Success and sorrow story.

I mentioned earlier that the great love of my life was football; football was the thing in my life that made me feel good about myself.  There were not many things that that I felt confident doing but when I put my usually green goalkeepers Shirt on and my cherished gloves I was confident in my ability even though I only measured five feet five and a half inches tall.

Sometimes when we were walking out to the pitch I would overhear the opposing team comment on my size, it would usually be something like, “Look at all the size of their keeper”.  Their comments would make me laugh because even though I was small I was able to jump and touch the bar without too much effort.  They would become so pre occupied by trying to lob the ball over my head that they wasted good possession.

I was training twice a week at my local club Glenavon F.C. and another night with another team from my town.  It was during this time that the main team I played for called Sunnyside won three trophies in the one season, the most prestigious being the I.F.A. youth cup for under eighteens.  A club dinner and presentation night was held in Glenavon social club I was seventeen at the time.

The room that we were in was packed; everything had been laid on for us, free food and drink.  I had not taken another drink after becoming a Christian and I had absolutely no intention of starting again.  I would have got drunk whenever I could afford to or whenever one of my older friends would have brought me round to his house.  My close friend had a part time job and the man he worked with would bring both of us to dart matches in a town called Rathriland, we got to know the men in the dart club and they would buy us beer.

The bar man in the social club came round the table I was sitting at in Glenavon Social club and asked us all what we wanted to drink.  When he came to me I said I would have a diet coke, he suggested that I could not drink coke all night and before I knew it I had agreed with him and asked for a Bass Shandy with plenty of lemonade in it.  When I took my first sip from the glass I knew immediately that there was very little lemonade in it but instead of asking for more lemonade I drank it.

That night was by far the Highlight of my football life but it would also become one that would cause me much sorrow.  The pint classes of Bass Shandy kept coming and I felt obliged to empty them quite frequently.  When all the medals had been handed out to all the players and all the speeches had been made I suddenly felt all alone even though I was surrounded by my team mates.

Then completely out of the blue a little voice in my head started asking me the same question over and over, “Jim what are you doing”?  I knew God was speaking to me and I felt so ashamed and guilty.  I felt that I had failed God, let myself down and compromised my faith in Jesus.  I never said a word to anyone I just gathered my two medals and my little I.F.A. cup, left the social club and cried the whole way home thinking that I was just like my dad.  The difference being that I was not going home to fight with anyone.

I had kept drinking until I was drunk and what had been a night of success eventually turned into a night of sorrow.  I was unsure whether or not God would forgive me but God reminded me that he loved me unconditionally, even when I messed up and compromised my faith he was willing to forgive me if I was sincerely sorry and asked for forgiveness.  This was a bad experience but worse would come soon after.

It is sadly very ironic for me to recall the morning that my mother sent for me to inform me that she could get me a job in a certain factory when I left school and I was so cruel in what I said to her.  My first job was in the same factory; I cannot remember doing an interview, in those days it was sometimes the case that it was not what you knew that got you the job but who you knew.  I knew nothing, I had dropped out of school with no qualifications so it is fair to assume my relative who was high up in the factory management probably had a big part to play with me getting the job.  In the end he did me no favours; I hated the sight of the place.

My football manager asked me one Saturday if I was working, I told him that I was but that I was looking for another job; he said that he might be able to get me a job where he worked in the textile printing business and soon after that he did, again without any interview.  This man was very good to me, he would often bring me to his home on match days and his wife would feed me.  I met another man in this new place of employment and both he and his wife showed me much Christian kindness.  I thank God for the many people who showed me kindness in those difficult days.

After the death of my mother my dad had stopped drinking for a while, when he was sober life at home was not too bad.  My brother and sister were still living with my two aunts and on reflection the separation probably robbed us of that bond between siblings.  I still saw them but to a much lesser extent now that I was working full time.  They would usually have come round to our house at weekends.

The not honouring your father story.

During one of these visits one Saturday morning I had been working overtime and rushed home from Portadown to get my dinner and rush out to play football in the afternoon.  When I got home my dad was there in the house with my brother and sister and he had been drinking, I was furious, one because he had started drinking again and two because he had not bothered to make any dinner.  I think I made a couple of sandwiches and was literally throwing them into me when for no reason at all he started saying all sorts of terrible things about our dead mother.  My brother and sister were becoming more and more upset and I was getting very angry, my trip switch was rapidly reaching its limit.  I was playing a match in Lurgan Park that afternoon and I had pre packed my kit because I knew I would not have much time after working in the morning.  As I got up out of the chair my dad jumped up out of his chair and came towards me, I thought he was going to hit me because I had told him to shut up and to stop bad mouthing our deceased mother.

At this point no words were being exchanged, it seemed as if this was a time for action and not words.  Before I really knew what had happened I had hit my dad and knocked him out, my sister was crying and not knowing what to do next I lifted my kit bag and left the house with my dad still lying on the living room floor.  I walked the short distance to my grandparent’s house in Union Street, tears streaming down my face.  My grandmother asked me why I was crying and when I told her that I had knocked my dad out she said to me that if I had done that sooner perhaps her daughter and my mother would still be alive.

That was not what I wanted to hear, I was already carrying plenty of guilt and regrets, and I did not need any more “What ifs” to contend with.  I did not stay very long and walked down to the swimming pool changing rooms and headed up to the top pitch with one of the other team members for some shooting practice before the match started.  During the match I broke down and could not stop crying, I tried to hide it as best I could but one of our team asked me what was wrong and I told him that I had hurt myself diving for the ball.  I was hurting but it had nothing to do with football.

Once again that feeling of failing God, letting him down again, only this time it was much worse.  The Devil was reminding me that I had broken Gods commandment by not honouring my father and my mother, I believed at that moment that God had washed his hands off me once and for all.  After the match I did not know where to go or who to turn to, I was ashamed to tell anyone at the church what I had done and who knows what else my grandmother might have said to make me feel worse if that was possible.

I just kept walking around and finally I headed back towards our house.  As I approached the house I noticed a familiar car parked outside, it was my uncle who had led me to the Lord.  He had come up from Belfast to visit us, I had not seen him for a while but his timing or the Lords timing was perfect.  I wrapped the door because in my haste to leave I had not taken my key; he answered the door and asked me was I ok.  I started to cry again and said no, before I could explain to him what had happened he said my dad had already told him.

I told him that I was truly sorry for what I had done but I felt that God wanted nothing more to do with me because I kept messing up.  He then started to tell me about some of the people in the bible who messed up and how God had forgiven them when they repented and asked for forgiveness.  That’s what I did, I asked my heavenly father to forgive me and then I apologised and asked my earthly father to forgive me.  They both did.

Psalm 103:8 “The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love”.  NLT.

I have just realized that it is my thirty ninth birthday today, spiritually speaking.  It is hard to believe that those years have passed so quickly.  King Solomon compares life to a vapour, now you see it now you don’t.  Among people of a certain age there is a feeling that the older you get the quicker time seem to pass by, I think I am getting close to that certain age.
             
My transition from the church in Belfast to Lurgan Church of The Nazarene has taken place and I make new friends and form new relationships much quicker than I expected.  The newness of my life as a born again Christian is exciting, I am meeting new people, learning new things about God and also about myself.  I still have many issues to work through but the Lord is kind and gracious as well as patient, which at age sixteen I was not.

Sometimes in life we have to pretend that we are something that we are not, I think there are times when most if not all of us have adorned our masks that portrays us as something or someone that we would like to be but in true reality are not.  There were things about myself that I did not like, there were memories and things from my past that I was ashamed of.  Guilt was a heavy burden that at times would break me emotionally.

That early morning on the 25/2/1975 when I gave my heart to Jesus I did not have any bright light spectacular experience like the Apostle Paul had but I did have a simple belief and peace in my heart that things were ok between me and my divine creator.  I shared earlier that God spoke into my heart as I stood over my mother’s coffin as it was lowered into the grave and I knew that things were definitely not ok between me and God, but after my experience four days after the funeral I know that my fear of dying and going to a lost eternity were gone.

There is a wonderful verse in the book of Romans that says, “ 1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death”.  (Romans 8:1-2)

My young Christian life was developing slowly but surely, bit by bit God was reshaping me into the person that he had created and designed me to be.  To be honest I never looked at my life in that way before, I had not been aware that my creator had specific purposes and plans for my life.  I don’t think it really ever occurred to me before that my God and creator craved a personal living relationship with me and that is why he sent his son Jesus to the cross.

There are so many stories running through my head just now of my early developing days that I am not sure what ones to tell first.  There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”.  So with the help of my Saviour I will begin my stories step by step, page by page.

Sunday school story.

My Pastor encouraged me to become a Sunday school teacher; he said that I would learn more about God’s word by teaching it and by preparing to teach.  At first I did not think this was such a good idea, I had refused to stand up and pass the offering plates around the church because I would get really embarrassed standing up in front of people.  I did not like to feel vulnerable around people so I would try to keep as low a profile as possible.  That debilitating fear of failure was still very much in control of most of my life.

Pastor Spence had a gentle way of talking you around into his way of thinking and soon after my strategic decline I found myself sitting in a class teaching four or five boys age ten to eleven, I was seventeen by now.  I had books to work from but to be honest I would read them and then arrange the information in a way that made sense to me and I would attempt to teach that. 

Things were going ok until one Sunday one of the boys would not stop messing about, no matter what I told him to do he would not listen, sounds a little familiar from my school days.  Sorry former teachers.  I did mention earlier that patience at that time was certainly not one of my virtues, I seem to have a built in patience trip switch, I can take so much for so long and then bang goes the trip.  That is exactly what happened on that Sunday, the boy tripped my patience switch, I am not exactly sure about where this next quote comes from and I will never pretend to be an academic because I am not but I think it has something to do with physics.  “For every action there is a reaction”.

Whether that that is accurate or not I am not sure but what is accurate was the point on this boy’s shin where my toe made the connection.  It was not a brutal or forceful connection, from memory there was no bruise but it had the desired effect, he stopped messing about and listened.  I think what tried my patience the most was the fact that I was telling him about God’s love for him and he was not interested.

After the class I thought nothing more about the incident until one day the Pastor informed me that this boys Grandfather had come to him complaining that I had kicked his Grandson when he was in Sunday school.  I admitted it and was given some sound instructions and advice, I felt that I had failed God, this would not be the first or the last time I would have this feeling.  My Pastor encouraged me to keep going and told me that I was young in my faith and that I probably would make mistakes from time to time.  He was right, I did and still do make mistakes but I have and will keep going.   

My new beginning.

I had been travelling to the church in Belfast for approximately six months before I felt led to start attending the church of the Nazarene just around the corner from where I lived.  There was a godly little man at the end of our street who used to stop me on the way home from school with my friends and for some reason single me out to preach at.  He would tell me that I needed to be saved but I paid no attention to him.

One particular day he stopped me and shook my hand and told me that he had heard from someone that I had become a Christian.  He was delighted when I told him that I had.  He then said a very strange thing to me that took a while for me to understand, he said “You know Jim that a rolling stone gathers no moss”.  I did not have any idea what he meant; in fact I thought that due to his age his mind had become a little confused.

I had taken up the friendly Pastors invitation to go to the youth club in his church on a Friday night, I did not really know anyone there but I slowly began to making new friends.  Many of my old friends did not really believe me when I told them that I had become a Christian, some mocked and others said it would last a few weeks and I would get back to my old ways.  Well my old friends got their prediction wrong and if the Lord spares me until the 25th of February this month I will be walking with the Lord for thirty nine years.  Praise him.

I cannot remember where I was or what I was doing but suddenly out of the blue one day the Lord reminded me of what the Godly little man at the end of the street said to me concerning a rolling stone gathers no moss. The Lord showed me what it meant.  I was going between two places spiritually speaking, Templemore hall in Belfast and the Church of the Nazarene in Lurgan but the Lord wanted me to settle down in one place not two, he wanted me to settle down in one place and if you like put my roots down there.

I was torn between the two for a while, I had made many friends in the Belfast church and they were very kind to me.  My uncle who had led me to the Lord was there and he also had been very kind to me.  It was him who had taken me with him the very first time I ever testified in public and I will never forget the experience.  He would sometimes do a little lay preaching and he invited me along, the plan was that he would interview me and ask me a couple of simple questions about my life, what I was like before I got saved and what I was like now.

I don’t think I mentioned before that I was a young man with very low self esteem, low self worth and in general I had no self confidence.  As we travelled to a little orange hall somewhere in the back of beyond I literally felt physically sick.  My mind was in turmoil, I felt like jumping out of the car and running away.  I was so afraid of messing up and making a fool of myself, I convinced myself that if I got through this I would not put myself through this torment ever again.

We seem to have been driving for ever, another little issue that I had was little or no patience for anything.  I kept asking how far, how long now until finally in a pitch black location somewhere in the middle of nowhere a little light appeared.  Literally a little light, we approached someone standing at the side of this country road shining a torch and waving us down.  At first I thought it was a checkpoint but the man had no uniform on, as it transpired the orange hall we were to speak in had encountered a power failure and everything was in complete darknes

This will sound terrible because I thought that this was God answering my prayers for help.  I thought he had put the lights out so that I would not have to testify, as Homer Simpson would say, Daaaa .  I had an awful lot to learn about God and how he does things, he is the God of light not darkness.  Anyway, we parked the car at the side of the road and went inside.  The room was illuminated by a roaring great coal fire; the fire was both the heat and light source for the time being.  The men were apologising for the situation, I was praying for the lights to stay off when suddenly they came on, that was a little confusing.  I was a nervous wreck and really felt like being sick, I had heard the term “Scared sick” now I knew exactly what that felt like.  I had experienced some nerves before when I played in cup finals but nothing like this.

Eventually the meeting started and I got through it without being physically sick, what a feeling of relief when it was over.  My fear of failure had not materialised but that did not mean I had overcome this fear.  Somewhere in my thinking I had determined that the only sure way never to fail was not to put myself in the position where failure was possible, it’s called avoidance.  In other words only engage in something that you feel success will be the only outcome.  This is why football was so important to me, when I walked onto a football pitch failure was not an option for me, the only thing in my young life that I had confidence in my ability was when I was standing between two white goal posts.  

So with a measure of sadness I ceased attending the church in Belfast and exclusively attended the church of the Nazarene in Lurgan.  I began to feel part of a family who really cared for me.  Both the Pastor and his wife were very supportive and kind to me, they took me under their wing so to speak and I began my real journey of developing into the person that God wanted me to be.  The Lord had a lot of stuff to help me deal with, anger, bitterness, resentment, fear and all the low negative self image that I had gathered up over the years. 

I would begin to learn that with God that nothing is impossible.  As I learned more about the bible and the characters portrayed in it I began to realize that I was not the only one who had fears, Moses had fears, Gideon had fears but God helped them through them.  I truly thank God for a Pastor who insisted that Gods people know the bible; he took time with the young people to help us get to know God’s word.  The living room in the church Manse would be filled each week with young people hungry for God’s word. 

We fared well on the word and afterwards the good grub that Mrs Spence would serve up.  I mentioned earlier that one’s environment has a massive impact on their development and well being; once again I cannot thank the Lord enough for leading me to a spiritual green house where I was well fed, watered and nurtured in the things of God.    

My New Beginning.

After our mothers burial our uncle took my brother my sister and me down to Belfast to spend a few days with a lovely Christian family.  They had a beautiful home and we were looked after like royalty.  I was not really sure why my uncle had taken us to them but on reflection it was probably to get us away from the house and our father.  He was in no fit state to look after us and as a family unit he never did again.

               

Our time with this family was filled with a compassion and care, we were complete strangers to them and yet it seemed as if we had known them for a long time.  They were very gentle and understanding towards us, I cannot remember feeling threatened or awkward around them, that was unusual for me.  We all have different ways of dealing and coping with situations, I knew nothing then about defence or coping mechanisms.

Over time I had become very hard on the inside and had accumulated personality issues that I was oblivious to.  My heart was filled with bitterness, anger, hatred, resentment and guilt.  The environment that we live in has a massive impact on our personality and well being, this new environment opened my eyes to the possibility that you can have a happy family without shouting and violence.

Before we left that loving family to return home to Lurgan the mother of the family asked me to try and memorise a verse in the bible, it was Psalm 27:1.  “The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?”  At that precise moment in my life the verse did not mean very much to me but in the following years it would become very precious to me.

On returning to Lurgan our family was separated, my eleven year old brother and seven year old sister went to live with two of our aunts and I returned to our home at 26 Trasnaway.  I was not really looking forward to returning, I could have continued living with my grandparents but for some reason I felt that I had to go home and try and help my dad.

It was on returning home that I found that there were some things about me that were different.  I had a different attitude towards my dad I also discovered that I no longer wanted to harm Roman Catholics and the filth that would freely spew out of my mouth had miraculously stopped without me trying to stop it.  Changes were taking place within me that I was not really responsible for. 

In the early hours of the 25/2/1975 when I had asked Jesus to forgive me and to be my saviour even though I did not fully understand it I became a new creation.  The bible term is that I was born again, I was now a new creation in Christ, again the bible puts it like this.  “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, behold all things have become new”.  (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Through time and teaching I began to understand more and more what that meant in my new life in Christ.  My attitude, my desires, my actions and reactions were all undergoing change in one way or another.  I had no connections with any church in Lurgan, none of my immediate family circle except my uncle in Belfast attended church, because of this and the fact my uncle had led me to the Lord I started attending his church, Templemore Hall just off the Newtonards Road .

The family that we had stayed with for a few days attended this church and it was lovely to see them each week and spend some time with them.  I got the bus to Belfast every Sunday and attended Sunday school and both services.  I think the last bus to Lurgan was at 10pm.  Going down there was the highlight of my week.  The people were so friendly, genuine and caring, a nurturing environment where you could grow in your faith, I loved it.

Home life had changed dramatically as well.  The help my dad received in the hospital and the tragedy of mum’s sudden death had made an impact on his life.  He had stopped drinking and there was also no one to fight with.  When he was like this he was a loveable character.  I have paused to think about the words I have just written, “Loveable character”.  This is a very hard thing for me to say but I did not love my father very much.

Two wrongs never make a right but I cannot remember my dad cuddling me or holding me.  I know that he never turned up at any of the cup finals that I had the good fortune to play in.  He would occasionally take me hunting with him but other than that we spent no time together.  On one occasion he came home with another shotgun and said that he had bought it for me, I was over the moon that I had my own gun.  Unfortunately I never got to shoot the gun, he sold it a few weeks later because he had borrowed money of someone for alcohol and the man wanted his money back.

After the death of our mother I never went back to school and therefore I never completed any of my exams.  When I say I never went back that is not strictly true.  The school football team had reached the final of a prestigious schools cup and I had played as goalkeeper in every match.  I almost missed one match because I had damaged one of my fingers and it was in a splint, I was using the splint as an excuse to get out of doing class work as I proclaimed I could not hold a pen because of the splint.

On this occasion the team coach sent someone to the class to ask the teacher to let me go early because our match was some distance away, she gave me permission to go and as I was about to exit the door she stopped me and asked me what position I played on the team, I thought she was just showing an interest but she was a lot smarter than I gave her credit for.  I answered proudly “Goalkeeper” here reply was “Come back and sit down”.  The boy who was sent to get me had the same surprising look on his face as I had.  I asked the teacher what was wrong and she said that if I could not do class work because of the splint on my finger then it would be impossible for me to catch a ball.

I felt sick, football was one of the few things that I was any good at and now this person was taking that away from me.  The other boy went and told the coach what had happened and he very quickly was on the scene.  Some words and hand gestures were exchanged between him and my teacher and I was called forward.  He had struck a deal, if I agreed to stop using the splint on my finger as an excuse not to write in class she would let me go.  Phew, I would have contemplated giving her the splint with my finger in it just to get playing.  Football was my life.

So here I am, a school drop out with the football coach at my door asking me to come back to play football.  I went back only to play football; we reached the final of the cup and got beat 1-0 to a penalty kick, devastating.  I would like to sincerely thank that coach for his kindness to me after my mother’s death.  The team had arranged a trip to England to watch Everton and Ipswich play at Goodison Park.  He came round to my house and told me that because of the group booking there was a free place and he wanted me to have it.  A dream was fulfilled; I had always wanted to go to a big game in England.

I am not sure exactly how many months I had been attending the church in Belfast when I met someone who was to have a tremendous impact on my life, thirty nine years later and I still look up to them.  The encounter goes like this.

A knock comes to the door, the door is opened and two people meet for the first time.

From the inside a sixteen year old young man looks out at a small man dressed in a suit wearing a shirt with a round white collar. The stranger on the step extends his hand and introduces himself to the curious young man. The man is the Pastor of the local Lurgan church of the Nazarene his name is the Rev Raymond Spence. The young man is in the house on his own playing snooker by himself. The Pastor invites the young man to his church stating that there are a good number of young people who meet on a Friday night at the youth club in the church. 

The Pastor knows nothing about the young man on the door step, he does not know that a few months earlier the young mans mother took her own life in this house. He does not know that the young mans father is an alcoholic and that his younger brother and sister age eleven and seven don't live with him any more but are cared for by his two aunts. The Pastor does not know that the young man standing before him has dropped out of school without completing his final exams and is battling with anger, confusion and bitterness.

The Pastor is oblivious of the heartache and often misery that this young man experienced in this home. He knows nothing of the domestic violence and the devastating effects that alcohol has had in this home. He does not know that this young man had left home to live with his grandparents because he could take no more of the fighting and arguing that took place every week. The friendly Pastor does not know the influence that he would have in this young mans life in the futre and what would eventually become of him.

The friendly Pastor asks the young man if he would like to play him a game of snooker and he is invited into his home. The Pastor does not realise how fortunate he is to be invited in as the young man is ashamed of the rundown condition of the home. The Lino on the floor is worn and the carpet in the middle of the floor has a large hole in it but the snooker table helps to make it less visible. The wallpaper and ceiling are a yellow brown colour, stained from years of tobacco smoke. The glass front on the fire is broken because his drunken father fell into it and badly cut and burnt his hand.

The Pastor slowly gains the trust of the young man during their game of snooker, both players have a competitive personality and the game is taken seriously. The Pastor gently probes the young man for more information about himself. He learns that the young man is football mad and that training twice a week with the local football club and playing for one of their teams is what he really lives for. The young man has not yet told the Pastor that he has had an encounter with God, that would come later.

I have now left the Junior High school and start a new chapter in my academic life in Lurgan Technical College.  I will not bore you with my adventures there for two years except to say that the older I got the more trouble I got into. 

Things at home had been steadily getting worse, my father was becoming more violent towards my mother and my underage age drinking was increasing as well.  I was training twice a week at Glenavon FC and also on a Monday night in the Tech Gymnasium with another local team.  I tried to spend as little time in the house as possible.  I would often walk the short distance around the corner to my Grandmother’s house in Union Street and get food there just to get away from the constant fighting and arguing. 

At the age of fifteen I left home and went to live with my Grandparents.  It was great for a number of reasons, it was quiet, there was no arguing or fighting and I could come and go as I pleased.  I went a little out of control during my stay there but would rather not go into all the details.  Except to say that my attitude towards my parents were hardening and I was very angry and resentful towards them.

On one occasion I was walking through Trasnaway to get to a friend’s house and I met my mother coming towards me one the opposite side of the road.  She called to me but I completely ignored her and kept on walking.  I deeply regret doing that.  I would seldom go home and if I did it was to see my younger brother and sister.

I have paused before writing the next chapter because old emotions and painful memories are coming back to me.  It was a Friday the 21st of February 1975 and my mother had sent a message that she had something important to tell me.  By now I was going to school whenever I felt like it, the truth is that most of the time I did not feel like going.  This particular Friday was one of those days so I went round in the morning to see my mother and find out what this important thing was that she wanted to tell me.

My brother and sister were at school and my father was in Craigavon hospital in the Early Treatment Unit (ETU) for his alcohol problem so we were alone in the house.  My mother was suffering much due to the domestic violence and what I can understand now as being emotional torture.  She too was now drinking heavily and was also on prescription drugs, I assume they were for depression.  

The reason she wanted to see me was to inform me that she knew someone who could get me a job in a local factory when I left school later that year age sixteen.  What I am about to share next haunted me for over twenty years of my life.  I began verbally abusing my mother in a really vicious way; I had put on the mantle of my father.  I swore at her and told her that I did not want anything from her nor did I need anything from her.  I stormed out of the house and that was the last time I ever spoke to my mother.

Later that afternoon my mother was found dead in the kitchen of our house, she had gassed herself.  Someone came round to my Grandmothers and told me to go home quickly that something had happened.  When I got round to the house there was an ambulance and a police car outside.  I had no idea what I would find inside the house.  People were trying to revive my mother but it was too late.

Can I please pause here for a moment and plead with anyone who has a broken relationship with a parent or any other family member to make things right before it might be too late and you have to live with regret and remorse for the rest of your life.  There is part of a verse in scripture that says, “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath” (Eph 4:26).  Make things right with people now because for some the sun might never shine on them again.  

I cannot describe the different feelings and emotions that I encountered as a sixteen year old boy who felt that my mother was dead because of the terrible way that I had treated her.  I later mainly blamed my father but I believed that I was a guilty party as well.  I can remember running around to my Grandparents house and telling them what had happened and seeing their disbelief.  I went out to the outside toilet and cried my heart out, punching the wall and shouting, “You have left me again”.  I thought that I had long forgotten and forgiven the abandonment years earlier, but that must not have been the case.

My father was released from the hospital for the funeral but he seemed to be in a daze and did not really understand what was happening.  We were probably all in shock and disbelief.  My lasting memory on the day of the funeral was at the grave side.  I have absolutely no recollection of who conducted the service or what they said but what I will never forget is this, God spoke to me and asked me this question, “Jim one day you too will be lowered into the ground just like your mother, what then?”

For only the second time in my life I felt a terrible frightening fear of death.  The verses of scripture that I had been faithfully taught in the Brethern and Salvation Army halls were still deep down in my heart and now they were rising up to challenge me.  The verse that comes to mind the most is Heb 9:27, “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment”.  I knew in my heart that if I was to die there and then I was not prepared to meet the judge.

My father’s brother who lived in Belfast was a great help and comfort to us at that time.  My brother and sister went to stay with family members and I stayed in the house with my father and uncle.  The date was the 25th of February 1975 it was very late and my uncle was talking to me about my eternal soul.  My uncle had been a bit of a wild character in his day but had apparently become a Christian and lived a different lifestyle now.

My head and my heart were well and truly mixed up and I was so uncertain what would happen to my family and to myself.  My father could not look after himself let alone three children.  My uncle insisted that if I gave my heart and life to Jesus he would come and change me, forgive me and help me.  I needed help and I wanted forgiveness, especially for the last words I had spoken to my mother.

I told him that I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart, I already knew what I needed to do, my Sunday school teachers had taught me well.  I knelt on the living room floor and asked Jesus to forgive my sins, I repented and received God’s wonderful gift of salvation.  But as I was praying the door into the kitchen where my mother had died started to knock.  Even as I recall this now the hairs on my neck are standing up.

I immediately stopped praying and jumped to my feet petrified.  My uncle had his bible opened in his hand because he had been reading it to me; he did not seem to be afraid at all.  He said to me that Satan was trying to distract me and prevent me from becoming a child of God but I had prayed the prayer and Satan had no longer any hold on my life.  He walked towards the kitchen door with his open bible, the door was still knocking and he asked me to follow him.  I could not move, that saying of being scared stiff was a reality to me.

I just stood there crying.  My uncle opened the door, switched on the kitchen light and walked in.  Everything was silent; it was the early hours of the morning.  He came back to the door and called me over to him, I was able to move now.  I did not go into the kitchen I just stuck my head around the corner and there was just my uncle.  When I eventually went to bed I did not sleep very well but there seemed to be a peace in my heart.

Sometimes we look back over our lives and we can’t make sense of some of the things we engaged in.  I cannot explain why at this age I started consuming alcohol whenever I got the opportunity.  My very first taste of alcohol was around nine to ten years old.  My mother would put me across the road and I would go to the pub at the top of Union St and get the house keeping money from my dad before he drank it.

The pub had a little room on the left hand side as you went through the door; I think it was called the box, probably because you could not get more than four people into it.  My dad would usually stop there on his way home on pay day and my mum knew that if she went up for the money there would be a row.  I can remember my first drink of Guinness was in that pub.  His usual drinks were wine and Guinness.

What does not make sense to me is the fact that I hated to see my dad drunk and the consequences that followed would leave me angry.  Alcohol was ruining our home, I could see nothing good in it but I partook of it never the less.  On reflection I was quite the little hypocrite, I would pour my dad’s wine down the sink when he was sleeping and tell him that he drank it whenever he woke up but at the same time I would steal his beer and go and drink it with another boy who stole his dad’s home brew.

Around the age of fourteen I started to hang out with older boys who had made a house in Alexander Square into a boys club, just around the corner from our street.  Up until now I had not been exposed to anything political or sectarian, football was the dominant force in my life.  It is probably true to say that football was my life line.  It took me away from the house for hours and I could enjoy myself in a hostile free environment.

It did not take long though before I became a hater of Roman Catholics.  No Roman Catholic had ever done me any harm but I found myself wanting to do them harm.  I was strongly influenced by the older boys and felt that if they hated Roman Catholics then so should I.  I got involved in rioting in various flash points within the town.  I was present when one Roman Catholic was dragged down his stairs in Colban Cresent and beaten around his garden.

All the Roman Catholics in the estate were put out, even those who I would have played football with on the greens in the estate.  I deeply regret being caught up in the madness and wickedness of those days.  On one occasion I believe that God spared me from serious injury, this was the first occasion but years later God would spare me again.

It was an annual event for the bands to march around the back of what was known as the big Church and what we referred to as the Catholic end of the town.  The night before the march i had a very vivid dream concerning the riot that would evidently break out.  In the dream I was throwing stones and anything else I could get my hands on towards a large crown in Edward Street.  Large Saracen armoured cars were keeping the two crowds apart.

In the dream I suddenly looked up towards the sky and a large stone was about to hit me on the head, at this point I woke from the dream.  That evening the predicted riot broke out as expected.  When you are full of adrenalin there seems to be a dulling of the senses to fear, that is the way it seemed to affect me.  Bricks, stones and bottles were landing all around me, Friends were bleeding after being struck by the projectiles but I kept throwing as hard and as quickly as I could.

Then unexpectedly I heard a voice in my head say very clearly “Look up”, I instantly looked up and there it was exactly as in the dream, a large stone racing towards my head.  By the time I saw it all I could do was to lean back as far as I could without falling, the large stone hit me full force just below my neck and knocked me stunned onto the ground.  No one came to ask me if I was okay, it was every man or boy for himself.

I gathered myself up and without saying a word to anyone I headed for home dazed and troubled.  I should not have been troubled, I should have been very grateful that I was not seriously hurt like many of my friends were.  I was troubled because of the dream that had come true; I could not figure it out.  To make sense of it all I tried to convince myself that I never had the dream in the first place but that would not work because I kept hearing those words in my head “Look up”.

I could tell many more stories about my escapades down in Wakehurst Estate and during the Ulster Workers Council Strike. (I think that is what it was called).  That part of the teen chapter in my life is something that I am ashamed of.  I can’t turn the clock back but I am sincerely sorry for anyone I may have hurt.  Some of the young men I grew up with went to prison for what they believed was a just cause.  On reflection some are not so sure.

As I drew closer to the end of my three years in Lurgan Boys Junior High School my behaviour was getting worse, I did not care whether I went to school or not.  Sometimes i would skip school and hide in the park and return to school for our double PE class.  Sport was my thing, I loved it all, football, cricket, basket ball, athletics, those were the things that I could excel in and loose myself in.

You have probably noticed the absence of any individual’s names in my story, apart from my family.  I think it is right to do that as I cannot ask every ones permission to include their names.  Some people may read my story and identify themselves within it that is okay with me; I hope it is okay with you.  I would like to conclude my Junior High School three year adventure with a true story that will probably infuriate a certain teacher if they ever reads this.

Two of us were sent to this teacher’s brand new car; I know the make but will withhold it, to retrieve some items from the boot.  I can’t help but be a little devious here; there is a clue to the identity of this teacher in the first line.  Oops in trouble again.  At some point during my three years in the school this teacher declared to me that I would make nothing of my life and gave me their opinions as to why this would be the case.  I admit that I gave the teacher good reason to believe this.

The other boy and i went to the car and retrieved the items from it.  On the way back to the class something happened to me that was totally unheard of for me, I had a moment of genius.  I told the other boy to give me the car keys, at first he refused but when I threatened him with violence he gave them up reluctantly.  He asked what he would tell the teacher when they asked for them back and I told him to tell the truth that he had given them to me.

I had noticed that this highly intelligent teacher had kept both car keys on the one key ring and that is where the genius kicked in.  There are different types of intelligence I believe, some people who have brains to burn seem prone to a lack of common sense.  There were certain subjects that I struggled with during those three years but I had a street sense and a common sense that is learned not in the classroom.

When we arrived back in the classroom the teacher eventually asked the other boy to give them the keys to their new car who then told them that I had them.  This teacher often struggled with the pronunciation of my first name, they somehow found it easier to call me Fugard rather than Jim, strange but there you go.

I was not particularly good at the subject that they taught, the fault did not lie with them but with my lack of interest.  What I was quite good at was lying and keeping a straight face.  I proceeded to tell them that I did not have their keys, they then asked the other boy if he had given them to me or not and his reply was of course an emphatic yes. 

Once again the question was asked only this time with a little more urgency, “Fugard where are my car keys”.  I forgot to mention earlier that I also loved to go fishing; it is a wonderful feeling when you patiently wait for a fish to bite and then you play with it.  I had just caught a big fish and I was having great fun playing with it.  I honestly can’t remember how many times the teacher asked me the same question over and over, only to become more and more frustrated and angry with the same answer “I don’t know”.

Finally I decided to put the teacher out of their misery and I told them that I had set them in the boot when lifting the items out and must have closed them in the boot.  Needless to say the teacher was not relieved of their misery but descended at an alarming rate into deep despair.  I had an Uncle that would often use this old saying, “Long runs the Fox”.  I was never quite sure what he meant by that, he never explained the meaning to me but somehow this situation seemed to fit that old saying.

The teacher then shouted at me, (I hope it was just me that teachers shouted at) that both the car keys were on the same key ring, I pretended to look sympathetic and concerned, I was not in the slightest concerned, at least not yet.  I did start to get concerned when they told me to go and tell the metal work teacher what had happened and would he break into the boot and retrieve the keys.

My concern was that the metal work teacher would not find the keys in the boot because they were in my pocket all along.  On the way down the corridor to see him I stopped and tried to figure a way out of this situation.  The genius was still with me and the solution came surprisingly quickly.  I pulled out one of the pockets in my school blazer and tore the lining.

When i went back to the classroom i entered with a smile on my face and the teacher immediately wanted to know what i was smiling at.  I held out the precious keys to the new car and showed the torn blazer pocket and explained that the keys had fallen through the lining and i found them at the back of my blazer. Their reply was brilliant, it went something like this.  “Fugard i am going to believe your story because you are not smart enough to make that up”.

I am going to bed now with an older smile on my face.

The Teenage chapter of my life.

Moving to our new home in Trasnaway was a new adventure for me.  I had got to know most of the people who lived around me in Union Street but i did not really know very many in Trasnaway.  One of the outstanding features in it was the small green right in front of our house, number 26.  I had loved kicking a ball as early as i can remember and here right in front of my door was a football pitch.

The small green was not designed for that purpose but that is what it was being used for.  Around the corner in Russell drive there was a much larger green where there was another street team and we would challenge each other to see who the best street team was.  These matches were taken seriously and you always went home with more bruises on your shins than you left home with.

Football was the thing in my life that i loved most at the start of my teens.  I was the goalkeeper in the Carrick primary school team that won the Belfast Telegraph Cup.  Apparently this was the FA cup for primary schools at that time.  We were invited to the Mayors Parlour and had our photos taken with the Mayor, i think his name was Mr Gordon.  It was made a big deal because as far as i can remember this was the first time that this prestigious cup had entered into mid Ulster.  Up until now its home had been in the Belfast area.

I think the final was in Shamrock Park in Portadown and as far as i can remember the team we beat was from the Falls Road in Belfast.  I was so nervous that i felt sick.  All of my memories about that day are special except one; neither my mum nor my dad was there to watch me play.  The other boys had parents or family members cheering them on but there was silence in my corner.

Looking back there was hardly ever a time that i can remember my dad doing very much with me.  I can remember him taking me out hunting with him a few times but that is it.  I have no memory of him ever kicking a ball with me.  One of the times he did take me out hunting was unforgettable.  It was a Sunday morning and he had not fully sobered up from the night before.

He decided it would be a good idea to get some rabbits for the dinner so he saddled up our Greyhound Ferret and off we went.  As i said earlier we had no car so we proceeded to walk a couple of miles out of the town and into the countryside to find some rabbits.  Eventually we found a field that had a hedge row full of rabbit holes, we covered as many of the holes that we could with the nets that we had carried with us, put the Ferret down one of the holes and waited expectantly for dinner to run out and tangle itself in a net.

This was my first time Ferreting, the other times that my dad had taken me out with him he had brought his shot gun.  I loved going out with him shooting but it was more important to me than it was to him, hence it did not happen very often.  I was unsure what to expect, so i waited for something exciting to happen.  Eventually something exciting did happen but it was not what i expected.

I do not know how long we had waited for a rabbit to bolt out of the hole and into the net but it was not happening.  My dad then explained to me the science of ferreting for rabbits.  He had apparently forgotten to feed the Ferret before we left home and because the Ferret was hungry he said that it had probably killed a rabbit in the hole and decided that it was going to be for his dinner and not ours.

He then sent me to find stones and remove the nets from the holes and replace them with the stones.  After we had blocked up most of the holes he proceeded to light a fire in one of the holes, the scientific explanation, smoke the hungry boy out.  Most of the holes were surrounded by thick dry wind bushes.  Surprise surprise, the wind bushes caught fire and in seconds there was thick smoke and flames everywhere.  The science lesson in effective Ferreting was put on hold and a lesson in athletics took its place.  The instructions were not complicated at all, they were run and don’t stop.

I could hardly run for laughing, here was this short little man wearing wellington boots that looked too big for his feet, half drunk and carrying a pile of rabbit nets in one hand and a Ferret box in the other sprinting up this field before the farmer could get a hold of him.  There were not many funny moments like that in the years to come.

I did not settle in well to my new school in Lurgan Boys Junior High School.  During my first year i was introduced to the subjects of French, Latin and German.  I hated all three with a passion and made very little effort to take them seriously as something that i need to learn.  I became more and more unruly in and out of the class room.  I had my fair share of disrupting the classes and fighting with the other boys.

One of the best beatings i received at the school was not from another boy but a teacher.  We were waiting to get into the science lab and i noticed that inside a small rubbish bin outside the adjacent biology lab someone had put UN hatched eggs. I thought it would be a good idea to put a couple of them into the blazer pocket of the boy in front of me and break them as we entered the class room.

When the teacher opened the door i pushed passed the boy in front of me, breaking the eggs in his pocket.  The stink in the class room was unbelievable.  The teacher thought someone had let of a stink bomb and he went into psycho mode.  He demanded that whoever had let the stink bomb off come up to the front or else the whole class was going to get detention. 

At that moment the boy with the broken eggs in his pocket discovered that the smell was coming from him.  He stood up, trying not to be sick and told the teacher what he had found in his blazer pocket.  This particular teacher had naturally a very red complexion but now it looked like all the blood in his body had suddenly relocated to his bald head.

I did not think a man could scream like that but in this moment of uncontrollable anger his voice seemed to climb a couple of octaves.  Verging on some sort of emotional melt down he demanded the culprit come forward or he would punish the whole class one by one.  I could not let the others take a beating for something they had not done so i stood up and walked forward.

The silence in the classroom was unbelievable but it was the calm before the storm.  Before being beaten i was called a number of things, most of them true.  Then out came the tried and trusted Perspex ruler.  I cannot remember how many times he hit my hand but i know he missed with the first two shots as i pulled my hand away in defiance.  I do remember the pain and after a few direct hits my hand went numb.  I think he probably wanted me to at least say sorry or as a bonus for him to break down and cry, but i denied him both.  We small people can sometimes be stubborn.  

My humble beginning.

My life story began in my grandmother’s house in 121 Union Street Lurgan County Armagh Northern Ireland.  I was born on the 14th of October 1958; my mother’s name was Jean and my father was Roy Fugard.  I was the first child, my brother Terry and sister Ruby followed later.

Both my parents worked in factories and i have vivid memories of my mother leaving me with another family when she went to work.  I am not sure exactly what age i was but i know that i always kicked up a fuss when my mother would leave me.  Later she worked in the home clipping threads off embroidered handkerchiefs.

Our house was situated beside my Grandmother and Grandfather McCullough; my Aunt lived next door to that.  Most of my memories in Union Street were good.  When the front doors opened in the morning they remained open until bed time.  It was great running in and out of the different houses getting fed.  Nutty crust with butter and sugar was part of my staple diet.

My Grandfather McCullough was a well known character who had a business selling chickens.  Chicken and woodpigeon were also a part of my staple diet.  My father would go hunting and bring home pigeons and sometimes ducks and rabbits.  I liked the chicken ok but was never all that keen on the wild stuff.  In those days you went hungry if you did not eat what was placed before you.

I have no recollection of any of my family going to church but for some reason someone decided that it would be good for me to go.  Literally yards from our house in Union Street there were two Christian meeting places.  The Brethern Gospel hall was on my side of the Street and the Salvation Army was directly opposite the Gospel hall on the other side of the Street.

I think i was around seven years old when i was first introduced to the things of God.  Outside of the two Sunday schools i heard nothing else about God, certainly not in our house.  My Early Sunday School experience was a little confusing, in one place there was great singing but no musical instruments and in the other place it was coming down with musical instruments accompanied with great singing.

The people in both places were kind and friendly, one seemed more generous than the other when it came to prize giving and i can remember on only one occasion answering a question right regarding the loaves and fishes and receiving a thru penny bit as a reward.  (Not sure of the spelling there).  Both Sunday Schools told me that Jesus loved me and gave his life for me.

I honestly don’t know how much of what i was told about Jesus then made any real sense to me there and then but i know for certain that it impacted my life in a powerful way later on in my life.  My recollection of stopping Sunday school was when i reached the ripe old age of nine or there about.  I don’t think my parents had any real interest for my spiritual well being; rather it gave them a break from me for a couple of hours.

It was around this time in my young life that i would encounter for the first time what personal loss was.  All i know is this, one day my mother was there looking after me and then suddenly without warning she was gone.  Gone where?  To this day i still do not know.  My brother Terry had been born but not my sister Ruby when this happened.  When i asked where my mum was no one could tell me, when i asked why she had gone away no one could tell me and when i asked when she was coming back the answer remained the same.

I thank the Lord for a loving Grandmother and Aunt who really looked after us and cared for us during this confusing and worrying time.  After some months my life seemed to re-adjust to the absence of our mother.  My Grandmother had taken the place of her daughter as mother.  Then one day approximately one year later our mother returned as suddenly as she had departed.

My recollection of her return was that of confused feelings, i was glad that she was ok but angry at the same time.  I suppose that i somehow understood that we had been abandoned but with no comprehension as to why.  Things were not the same now in the home, i was not the only one confused and angry, my father’s attitude towards his wife and our mother had also changed.

When exactly my father started drinking i cannot remember but his drinking became more obvious to me after my mother’s return.  Arguing and fighting became more prevalent in the home but only when our father had consumed enough alcohol to drastically alter his personality.  When sober my father was a quiet gentle man but when intoxicated he became a wicked man.  He was not wicked towards his children but he was towards their mother.

During this period our mother became pregnant and during her pregnancy she had to have heart surgery in the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast.  I for some reason remember that a doctor or professor Pantridge was the surgeon who persuaded our mother that the baby would not be affected by the heart surgery.  Thankfully he was right and our sister Ruby was born healthy.  

A year or so after this we moved out of Union Street and away from our Grandparents and Aunt.  I found this very difficult as the bond between us was threatened.  I voiced my objections but to no avail and we moved to Hill Street.  The move did not make sense to me as it was not really that far away from the place where i was born and was happy with my extended family around me.

It has been said that the older you get the wiser you get and i was beginning to experience this.  Out of the blue a friend of our mothers started to visit the house in Hill Street; we knew nothing about this man.  We never had a family car and to be honest any trips we ever went on were usually by bus and on the odd occasion by train.  This man had a car and suddenly he was taking our family on outings.

I do not want to go into all of the details but the reason why we moved to Hill Street soon became apparent, this man lived just across the street from our house.  As time passed i became aware that this man and our mother were in some sort of relationship but due to our father’s alcohol problem he was at this point seemingly oblivious to what was going on right before his eyes.

At some point my dad must have found out that something was not right and we moved out of Hill Street and into a place called Trasnaway.  I felt a sense of relief and hoped that in our new home things would be different.  I was between the age of twelve and thirteen.  I was particularly excited about the new house as for the first time during my life we had an indoor toilet.  Excuse the pun but what a relief.

When we lived in Union Street i had to take a torch with me to go to the outside toilet at night.  From an early age my Granny had warned me always to shine the torch into the toilet bowl before sitting on it just to make sure that no rats were in it.  The toilet was adjacent to what was called the pit.  There were no rubbish bins distributed in our Street at this time so all the garbage was thrown into this pit and the bin men would come with their little red lorry and transfer the garbage from the pit into the red lorry.

This was a real spectacle for the kids because as the bin men cleared out the pit the rats and mice that were inhabiting the pit would be scurrying everywhere and the bin men would be either trying to club them to death with their shovels or impale them on their pitch forks.  The new house also had a proper bath with hot running water.  Up until this time hot water had to be boiled in buckets and put into a portable tin bath in order to bathe.  Recalling these memories are starting to make me feel a little old.

Time for another break.  Next will be the start of my teenage years.     

In Ecclesiastes 3:1 we read the words, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens”.

As I embark on writing "My story so far”, I confess from the very beginning that I do so having no prior experience of doing anything like this before.  Up until now I have dismissed the idea that I could do something like this but that belief or lack of belief changed this week, this may be my time to do this.

One of our Nazarene Pastors invited me to do a pulpit exchange with him, the idea came from our District Superintendent who suggested that it would be good for the Pastors to visit our other churches and meet with other people and tell them something of what our lives were like before we met Jesus and gave our lives to him.  Then tell of what difference it made to our life when we became Christians and what God was doing in our lives now.

We exchanged pulpits on the 9th of February and it seems that both congregations experienced God’s presence and blessings.  The next day as I was having my quiet time the Lord started to speak to me as I waited on him.  My mind was receiving information slightly quicker than I could process it and I felt a little overwhelmed.

As I said at the beginning, up until now I had convinced myself that I was incapable of writing a book due to a number of reasons.  The main reason was my personal belief that I was totally inadequate to do such a thing.  One of the other reasons was that I was afraid that I would make a fool of myself in the public domain.  Another way of saying it would be the fear of failure.

What the Lord was showing me was completely new to me that is why I could not process the thoughts quickly enough.  I would not class myself as totally computer literate, without the help of my wife and daughters I would struggle much more than I currently do.  It seemed to me that the Lord was showing me how to write a book without actually writing a book.

At this point you are probably thinking what I was thinking, “what”.  How can you write a book without actually writing a book?  The solution to the dilemma, write a blog.  I would be lying if I said that I have never heard of a blog but that is as far as it goes, I have heard about it.

I am not exactly sure how face book or twitter works either.  You are probably thinking that this man leads a dull life but I can tell you that as far as I know I am functioning ok without them.  I know that they are used by millions of people to good effect, who knows one day I might enter into that adventure.

A good friend and my daughter have done all the technical stuff that will hopefully enable me to write my story as a blog.  I take this opportunity to thank them.  Blogging, if that is the correct term, will be a learning process and I am not going to put myself under any pressure.  I will do my best to get things right and if it does not turn out right I will give myself detention in a good coffee shop.

I believe this blog is for me an act of obedience.  Let me explain.  After the Lord had spoken to me I was praying specifically that if this idea was His and not mine to somehow give me definite conformation and He did in a wonderful way.  The Lord is very gracious in leading his people in the way that they should go, if they ask Him.

This is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  As I was praying for confirmation the phone rang, it was the Pastor who had exchanged the pulpit with me the day before.  He phoned me to encourage me concerning what I had shared with his congregation from my life story.  Due to time restriction I had fast forwarded quite a lot and his people wanted to know if I would come back and share some of the things that I had omitted.

He said other things to me as well that sealed in my heart that what God had shown me was not of self but of the Spirit of God.  As I shared with him what had taken place just before he called at that precise moment of my prayer he said these words to me, “just do it”.  With the help of God that is what I am going to endeavour to do.

The scripture that I read from the morning of the pulpit exchange was from John Ch 9.  One of the key verses was part of verse 24.  “Give glory to God by telling the truth”.  Through this blog that is my only aim, to give my God all the glory, honour and praise for what He has done, is doing and by His grace will continue to do in my life.

I believe this is how the Lord would have me write my story.  Some have described life as a journey; others have described it as a story that is continually being written with pages and chapters within it.  I like the idea of both concepts but will lean towards the book analogy.  

As far as I can tell all good stories have a beginning and an end, I will share with you my beginning and what I have experienced in life up until now, if the Lord tarries.  Regarding the end of my story, it has not yet been written and if you are reading this neither has yours.  It is late and I think that will do as an introduction.

My life story to date.