Tonight my whole family are at a family party, including my child, no doubt doing lots of dancing and having lots of fun. I am sat at home, in my PJs and a hoodie.

Tonight for the first time in a good while I have talked to God properly, I have come before him and wept and poured my heart out to him again, and again.

I am not at that party because honestly, and I feel very vulnerable saying this, I couldn’t face it. In December I am going to become an aunt – it is amazing – it is answered prayers. I will love that baby so so much – so much so that its parents ought to be thankful I do not live nearer to them because I would be a complete pest. At the same time it has broken my heart again – I have cried a lot of tears. I looked at my sister-in-law’s belly today and my heart ached – it ached for all I lost and all my dreams that have not come true.

Over the last few months I have felt lonely because I felt I couldn’t really talk to anyone honestly about how I was feeling. I felt like people wouldn’t understand, that I wasn’t allowed to still feel pain over this so many years on. So weirdly and very unlike me I have run and run, partly because I am training for a 10k but to have a release. I have struggled to come before God because I have been battling feeling like he has forgotten me, that perhaps he didn’t care that much or didn’t have a plan for my future – that instead I would have to keep watching all those lives around me unfolding and growing and I would have to stand by and keep watching, feeling like my prayers and the cries of my heart were going unheard and unanswered. My lovely faithful mum said to me before she went out tonight, something she says pretty regularly to me, that nothing that happens in our lives is wasted and that God was not finished with me by a long way. She always ends that particular conversation with the words “just you wait.” Normally I swing between being thankful she has so much hope for me and frustrated at the length of the wait.

As I cried out to God tonight I asked him to show me again that he loved me, that I was precious to him, and that I wasn’t alone. I then read my devotional which today was about waiting and God’s timing. I love these devotionals written by an Australian couple. Today’s I am guessing is written by the wife because they were words that sounded so like many girls I know, so like me, and spoke straight to my heart. She talked about how she had spent so much of her time wishing things were different, longing for things she didn’t have, focusing on the past or the future and not living in the here and now but actually forgetting that right before each of us, in our hands, we have this day. That we cannot change what has been and what will happen going forward but that we can chose how we respond to today. God through this lovely lady’s writing reminded me that I am loved, I am chosen, I am set free, I am redeemed, I am covered by grace, and filled with hope. That today and every day I have the choice to choose joy, peace, patience, kindness, virtue, faith, gentleness.

Tonight again I had to lay down the things that I hold so tightly to, to the desires of my heart, to my longings, to my hopes, to my pain at what could have been, to my missing, and ask God to help me, as time and again I end up flat on my face acknowledging I cannot do it without him.

Last Saturday I did a skydive. It was totally amazing, that feeling of freedom and of flying – I absolutely loved it; in the knowledge I had a very competent and reassuring (and hot!) instructor. I have looked at the photos so many times over this last week – of being totally surrounded by nothing but the sky – it will definitely be one of those once in a lifetime experiences. Again tonight God has reminded me that he wants me to fly, that he wants me to live in freedom, that he doesn’t want my life to be held back by pain or loss or disappointment – that he has plans and purposes for me. I so often let myself be held back by those things, robbing my confidence, telling me I am no good, that I am not worthy.

The other week at work I was working away with my earphones in and one by one God was putting into my heart ideas for various things, projects (I promise boss I was still working at the same time!!) – I felt inspired and excited. Very quickly I could hear those voices saying they were ridiculous ideas that people would think I was stupid, that they wouldn’t come to anything. Alongside that was this battle of feeling forgotten and lonely. Tonight again I have resolved to myself and to God to run with those ideas, and yes they may not come to anything and I may look stupid in the process and make myself vulnerable but actually maybe just maybe they will bring life, and hope, and be actually what God is calling me to for the here and now. Maybe life is not what I would have hoped or imagined, maybe and probably there will never be another life that grows in my belly, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other amazing things ahead, different but amazing. I don’t doubt that I will trip up many times along the way, that I will keep having my battles and my wobbles, but this day I want to chose joy, to chose kindness, to chose life and love, to chose to have hope and faith and to learn more and more to stand on those things when I feel the wobbles and battles come.

I know I am not alone in these struggles, I know each and every one of my close friends has their own battles, struggles, pains, disappointments, losses, and I am sure we are not on are own. So often these things can cripple, often not in obvious ways, and we are so good at hiding them but they are there stopping us stepping out into what we are meant to be and what is waiting for us. I feel passionate about standing together in community to see freedom in our lives and to see people fly into all they were made to be. Some of those seeds God has planted in me relate to that – I am convinced for most of us it is a journey, one we need to keep on at never giving up, always believing that the best is yet to come.

As anyone who knows me well will tell you I love the Queen and the Royal family – I went through a phase a few years ago where most of the presents I received were Royal related. I have numerous royal mugs, tins, various tea towels and even a set of wind up Royal family members. I know that the subject of the monarchy can lead to heated debate but I love them and am not ashamed to say so. The Queen has served our nation faithfully and with such strength and dignity for a lifetime and personally I think she is one special lady. I can’t remember when I first heard this quote from her whether it was something she said in one of her Christmas speeches (where each year Dad would make us stand and salute the TV – maybe that is where I have in part inherited it from!) but it spoke to me very powerfully.

“Grief is the price we pay for love.”

Another quote I read more recently but it was basically saying the same thing.

“To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees – those are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. But I’m learning that recognising and leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability teaches us how to live with joy, gratitude and grace.” Brene Brown

Sometimes I feel like I have experienced enough grief to last me a lifetime and then some but I experienced grief because first there was love and lots of it and because of that I am incredibly blessed.

For many years I didn’t have to tell the story of why Lucy and I were on our own because the people in my life were pretty constant and everyone knew but as I have stepped into a new chapter with lots of new people I find myself telling the story over and over again, which is fine because I am pretty comfortable with it, it is part of who I am, but it is the reactions that are hard because you know it is going to make people feel uncomfortable or maybe cause people to view you differently. I guess it is a sad story but it is also a story rooted in love. There are lots of sad stories in life, lots of stories of abuse, rejection, brokenness, addiction, fear but my sad story is not one of those. I was loved and cherished by a lovely man; I had a brief but wonderful marriage, and from that came a gorgeous little girl. I had a daddy who loved me, who supported me to his dying day, who made sacrifices for me and believed in me.  I can truly call myself blessed because I was loved and that love did not end because they chose to stop loving me.

When you have suffered an earth shattering loss, whether that is bereavement, relationship breakdown or something equally as devastating you life falls apart and a whole raft of complex and quite frankly hard and painful emotions make themselves at home in your heart. One of those emotions is anxiety. I was fortunate because in all that has happened I have never felt afraid or anxious, except for maybe once or twice when Lucy has been poorly (fortunately God gave me a child who rarely gets ill because a) emotionally I could not cope and b) I am not great with bodily fluids), but I have watched people I love struggle with that anxiety, that out of the losses they are scared to move forward in case it happens again, or to truly live because they are locked in fear and it is heartbreaking but totally understandable.

Your heart has been through so much and you cannot bear the thought of it happening again. For others maybe a part of you shuts down. Whilst I did not suffer with anxiety I do wonder whether I may have reacted differently had my dad died with John still here, if I hadn’t already lost so much already. I miss my Dad, it was so hard to watch him fade away as the cancer ravaged his body – I remember saying to my brother in the last months that I would keep going in to check on him as he sat in his chair half expecting him to have stopped breathing and my brother said he had been doing exactly the same. We would have awful conversations where we admitted to each other that we just wanted the end to come because it was exhausting and hard to watch but when the end came it did not shatter me, I didn’t weep and wail, it didn’t devastate me and I feel awful saying that but I honestly do not feel like my dad’s death has impacted me anywhere near what I might have expected. I loved my Dad to pieces, he was one of my favourite people and there are times when actually only he will do and he is no longer there but I think part of me shut down when John died, a part of me that was never going to ever let anything hurt me as much.

That being said though I still feel like I have a huge capacity to love and I want to love and keep loving the people who God has given me to love and anyone else who wants to be loved. I am passionate about the people in my life, some may say I am a little too full on in the way I love but I don’t care. Love is what it is all about for me, it is fundamental, it is what I want to commit my life to doing. I believe love can transform, can redeem, can restore, can heal – it has such power. There is nothing better than loving and being loved. For me that love comes from God, and he is the one that gives me that ability to keep loving.

I am very aware though that pain and grief flowing out of love is not just about loss in terms of that physical separation that death brings but can be a whole host of reasons. We have all felt hurt by something someone we love says to us or about us, disappointed where someone we thought cared lets us down or does not react how we hoped or expected. Over the years I have spent many hours in tears or dissecting a relationship because it has caused me pain. I am a monkey for backing away when I have been hurt – I thought I did it so well so no one really noticed until one of my closest friends said to me that she always knew when she had hurt me. Hurt and disappointment are part of loving people, of relationship, of community – we are humans made up of weaknesses, insecurities and experiences which mean we will all let people down and which will shape the way we respond and react when hard stuff happens. I believe absolutely unequivocally in the importance of forgiveness, of vulnerability, of working hard to make our relationships work – that it is worth fighting through the crap – it is often messy, painful and humbling but there is so much freedom living in right and good relationship with people rather than carrying around anger and bitterness.

About 18 months ago in the midst of the nightmare that was the father and grandfather’s estates we had a pretty massive family row – there was swearing and the slamming of phones, lots of tears – we were all exhausted, and totally bruised and battered and so had no capacity to be kind to each other. I felt like I had been run over by a truck. I lost a lot of sleep and one night I lay awake and felt like God was doing open-heart surgery on me. I was left with no choice but to open my laptop, in the middle of the night, and write a handful of emails to various people where I had been holding things against them, maybe not so it was obvious to anyone else but I knew it was there still, and one by one I had to email and say I was sorry where I had held unforgiveness in my heart towards them. It was instantly like something had lifted. These people had caused me hurt and pain, and they were people I loved, but I had a choice as to how I responded – was I going to make myself vulnerable before them or continue to hold the rubbish inside of me. There was forgiveness, healing, freedom and good relationships restored.

So I will continue to keep loving, keep being vulnerable, and keep fighting for the people I love and those that God calls me to love – I may not always get it right, I may be hurt in the process and I will no doubt hurt but I do not want to ever give up on love. I want to love completely and fully and not just those it is easy to love. If when my time comes all people say is that she loved well then for me that will be a life well lived.

And if the opportunity comes to fall in love again who knows – my heart will always be a little bit broken but I believe in a God who loves me and has the best yet to come for me.

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability and authenticity. If we want great clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.” Brene Brown

I absolutely love this quote. It connects to something deep inside me and feeds that desire for more.

I would hazard a guess that the majority of us are rarely truly vulnerable. Whilst I would say I have a lot of close friends in my life and a close family I could probably count on one hand the people that I am actually truly open and real with, and I am a pretty open and real person, but the reality is that most of the time I am scared of being really real and honest and showing the true me because actually I am scared I will be rejected, or judged or be laughed at.

Then I flip that on its head and ask how easy do I make it for those in my life to be vulnerable with me. Am I willing to really engage with people’s mess and pain or is it just too uncomfortable and difficult? Do I fully engage with people’s hopes and dreams or do my jealousies, insecurities, and pride stop me doing so?

On Friday night I was at a party to celebrate a very special couple, my best friend, Anna, and her husband, Rich. In two weeks time they will no longer be living in Sheffield and will be settling into their new home in Edinburgh. Gulp! Last night was a goodbye party and if I am honest I was dreading it because I wasn’t quite sure I would be able to keep my emotions in check but actually it was a total celebration. As part of that celebration I had put together a book of photographs and messages from the people that had been part of their lives over the last decade or so and because I put it together I had the privilege of reading each of those messages.

Anna and Rich have been involved in church leadership for many years and so have been in the business of relationships and the messages in that book and the people there at that party and the prayers spoken time and time again spoke of gratitude for the way they had spoken into people’s lives, how they had been there in the worst of times, had celebrated with people in the best of times and called out of people again and again their callings, their dreams, their purposes, how they had challenged, inspired, encouraged. The overwhelming message that came across was that Anna and Rich had in so many lives pushed people forward and that people’s lives were so much richer because of them, changed because of them and in some cases that their impact on lives had caused people’s lives to go in a different direction. And all of it done with such humility, grace and love on their part.

As I have thought about Anna and Rich today and have been thinking about what I want to say to them before they go I knew that they are two people in my life that I can be truly vulnerable with and as the testimonies of Friday night spoke so powerfully I am clearly not the only one who has felt that way about them.

There have been so many times in the last 8 years, since losing John, where I have felt overwhelmed with sadness, scared and lacking in hope and each time I knew that Anna and Rich were my safe place, that they would not judge me or love me any less for showing my heart. So many times I have sat in their house and sobbed my heart out, or sent a text venting my confusion, hurt and anger, or shared my hopes and dreams. They have loved, challenged, stood in hope, prayed, spoken so many words of affirmation, encouragement and truth into me and over me, celebrated with me, mourned with me, laughed with me, cried with me and I can truly say that those two have been one of God’s greatest gifts to me – true, real and vulnerable friendship. As I have been able to be vulnerable with them, and they have allowed me to be vulnerable, there has been healing, there has been life breathed back into my broken heart, and hope birthed. Time and time again Rich has spoken words to me in response to me being vulnerable that have released stuff in me, words that years on I still stand on and which have been a gift straight from heaven. I know when my heart broke the night John died that Anna’s heart broke too – I have seen the tears in her eyes so many time because of my pain.

The depth of that friendship is in part due to many, many years of friendship going back over 25 years, so many memories and shared experiences, of growing up together, but it has been these last 8 years that I have felt it go deeper and stronger and again that has been one of those beauty from the ashes things but is also because of a willingness to be vulnerable. The more we let people in, the more we accept, the more vulnerable we are the more beauty that comes – I totally believe that – even though I find it hard to be vulnerable I know that those moments in my life where I have experienced the most joy, the most connection both relationally and spirituality are when I have allowed myself to be truly vulnerable and have felt safety in that place.

As I have thought about vulnerability I have thought about those in visible places, politicians, leaders and creatives, those who pour their heart and soul into their work – all these people put themselves on the line on a regular basis, put themselves out there at risk of being criticized, judged and very often publically slated. Often there is failure and those people I have no doubt feel incredibly vulnerable but they do it anyway because they believe passionately in what they do. But for all the failure there is beauty, transformation, truth, life, and power, for them personally but for their communities, the nation, strangers, because of their willingness to make themselves vulnerable. There is such strength in this type of vulnerability. 

I love The Rend Collective’s album, The Campfire, and the story behind that album – the call to be vulnerable, to tell our stories and sing our songs, how God calls his church to be open and vulnerable, to take down the walls of defence in the church and with each other, despite of our hurts, to see more authenticity. In the video that accompanies that album it talks about how in the kingdom of God there are no outsiders, that although the pain we experience in life can be overwhelming we aren’t meant to go through it alone, that Jesus longs for his church to be a place of warmth and safety, and a home and a refuge for the lost and broken but to do that we must learn the art of togetherness and celebration. The video ends by saying “To be on a journey as God’s family going through the highs and lows of life, suffering and laughing together that’s what I want, not some holy huddle, where we all pretend everything is ok but a real community which believes in the God of miracles but also in the God of the trials.”

I do not think it is possible or right to be vulnerable with everyone we come across in our lives, often that would not be helpful or appropriate but I think if we want to see change, want to see beauty, breakthrough and answers to our prayers, hopes and dreams then we have to make ourselves vulnerable. For me personally I need to learn to make myself more vulnerable before my God, so often my pride and my past stops me doing that, but I want more so I need to do it, and hand in hand with making myself more vulnerable to God I need to make myself more vulnerable with those I have been given to do this life but more than that I want to be someone that people feel safe to be vulnerable with, someone that will love people in their vulnerability, in order to see lives changed, and people set free.

The other day I read an article by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s daughter about her on-going battle with depression. It was a really honest, vulnerable and brave article.

Again it reminded me that lots of people carry their own struggles, battles and scars – often ones they aren’t willing or able to show to the world but I loved this girl’s bravery for speaking out about such a painful subject which affects so many people but which is often a taboo subject. I am lucky I have never suffered with it but I have walked with people I love who have. It’s relentless, it is misunderstood and frankly it is crappy as it sucks away people’s joy and ability to fully engage with life.

Likewise I have never faced infertility but I have stood by and watched as people I love dearly have- I have prayed feverently and passionately for so many babies as I have watched months pass by and friends’ hearts break a little more each time.

I do not know what it is like to live in an abusive and addictive situation, or to be desperate for money to feed my family, or to live through divorce or a broken relationship, or to love a sick or disabled child.

I do, however, know about loss and loneliness much more than I anticipated I ever would by this stage of my life, which many people do not understand.

All these things and so many more are massive disappointments in life – life was not meant to turn out like that, hopes and dreams have been shattered, and they hurt like hell. What I am about to say feels like a really depressing statement but life will include for all of us, at some point, or at various stages, some level of disappointment, in varying degrees, for some those disappointments will be more tragic and heart breaking than for others but disappointment will be part of all our stories. It is a truth that I think a lot of the time we do not want to face because we do not know how to handle it. I think we buy into the lie that life should always be great and fulfilling and beautiful and so when those disappointments come we feel like we have failed because our lives are not the glossy, happy, smiley, fun lives we should be living.

What I have been reflecting upon recently is how we deal with those disappointments and survive them. I wasn’t prepared for the enormity that was John’s death and becoming a single parent as quite honestly those sorts of things didn’t happen to people like me and as a result I well and truly lost the plot for a good few years.

I don’t have the answers as I reflect upon these things – I wish there was a formula for getting through so that life could get back to normal like it was before, in record speed. I remember a conversation I had with my grief buddy, Em (not sure how you will feel about such a title Em!) about how we both wished the grief process was a tick list which you could work through in a set period, a bit like preparing for an exam, to then be able to get back to normal happy people, whatever normal and happy now looked like. But guess what it was not so straightforward – it was messy and complicated and took a flipping long time! 8 years on and we would both say that that loss still massively affects our lives and who we are. We are probably radically different people to the ones that said those wedding vows all those years ago – the way we react, the choices we make, the way we relate to people I am guessing are all affected by the events of late 2006. We have both moved on so so much but it is still there – only last week I felt the grief consume me more than it has done in a long time because of something that happened.

I have come to accept that that loss and its disappointments will always be a part of me but I do not want them to define me. I don’t always want to be known as the girl whose husband died (and yes I have been introduced as that in a work context on more than one occasion!). Will I always feel the need to tell my story to strangers I meet to justify why I am on my own and why I am a single parent? Is there hope? Can life be ok again when it feels like it is so far from what it was meant to look like and if so how do you get there? Can there be complete healing? Can situations be transformed and redeemed and restored? My answer has to be a resounding YES and I don’t say that because I am there yet totally – as last week proved to me, as I sobbed and raged at God, (the positive being that it only lasted 24 hours as opposed to months) – but I have seen it in the lives of others, I have seen massive steps towards it in my own life, and I have hope in Jesus and his transforming and redeeming power.

I know that those disappointments change us – I often wonder whether John would recognise the person I am now and whether he would still love me. As one grief counsellor Em and I both saw told us it gives us extra corners others don’t have – how we hated those corners and would have been quite happy to have gone without them. I know in me it has birthed a massive compassion and a passionate desire to see people show love, kindness and sensitivity to others, especially for the broken and lonely. It has made heaven feel nearer. It has taught me so many lessons.

How do you get there? Well for each of us I guess it will be a different route, and for some it may take longer than for others. Again I don’t really have the answers as I feel like I am muddling through.

Will there be a day when it is all totally okay again – probably not because John will always have died at 28 not having met his child, I doubt there will be a day when I do not think about him – he will always be part of me but I can say absolutely that I know joy, fun, contentment, laughter, anticipation, hope, excitement –all the things I feared I may never feel again. The disappointment was all consuming for so long but it wasn’t the end of the story. I love that quote which says, “everything will be okay and if it is not okay it is not the end.”

I hope that my hurts will make me a better person, a kinder person, a stronger person, a person who walks more closely with my heavenly father. That more and more I can learn of God’s grace through the disappointments and see him working in my life and the lives of others.

What I loved most about Katharine Welby’s interview on her depression was that she concluded by saying that the trick to survival was finding those that were willing to jump into the darkness with you. I think that is just as true for any of the struggles and disappointments we face in life – I would literally not be standing without so many precious friends who time and time again jumped into the darkness with me – I know when I get to heaven it will be one of things I thank God most for – the amazing gift of incredible people who for some reason keep loving me. I hope and pray that through my disappointments and all that life has thrown at me it is teaching me to jump into the darkness alongside other people, however messy and broken that darkness is, to help them survive and come out the other side.

So I will continue to no doubt have my moments of disappointment that life doesn’t quite look like I hoped it would but I will keep holding tight to my father’s hand, trusting that the best is yet to come, and jumping feet first into those dark places, when people need me there, because for me that is where Jesus would be and where he calls me to be.

This writing lark feels much more vulnerable than it did to begin with and it is not because of the content but more to do with a fear that people will judge me, or wonder why I think I have anything worthwhile to say, or that I am full of nonsense. A very big part of me wants to stop but something (probably God) is compelling me to keep going and I am trying to take the attitude that even if what I am writing about is helpful to one person then it is worth doing, if my story can just give hope to someone else who is grieving or struggling then it does not really matter what anyone else thinks and maybe nobody thinks anything anyway and it is just my insecurities.

I am sure for many introverts the thought of putting their innermost feelings, hurts, hopes and dreams out there for anyone to see is their worst nightmare and they could not possibly grasp why anyone else would choose to do so. Well I am not an introvert I am definitely an extrovert and have no problem at all being open, honest, real and out there but I have had to learn a tough lesson that not everyone is like me. That may sound like a really obvious statement as we all know that we are all different, we see those differences all around us every minute of the day, we work with people that are fundamentally different from us, we marry people who are often our polar opposites and often families are made up of a total mish mash of different characters and personalities. We only have to look at the reaction to the recent election to see just how different we all are.

However for me in my grief that reality was one of the hardest things for me to cope with. When people were not grieving like I did it made it hurt all the more. When people did not want to talk about John and almost pretended he never existed I would want to scream at them (and sometimes did) and ask them did they not care, did it not hurt them too.

I would love to be one of those people that could at all times hold my feelings in and be dignified and well put together but I have tried and I can’t really go more than a few hours. I need to talk about feelings and emotions and relationships – it is the very core of who I am. I love people who are real, honest, raw and warm – when I find people who are like that I hold on tight because they make me feel alive and connected.

The problem being that I have a lot of people in my life, who I love totally and desperately, who are not like that, who would prefer not to talk about how they are feeling, a large part of my family are like that, I married a man like that and many of my closest friends are like that. And actually my experience is that that is ok when life is plodding along and things are good/normal, it makes life interesting, but when tragedy comes, when the “shit hits the fan” and when life flipping hurts those differences can become insurmountable and hard to navigate, leading to misunderstandings and broken relationships. In my previous job I saw this being worked out in families on a daily basis – most times you could see that the dispute was not about money but deeply held issues that went back years and because fundamentally family members were different and reacted and handled things differently.

When John died I needed to talk about him, needed to talk about how painful it was and how much I missed him. Grief is definitely one of the most complex emotions I have ever experienced – it is so much more complex than you could ever imagine unless you have been there. One minute you feel a total desperation and no hope, the next you feel numb and nothing and then you have moments where you may just be able to see a pin prick of light which allows hope to settle only for it all to be swept away again as the despair and desperation sets in and for the whole process to continue round and round in circles. I needed to talk about that process, to express everything I was feeling and so many people around me, people I felt should be hurting too, did not want to go anywhere near those conversations.

Very close family members and some of our closest friends didn’t want to go there and it hurt like hell. I remember one family member saying to me it was not a comfortable subject for people and I had to accept that and not make a fuss (that was one of those moments where I could have quite easily have become violent) – I would say to my parents over and over it was me that had had my life devastated so why could these people not step outside of their comfort zones to make it easier for me. Some friends left Sheffield shortly afterwards and said they just needed to put it all behind them, which hurt me immensely. Thankfully they are now back in Sheffield and those relationships are healed and good again and we talk about John often.

For me I could not understand if these people had cared about John as much as their relationships with him would have suggested then why were they not crying, why where they not talking about it, why couldn’t they express how they felt about it. It was such a hard thing for me to grasp, if you love someone and you lose them, then you express that, you let it out. I battled and battled because it felt like they did not care about John or me, that their lives had been totally unaffected and if I am being honest sometimes it still feels a bit like that. It also felt like they were judging me (maybe they were maybe they weren’t) for being so emotional about it, for being so broken and vulnerable.

It has been one of the hardest lessons for me but I have come to a place were I have learnt to accept that we are all different and just because a person doesn’t react or say things the way I would it doesn’t mean they do not care. I can now see clearly, now I am out the other side that they showed they cared in so many other ways. My ways are not the only ways, they are my ways and that is ok and people have to accept me for who I am and their ways are their ways and I have to accept them and actually as alien as it was for me to not express those feelings and emotions, it was totally alien to them to express them.

I know those people were deeply and profoundly affected by John’s death because every now and again a small comment will show just how it impacted them and continues to impact them.

When the tough times hit massive amounts of grace, patience and forgiveness are needed and I am thankful that people showed me all those and much more in abundance.

It has taught me to try and stop before I react and not blow up or judge but to think that most of the time a person’s reaction is not personal to me or my situation, sometimes it is to do with their character/their make up, or the things they have experienced in life which become part of their framework for dealing and responding to things and the same with my reactions. It has been a painful lesson in tolerance, in grace and in forgiveness. It has also made me realise that sometimes I cannot stream roller in with the feelings and the emotions, I have to think about what would help that particular person, what would make them feel most comfortable.

In my family I can see as the years have gone by that we have tried to find a middle ground, not always successfully, but I think we are getting there. Whilst some people may not be comfortable with the “john” subject they try to talk about him, and I try not to talk about him too much and somehow that middle, compromising ground feels like the best place.

I have also realised that actually those differences are to be celebrated and enjoyed- if everyone was like me it would be a flipping nightmare we would drown in emotions and tears! My family members are practical at getting on with things and so many times that has been my saving grace!!

Do you ever have those times where you keep hearing the same thing being said in totally different places, times and contexts? Usually for me that means that God is trying to tell me something.

A few weeks ago I was at a conference and the speaker was saying that at least four times a year she pushes herself outside of her comfort zones, which in and of itself did not really impact me, we all know we are supposed to push ourselves, to test out limits, try new things, but what she followed up by saying was that if we do not push ourselves, and step outside of our comfort zones, our worlds get smaller – for me that was something that had never occurred to me before, and maybe that is just me being dim, but it really challenged me and in some ways scared me.

Then this morning in church the talk was again on the importance of stepping out of our comfort zones and the “magic” that came come as a result, finishing off with this great quote:

“Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage, just literally 20 seconds of embarrassing bravery and I promise you something great will come out of it.” (We bought a zoo- the film).

I confess that I would like an easy and comfortable life, where everything goes to plan, where everyone in my life is lovely all the time, with no parenting/family issues, where money is never a worry and where the sun always shines. I hate confrontation, stress, anxiety, conflict – I do not handle them well hence why 11 years as a litigator often pushed me to the edge of myself and my sanity. I like to feel comfortable, steady and safe – I am risk averse and like to know the outcome of my decisions.

Tied into the whole subject of comfort zones for me is that of my dreams/hopes/ambitions. When John died it felt like a big part of me died too, so many of my hopes and dreams were tied up with him and the future we thought we had together and even with those that weren’t directly linked to him he was no longer there to push me forward into them, to encourage me and to catch me when I fell. Then as time went on life got consumed with trying to survive as a lone parent, whilst holding down, at times, an insanely stressful job and dealing with the big “C” and all that came once the big “C” had had its way with my family. I was exhausted and spent – there was nothing left of me to dream and if I am being honest I don’t think I wanted to dream as my dreams had left me pretty heart broken.

I think certainly for me I became so full with other stuff there was no time to dream but not only that I was scared – what if I followed those dreams and I messed up? What if people thought I was stupid or did not agree? What sacrifices would I need to make to follow my dreams – financial sacrifices, relational sacrifices, time sacrifices?

What I did know was that the law, in the big law firm sense, was not my dream. I knew that it was not what I wanted to invest my life in especially as most of the time it left a bad taste. I have written about this previously but stepping out of that safe, secure career in some ways was a no brainer as it was making me poorly but in so many other ways was so very scary. I have gone backwards and forwards in my head so many times in the last few months questioning my decision, counting the financial costs, asking whether I have just committed career suicide. It was a costly and scary decision, which has taken me very far out of my comfort zones, but in the two weeks I have been in my new job I have been so blown away – I have known a welcome like nothing else, from such gorgeous people, such encouragement, such affirmation. I have been inspired, challenged and filled with an anticipation of things to come. I have felt like a massive weight has been lifted and like I am a different person. For the first time in a very long time I feel like I am beginning to dream dreams again, I feel excited and hopeful about the future.

And I say this not as some big up to myself because it had to get pretty horrible to get my attention and shake me into action, but rather, hopefully as an encouragement that when we step out and take risks things change and shift within us, and good things come. As I heard a wise person say recently there is blessing in the sacrifice and over the last few months that has certainly been my experience – the blessings have been too many to list but what I will say is that it set something in me that makes me want to dream bigger dreams, that makes me want to take more risks, to keep stepping out of my comfort zones. I do not want to settle for the easy route, for the comfortable and safe (although some of that would be great!), as whilst that would be the easy route it would also be pretty dull. I want to go on the adventure God has for me, holding his hand tightly, trusting that he will be my provider, that he will be the one who catches me when I fall. I want to see lives transformed, people healed up and set free, and cared for and loved. I want my world and the worlds of those I come into contact with to get bigger, more colourful, more full of life and love and I know that that is not going to happen unless I am willing to make changes and sacrifices and to be brave even if that does risk failure and embarrassment at times.

Let’s encourage each other in our dreams, to be brave and to take risks and as the quote from the film says I think we could see great things come.