in glove with him through the Christmas period, Ben and Linda’s birthdays etc over the next 6-weeks.

It probably feels like a bit of an understatement, but the last 2 months have been the worst of my life. Even though we all knew that Linda was very ill, and had been preparing for it for sometime, it was still a shock to me when she died - you think you’re bullet proof. When you have cared for your most loved one for so long through something as horrible as cancer, part of you adapts to life without them before you have to. Even so, the pain of loss is excruciating.

I didn’t know that grief was physically painful – the day after she died I had pins and needles down one side all day, whilst my guts just screwed up inside of me for days. I had to put two extra holes in my belt by the end of the first week. I found myself walking into rooms and asking myself why I had gone in there. In Asda, I spent 5 minutes staring at the shampoo shelf just trying to spot the bottle of shampoo we always had. And the tears. I have never cried so much, or so deeply ever – the whole of my body just shook from somewhere inside of me I didn’t know existed every day for a week.

One of the questions I get asked regularly at the moment is “How do you cope – and you a minister?” Quite simply I don’t know how anyone could cope without faith in God. That’s not me being flippant, or religious, or a minister – it’s the result of the last 17 years of learning to trust God through tough times and discovering that Christianity is true.

This is a question I have turned to repeatedly over the last month - “If this God stuff is true…” Over the summer I was researching evidence for Christianity in order to begin writing some material looking at my argument “we don’t have a blind faith, but one that stands the test.” To know that the foundations of our faith are solid, trustworthy and reliable means that the rest of the house can stand. Paul writes “If only for this life we have hope, then we are to be pitied more than all men” and for the Christian, death is just the beginning. Linda is more alive than ever now, and I choose to celebrate this and live in it despite the pain of separation. It is possible for the Christian to do this however bad the circumstances are we go through.

 In addition to the amazing love and care of my church family who have adopted this southerner-stranger who speaks funny into their hearts, another thing that has lifted me has been my kids, their simple, childlike faith and their ability to embrace and get on with life. They go faster than us adults want to sometimes, and it is impossible to be down for too long with the hustle, bustle, fights and laughter of normal family life. They are truly brilliant and a real joy to me as I learn to be a single parent. And some of their questions make you scream (with both pain and laughter!) For example, Esther is desperate to know if God cooks the party food in heaven!

I’ve started back to work this week after a month off. I needed it to get my head back together, and last week we returned to Kent for a week with friends and family. That was a great time, a real time of special blessing, refreshing and encouragement. I never realised how much people loved us, and it filled my tank up to get going again !

So watch out folk - I’m back!!!!