Operation Mobilisation (OM) UK, one of the world’s largest missional organisations, are calling together young Christians looking to live out God’s love to join their Race Across Europe. The unique interrailing trip invites Christians over the age of 18, to travel across Europe and share their faith.
After years of travel being limited or challenged due to Brexit and the global pandemic, Race Across Europe will provide a new way for participants to build confidence in both conversational and practical gospel sharing overseas. Race Across Europe kicks off on June 26th with registrations due to close on June 11th.
The interrailing experience will last two months, with participants to return to the UK on August 18th. Race Across Europe team members will get involved in OM’s projects in major cities across 15 countries, engaging in new cultural contexts to support different communities and share the good news of Jesus. This will include integrating themselves into the Christian community, attending new churches, participating in outreach activities and working with refugees, children and sports ministries.
Lara Jenkins, Relations Manager, OM UK, said: “OM in the UK organised this initiative to give young people the opportunity to gain confidence and be bold in the mission field and think about how to share the gospel in different and new ways. Race Across Europe aims to help young people be encouraged by their interactions with a diverse collection of people and be enriched in their faith.”
“Upon their return in August, these younger generations will have had opportunities to grow and see God working in cultures and contexts they did not know or understand much about beforehand. So, this summer, we invite young Christians to travel, share your faith, experience how God is moving in different cultures and see God grow you.”
OM’s founder, the late George Verwer, said in a 2020 interview: “Behind the whole concept was my passion for revival and seeing lives changed. Not just new Christians, but believers, too: many were lukewarm. It was on my heart for young people to grow and become mature as a result of volunteering with OM, and that’s still taking place.” OM in the UK has the same heart for young people as their founder did, and they are eager to see them grow and mature through this Race Across Europe experience.
To sign up to take part in this trip before the deadline on June 11th please visit: uk.om.org/race-across-europe
Main Photo Credit: Michal Parzuchowski via Unsplash
Tim Keller died on 19th May 2023. And, although assured by our Christian hope of the resurrection, it was saddening. At 72, Tim was still a significant preacher, writer and elder statesman in the Christian world. I have fond memory of being with him in New York and both of us passionately talking about reaching those outside of the church with the good news of Jesus.
I have been greatly helped by his penetrating and powerful books, such as The Reason for God and the Prodigal God.
Tim had many roles – pastor, theologian, writer – but perhaps the most important was that of evangelist. So here, as an evangelist, I want to comment on a few notable aspects of Tim’s remarkable life and ministry in proclaiming the gospel.
First, Tim’s preaching had confidence. Intellectually, Tim had deep theological roots: he knew what he was talking about. Although committed to a Reformed Christianity, he nevertheless had a sense of proportion and priority and never let secondary theological elements obscure or distract from the great focus of his preaching: Jesus Christ. Tim readily acknowledged that he had learned from British Christians such as C.S. Lewis, Martyn Lloyd-Jones and John Stott the importance of a ‘mere’ Christianity that never strayed far from the beating heart of the gospel: sin, forgiveness, Jesus and the cross. Significantly, although he always sought to reach out to those outside the church, his efforts never involved any compromise of his beliefs. Yet the strength of Tim’s preaching was that it was supported by more than intellectual conviction: he had met with Jesus and knew that only Jesus could change lives.
Second, Tim’s preaching had grace. There was a warmth and gentleness in his preaching and writing that warmed people to him and to Christ. One of his endearing characteristics was the way that, whether you read him or heard him, you felt that he stood alongside you as a friend and guide. Tim cared and understood, and he offered invitations to a faith in Christ that were hard to refuse.
Third, Tim’s preaching had richness. If he saw the fundamentals of the gospel message as fixed and unchanging, he also saw the significance of the gospel as extraordinarily broad. For him, coming to faith in Christ was not any sort of final destination but a beginning; the opening of a door to a new world, full of every sort of implication for how to live and think. It seemed that Tim could never talk or write on a subject without casting some fresh light on it from the gospel. That he could do this reflected not just his sharp intelligence, but his labours of reading and thinking extensively and deeply on a vast range of subjects. Tim was a firm believer in Abraham Kuyper’s famous phrase, ‘There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, “Mine!”’ Tim believed the key to effectively reaching out to those outside the faith was not to offer an insipid, watered-down gospel, but rather the very opposite; to present a richer, deeper message that captivated and won minds and hearts.
Fourth, Tim’s preaching had courage. He had an unshakeable faith that the message of Christ was for everybody; it was what, at depth, all men and women ultimately needed and longed for. That conviction gave him the vision and the courage to take risks. At a time when many people said that the inner cities, with their liberal secular masses, were no-go areas for evangelicals, Tim rejected any idea of retreating and took the gospel to the troubled and turbulent heart of New York. There, to the surprise of many – but not I think to him – his preaching found a receptive hearing.
Tim’s courage showed elsewhere. His growing ministry and his many books made him not only a public figure but, inevitably, an obvious target and he found himself under verbal attack, often from within Christianity, for what he said – or didn’t say – on theological or political issues. Undeterred, determined and ever peaceable, Tim simply pressed on with sharing Jesus.
Main Photo of Tim Keller courtesy of Gospel in Life
What has the epic conclusion to the 2022/23 Vanarama National League got to do with the legendary authors Dame Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle and Raymond Chandler? Stay with me for the full ninety minutes, plus added time, a wedge of extra time, and penalties, and I’ll reveal all.
But first, I’d like to take a health check. Being a Notts County fan since I was a kid has had its fair share of stresses. Some may say that picking the black and white army over our noisy red neighbours across the River Trent (with arguably a slightly bigger trophy room) is where it all started. My decision was made, aged ten, when my dad took me to my first game, so cut me some slack! As if to edify this notion, in 2007 The Telegraph newspaper revealed that Notts were the most stressful team to support; and even though I have physically strayed from my city of birth, the emotional ties have remained strong. Being a season ticket holder facing a five hour, or more, return journey for each home game surely qualifies me as insane; I counter this claim by stating the obvious; this club is part of my roots. My heritage. My elations (at birth my two kids were enrolled as junior Magpies). My losses (I miss my dad). It’s part of my DNA, and this isn’t just an idle assertion.
In 2020, research published by the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion at the University of Oxford, scientifically proved the synthesis of devoted fans with their football clubs. The field study took place during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil where the saliva of a control group of fans was taken prior, during, and post match, including the home nation’s semi-final loss to Germany.
Researcher Dr Martha Newson revealed: “Cortisol rocketed during live games for the fans who were highly fused to the team.” She also concluded: “Fans who are strongly fused with their team, that is, have a strong sense of being ‘one’ with their team, experience the greatest physiological stress response when watching a match.”
This fifth tier title race was akin to a classic whodunnit. Twists and turns aplenty before FC Hollywood (aka Wrexham AFC co-owned by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney) deservedly took the crown with a title winning tally of 111 points, four ahead of Notts. By any previous established rules of engagement County, who scored 117 goals, led by the League’s all time record goal machine Macaulay Langstaff, would have been champions. Yet this wasn’t your standard storyline and the playoffs beckoned.
These sudden death battles are great if your team has already secured promotion and you can watch from the comfort of your armchair, but when you are in them form often means nothing; it’s all down to passion, pride, fate, and fortune. Collectively, the named classic mystery writers couldn’t have penned anything more theatrical.
The semi-final against Boreham Wood, from whom Notts had finished a clear thirty-five points ahead, arrived at Meadow Lane with nothing to lose. They were 2-0 up at halftime and no doubt, had he been there, horror writer Stephen King would have commenced his next book. But the English novelist William Shakespeare grabbed his quill and busily finished the script. An Aden Baldwin piledriver from distance on 47 minutes made us dream, and his last gasp equaliser made over fifteen thousand hearts beat that much faster. In the last minute of extra time the final line of this poetic pleasure was written, with the local hero known as Jodi Jones, as his screamer of a shot sent the Magpies to Wembley for the playoff final.
My cortisol levels had reached celestial heights, but Notts still had the final to negotiate with perennial foes Chesterfield. Entering the historic arena dominated by its awesome arch, each fan knew of the ultimate consequence: one of the best or worst days. Blinding light or dramatic darkness. Joy or anguish. The playoffs never offer an in-between.
Cue a stage show that defied the law of gravity. The Spireites took an early lead with an Andrew Dallas penalty and, as the second half ebbed ever closer to the end, up stepped John Bostock to drill home the equaliser on 87 minutes. Extra-time kept the ultimate cocktail of raw emotions alive.
Chesterfield did it again. With an almost arrogant disregard of aching limbs Armando Dobra spectacularly carved out an utter masterclass in finishing from distance. Was this going to be another horror show? Not quite, as Rúben Rodrigues embodied the never-say-die mental fortitude of Notts remarkable team spirit, with an exceptional equaliser.
Penalties it was, and all those not so latent doubts resurfaced as my stress response reached fever pitch. Having come on as a substitute late in the second half, Archie Mair had spectacularly saved two spot kicks, meanwhile I couldn’t even compute if we had another chance of victory, the astonishing miss by John Bostock had caused my internal fight or flight syndrome to simply subside. I was emotionally spent. A gaze at the scoreboard brought it home. A successful attempt by Cedwyn Scott would propel us back to the promised land, the English Football League, and we would reclaim our rightful title of the world’s oldest football league club. He did it and my cortisol careered like a Catherine wheel around my body, attaining levels I’d rarely reached before. There was only remedy; who cares if people saw me crying!
As for our gallant opponents, spare a thought for those loyal fans who left well in advance of the on-field celebrations. Dr Newson made an ominous cortisol overture: “It was particularly high during games where their team lost.”
Anyone who says it’s just a game simply doesn’t get it.
Rev John Merrill will walk from Canterbury to Rome in 80 days, arriving at the Vatican on his 80th birthday. John has walked a total of 228,500 miles on walking trails, almost the distance from earth to the moon, and worn out 151 pairs of boots! He keeps all his old boots in his garden shed in Hertfordshire as he says they feel like old friends. John has written 520 books about his expeditions. These range from walking the coastline of Britain, 7,000 miles, to the Pacific Crest Trail from the US/Mexican border to the Canadian border, 3,000 miles.
His latest challenge will see him leave Canterbury Cathedral June 1st where he will receive a pilgrims’ blessing. He is scheduled to arrive at the Vatican on August 19th; his 80th birthday. He has no rest days scheduled on the 1,333-mile route through France, Switzerland and Italy. Averaging 16.66 miles a day, he hopes to raise as much money as he can to help people affected by leprosy.
Rev Merrill, a multi-faith minister, heard how leprosy was still a problem in the world today at a Carol service at St Giles in the Fields Church in London. He heard Peter Waddup, Chief Executive of The Leprosy Mission, talk about Dr Paul Brand who was a medical missionary to India where he witnessed firsthand the prejudice surrounding leprosy. While treating a patient for the disease, Dr Brand put his hand on the patient to reassure him. He was concerned when the patient began to sob. A translator for the patient told him: “You touched him and no one has done that for years. They are tears of joy.”
John, deeply moved by this story, was inspired to raise money to help people affected by leprosy. This could mean giving the gift of reconstructive surgery, pioneered by Dr Brand, to restore movement to hands and feet frozen by leprosy. Or providing bespoke prosthetic limbs to those who have had limbs amputated because of injury caused by the disease. John said: “It would be lovely to think by doing this challenge for my 80th birthday, I could give someone else a second chance of life on their feet again.
“I have been extremely fortunate that I have never broken a bone or been hospitalised during my expeditions. I have some amazing adventures and have been up close to rattlesnakes and bears but have always remained safe. I have been very blessed really as I usually walk alone. That way you never forget what you have seen because you’ve been chatting! I have gone 14 days without seeing another human being.” John says that walking is a way of life for him and his pilgrimages have deepened his faith. He was adopted as a baby during the Second World War and said he was an exasperating child at school.
“I used to come bottom in everything and the only thing I loved was sport and running up and down Bell Hagg Rocks in Sheffield where I grew up. I loved the sense of freedom and exploring made a great impression on me.”
After being expelled from several schools, Rev Merrill’s father sent him to a Quaker boarding school in North Yorkshire. “I loved it there as you were allowed to explore anywhere, you just had to be back by 6pm. When I was 15, however, I was caught climbing up a three-storey building at the school. I was called to the headmaster’s office and thought I was going to be expelled. But amazingly, he sent me on an outward bound mountain course in the Lake District for a month! From then on I walked and climbed whenever I could. After I left school, I worked for my father’s company as a commercial director but it never suited me. I spent my holidays walking and climbing.
“One time I was climbing in the Isle of Arran and it felt like I was being prompted by God. I felt He was telling me that I was not doing what I should be doing. Then a short time later I camped outside Iona Abbey on the Isle of Iona in the Hebrides and saw there was a service there at 6pm. I somehow felt called to go the service. But when I got there I was thinking ‘what am I doing here?’ Anyway, the minister began his sermon and said ‘God gives you the chance to do what you should be doing. If you don’t take it, he will give it to you again’. It was the prompt I needed to leave work and start my new life of hiking, climbing and writing books.
“I drove back to Derbyshire and gave in my notice. I have been doing this ‘new life’ ever since! As I failed my English O-Level twice, they were quite surprised at my old school by the number of books I had published! Even though I’m approaching 80, age is but a number, and now I just intend to keep going and walk the Pennine Way when I turn 100!“
Rev Merrill has raised more than £1.5 million for good causes from his own walking expeditions. More than £1 million has also be raised by other walkers completing his challenge walks. To sponsor his 80th birthday Canterbury to Rome pilgrimage visit: https://tinyurl.com/80daywalkforleprosy
A friend invited me to go with him to see one of the Hobbit films. Lots of us men love myths, legends, and stories of adventure. Especially epic stories of adventure, where there’s a struggle going on between good and evil, darkness and light. They hold a strange fascination for many of us.
We duly met at the cinema only to find that the schedule had been changed and it was not on that afternoon. It wasn’t on anywhere else that afternoon. His Plan B suggestion was to go ten-pin bowling. Now I’ve only played occasionally since school days and probably the last time I went was ten years previously. So I was a little rusty to say the least. However, amongst the many rounds where I didn’t get a strike at all, I had one when I got four strikes in a row! I knew three in a row and you were a turkey, but never before had I heard of anyone getting four. I’d never even had three. So I was unprepared for the declaration that came up on the screen that I was a four-bagger. To me at least it was a story of epic proportions, albeit a short one. Me – a four-bagger!
All of this made me think about whether there is some sort of epic struggle going on in our lives and whether we have a battle on our hands against an unseen enemy who is determined to sideline us and cause us to lose heart. Is the story of our individual lives set within a much bigger epic story, which is still unfolding? Many of us have some consciousness of good and evil. We’re well aware of the many cruel things that happen to innocent people, and of the need for justice and truth. Many of us can see that some things seem more associated with darkness than light. Yet we all have a strange fascination with the darkness, and can easily get drawn into it if we are not careful. Hidden dangers lurk there. We go through a door out of curiosity and before you know it the door slams behind us and there’s no handle on the inside. We have no alternative but to go further and risk getting totally lost in unfamiliar surroundings. We may never find our way back.
For the Christian believer, the good news is that we don’t have to go it alone. We can draw on God’s help when the darkness seems more attractive than the light; when hiding in a dark cave seems better than facing the light of reality; when dwelling on our failures seems easier than getting up again and moving forward. We can draw on the courage and strength He provides to reduce the frequency with which we lose heart and feel like giving up. We can listen to His affirmation and encouragement, and replace our lethargy and isolation with a greater desire to be part of an epic story where good triumphs over evil, where love wins in the end.
The idea of becoming men who have nothing to hide, nothing to fear and nothing to prove is a theme developed by Morgan Snyder, one of the Senior Leaders of John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart organisation, in his online podcast ‘Become Good Soil’. (Home – Become Good Soil) As I’ve thought about those three phrases, I find I can identify with each of them to some degree.
I’m sure many of us have done or thought about things that we’d rather not admit to, and we’ve kept it hidden from others. It’s understandable. We want others to think well of us; we want to preserve our reputation or perhaps we’re just not ready or willing to admit to some failure in the past. It feels safer to hide it or bury it and try to move on.
Nelson Mandela believed that everyone should be treated the same, whatever the colour of their skin. That belief resulted in him spending 27 years in prison, but he went from being a prisoner to a President and became an inspiration to people all over the world. He said: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not the man who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers fear.”
Fear can manifest itself in many ways, but many men won’t admit to being afraid in a dangerous situation as it may look like they are weak. However, fear sometimes has a way of galvanising courage within us when in a tight spot or when lost or when facing overwhelming circumstances. So fear can be a good thing. It’s a natural survival response and it can get us out of danger or keep us out of trouble. Bear Grylls said that being brave is having fear but finding a way through it.
But fear can also immobilise us to the point where we are unable to figure out what to do in a difficult situation. What may come to the surface are times when we got wounded or treated badly, so we are understandably reluctant to make ourselves vulnerable and put ourselves in that kind of situation again.
It’s often fairly obvious to us when someone seems to have something to prove. There is something they are striving to live up to, some image they are trying to maintain, some impression they are trying to give. But it’s a false front and underneath there is a different person who is insecure and perhaps wounded by past events. Richard Rohr, an American Franciscan priest and writer on spirituality based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a very popular writer and speaker on spirituality said, “There is nothing to prove and nothing to protect. I am who I am and it’s enough”.
Wanting to be a man who has nothing to hide, nothing to fear and nothing to prove gives me a route map for leaving the past behind, whether that be stuff I’ve done, or stuff that happened to me, and I can head into the future more secure in who I am becoming. I like that idea of becoming. It reminds me that, whatever age I am, I am unfinished; I am still work in progress.
Steve Legg interviews the British writers, life coaches, therapists and TV presenters Nick and Eva Speakman.
Steve Legg (SL): I’ve watched them on the telly. I’ve loved them for years. They are a fantastic couple. I’m going to call them the dynamic duo. They’re the world’s leading life-change therapists. It’s Nick and Eva Speakman.
Nick Speakman (SL): Thanks, Steve. That’s a great introduction. You know what? I’m a Batman fan, you know? Funnily enough, I was scrolling through Tik Tok the other day. And I saw a clip where Batman and Robin are on the Batcopter and Batman’s hanging from a ladder. And there’s a plastic shark, and it looks so bad. He’s like, ‘Robin, pass me the shark repellent,’ He just happened to have a can of shark repellent in the helicopter. But honestly, amazing. It was so tacky, but I thought it was all real. And it was terrific. So yeah, looking back, it just shows how easily you can con children.
SL: So we’ve seen you on our TV screens on This Morning and all sorts of shows like that. But of course, the whole nation is now loving you on Celebrity Hunted.
Eva Speakman (ES): It is probably one of our lives most unbelievable, exciting, scary adrenaline rushes. Genuinely, we expected it to be easier than it was. It feels so real. So you have to remind yourself that you’re doing this for charity. This is part of a TV show. But you totally forget; it immerses you, and you genuinely feel like you’re a fugitive on the run.
SL: Was it really scary at times?
NK: Oh, Steve, honestly, it was. Part of that fear is born out of the fact that we are both competitive. And you know, we wanted to evade capture as long as possible. You know, I mean, everything. We create everything, you know, our thoughts, everything that we’re doing, the world we live in, is the world that we see. But we felt so under pressure because we just literally didn’t want to get caught up.
ES: The biggest pressure is you don’t know what anybody else is doing. And you want to avoid being caught first. And we are the more mature duo on the run. There was a principle behind that because I was like, Okay, I won’t be the first to go. And I couldn’t bear that thought. So that kept us going. And as I say, you have yet to learn how the other fugitives are doing. So you need to find out whether they are still all out there. In this case, you know that the Hunters are slightly thinner on the ground. Honestly, it was you bed down for the night wherever that might be. We slept in places that I never thought. In stranger’s gardens, at the side of roads. Like literally just wherever we landed and you get that moment of reprieve where you think I should be okay here for the night. And then the second your eyes open. You go. You need to get packed up. And it’s ‘let’s get out’. You have no clue where the hunters are.
SL: Did you use some of your tricks of the trade? You had us on tenterhooks at the end of the first episode. I thought, oh no, they’ve caught them.
NS: Absolutely. We did. Yeah. We tried to use a few tricks and we tried to think about what they were going to do next. And it served us quite well. Yeah, we just put ourselves into the Hunter’s shoes. That doesn’t mean that we didn’t have a few scrapes as well along the way, but we played the game. We didn’t want to just try and get to the end without being caught.
Footnote: You can read the rest of my interview with the Speakmans in the next edition of Sorted Magazine or tune in to my weekly radio show at Konnect Radio to hear the whole conversation.
Main photo credit: The Speakmans with American actor, Jeff Goldblum, courtesy of Nick and Eva Speakman.
Each spring brings the grand unveiling of my barbecue, as soon as it is vaguely warm enough (the weather, not the coals). To be honest, there just needs to be no snow on the ground. I’ve had so may barbies in January, my neighbours think I’m Australian.
We invite them round and there I stand, lord of my domain, turning the sausages and frying the onions. I also make a mean minted shoulder of lamb, searing it on the coals before grilling it till it drips with juice. For dessert I grill mango and melt bananas with chocolate, a culinary delight that has to be tasted to be believed.
And I do it all myself. It’s not that I don’t trust my wife, but it’s my job. A man’s place is by the barbecue, with a monstrous pair of tongs in one hand and a chilled can of Fosters in the other; avoiding idle chitchat with strangers, unless it’s about cuts of meat.
This was all very well, until one weekend I promised my family a barbecue, forgetting that I had to be away doing a gig in the north of the country.
My wife was going to have to take control of my barbecue. We both felt uncomfortable at this blurring of our territories. We had to have some swift staff training – and it was with great trepidation that she took on my mantle.
But she did a good job. I checked, of course, asking the kids if Mum’s sausages were as good as Dad’s, to which they sang a resounding ‘Yes’. Moreover, she had got cocky and created home-made burgers, which the children were raving about. I felt a little redundant. After all, the reality is, she prepares the salads, bread, utensils, napkins and sauces, lays the table and clears up afterwards. While I clearly have the most important job; standing over the barbecue. I’d been emasculated.
It’s not just barbecues. It happens easily, and often there’s no option, but we need to make sure that we’re not the only people who can do what we do. We get caught up in a role, imagining we’re the only one who can do it. It’s simpler to do something ourselves because it makes us important, keeps us useful and makes people need us.
So let’s not hold on to our positions in life and get precious about who we entrust things to do. Let’s encourage those around us to get involved, share our passions with people who care, and mentor others to carry on the work.
Next, I will see if Bekah is up for putting the bins out. I’m not precious.
How can you get through a divorce? Charles Reid has some first-hand experience of the process and some considered suggestions if you, or a close friend, are in the throes of this difficult and emotionally wrenching undertaking.
In 2021, there were 113,505 divorces granted in England and Wales, according to the Office of National Statistics. That’s 227,010 adults who have struggled through to the point of having a decree absolute granted by the courts. That doesn’t include the children, grandchildren, siblings, parents, grandparents, friends, and colleagues who are impacted when a married couple terminate the relationship and start on separate paths. Do not be fooled by the simplistic way divorce is portrayed in the media; this is not likely to be an easy smooth process, and it will test every element of your character.
During the summer of 2015 I started out on this painful, difficult and expensive route. As with nearly two-thirds of male-female married couples, it was my wife who decided to instigate the divorce. We had struggled along together for some years going to repeated counselling sessions, and trying hard to do the best we could. However, we both brought historical baggage into our marriage, and it seemed that we were never going to get to a great place, and so she made the decision to end the relationship.
Although I knew our marriage was not a great place to be in for either of us, it still came as a horrible shock when she informed me that we were going no further together. Over the course of the following few years (this is rarely a speedy process), I learned a lot about myself, my friends and family, and my relationship with God. I’d like to share a few things which may help anyone going through a similar situation – just practical observations.
Take it slow
Patience is the most important quality you will need. The legal process runs slowly, especially while the courts are trying to regain their pre-pandemic equilibrium, but even in ‘normal’ times things seldom happen quickly. If you are the sort of person who cannot cope with delayed gratification and needs everything now, you may find that you regret decisions, things said or done, and the final agreement reached, for years to come. At every stage, in your head ask yourself, “Will I care about the outcome of this part in five years’ time?” If the answer is yes, then stand firm on that point. Otherwise, be prepared to give a little. Pick your battles – you can’t and won’t win all of them.
Get legal counsel
Make sure you get good legal advice, and do it as early in the process as you can. Don’t hire a combative solicitor – they may cost you dearly in financial terms as well as in time and eventual outcome. Look for someone who understands that the desired end of a divorce negotiation is a ‘fair and equitable’ settlement which allows former husband and wife to live a reasonable life, and that the now individual adults should be self-supporting within a viable timescale. The days of being taken for every penny you have are, thankfully, past, in favour of a more balanced approach. The solicitor I chose, having been recommended by friends, told me at our first meeting what the he expected the financial outcome would be. Two years later, he was almost entirely accurate in his prediction. This is the sort of person you need representing you.
Pick your friends
Next, carefully select some really good friends. I cannot stress this enough. Do not trust anyone who may be reporting back to your former spouse. I was fortunate here: I enlisted three very long-standing friends, two of whom had known me in the years before my marriage. All three had proven that they were honest with me: I knew this by the fact that they had sometimes told me things I may not have wanted to hear, but nonetheless were accurate and true. I asked my three friends to become my ‘Council of Reference’, and they were absolutely invaluable in helping me walk through the divorce process. We set up a WhatsApp group where messages could be posted at all times of the day or night and responded to as time allowed.
I had realised very quickly that the emotional burden was going to be enormous and challenging, and there was a high risk that, due to anger or sadness or some other strong mental demand, I would make poor decisions. My Council of Reference were my wise counsel, people physically removed from most of the emotion, who could feed back jointly or together a considered response to my questions around, “This has happened, and I want to do this, but should I?” To try and ensure a balanced view, one of the three was single, one married, and one divorced. Two were male and one female, again to try and balance the advice offered. In almost every situation I used the counsel offered by these friends, and I am enormously grateful to them for making themselves available for a couple of years of their lives to support a struggling man.
Avoid the twits
Speaking of emotional burdens, social media is not your friend during a divorce. Seriously consider deleting your social media accounts. At the time, I was on Facebook and Twitter, and my ex-wife weaponised it, trying to turn friends, colleagues, and family against me. I told friends and family that I literally didn’t want to know or hear anything about what was posted, and it genuinely helped me to cope with the pressure of making good decisions. I deleted my profiles and didn’t rejoin for some years.
Tell the boss
It’s vitally important to let your employer know what’s going on in your life. Make no mistake, divorce is going to impact you in ways you didn’t expect, and it may affect your work. I was lucky enough to have a sympathetic boss, and so when I privately told them that I was starting to work through a divorce they helped me to ensure that any work being issued to clients was correct, sanity-checked some of my emails, and even offered me some time off when I really needed it. Trying to hide a life event as all-encompassing as the separation of a long-term relationship is extremely difficult, and adds stress to an already stressful situation. Don’t do it. If your boss is wholly unsympathetic, it may be worth considering changing jobs, but in general my advice would be not to make any huge life changes at this point if you don’t absolutely have to.
Find a home
One life change you will have to face is finding somewhere to live. Renting property is a nightmare in the UK right now, with high demand and low supply making rents and deposits scarily high. Unless you’re seriously wealthy you’re unlikely to be able to buy a property, as your former wife (and any children still at home) can choose to stay in the family home until an agreed date. This means that you’re still on the hook for the mortgage, which may affect your personal ability to borrow to buy another property.
With all that in mind, wherever you end up living will be your refuge, your place to curl up and mourn the loss of your marriage, but also where the roots of your next life chapter will be born. Don’t be too proud to look at places you would never have previously considered. I ended up living above a shop in a small two-bed flat in the middle of a council estate, having borrowed money to get the deposit together. It was (just) affordable, and money was incredibly tight for a few months, but having space of my own, and somewhere for my children to be able to visit, was a literal Godsend.
Feel the emotion
You won’t come out of this process emotionally unscathed. Everything you thought was your future has just come crashing down in pieces, possibly never to be resurrected. If you have children, they are going to be hurt, upset, puzzled, and all sorts of other things, and it’s partly your fault. Acknowledge that guilt. Mourn the death of your relationship. Worth through it. Get counselling Cry to God for help and healing. This is where some of the Psalms of David start to chime. Life is not good. God’s gracious help, love warmth and forgiveness is there for the asking. Don’t repress your emotions in that way that we Brits are so renowned for. Get it out, get it dealt with, and then move on with a lighter step.
Let it go
There will be plenty to forgive too. First, yourself. You are very likely to shoulder blame, some of which will be warranted and some not. Either way, God forgives when you ask Him, and so you need to forgive yourself too. You will also need to forgive your ex-partner. Easy? Ha! No, but as has been widely quoted in the past, holding a grudge against someone is like drinking poison and hoping that the other person will die. Her life is no longer your responsibility. Her decisions are now hers alone.
Photo credit: Luigi Estuye via Unsplash
Taste the joys
Search for, and enjoy, the unexpected freedom. One of the finest feelings I can recall during that period was realising that I could buy orange juice with bits. Daft, right? In our house we only ever had smooth orange juice, and I quite liked the bits. So go round the supermarket and buy the things you enjoy but which were previously restricted. Hang pictures which you love. Read books, watch your favourite TV, listen to the music which makes you smile. There’s a lot of touch stuff in a divorce, but there are little glimpses of sunshine through all the dark clouds.
Look to the future
Remember, none of this is permanent. After your financial settlement is agreed, the decree absolute has been issued, and all that legal stuff is out of the way, you are free to move forward on your own, following God and your heart, and find out what is in store. I have a (worryingly large) number of friends who have gone through divorce, and it’s true that in the years after the process they have discovered positives in life, and are often happier than they were immediately pre-divorce. To state the (hopefully) obvious, I’m absolutely not recommending this journey, but God can truly use all things for his ultimate glory.
So, continue to be patient with yourself, with your family, with your children, and with your ex-spouse (no matter how difficult that is). Patience and wisdom, good friends, and, over all, clinging to God, will get you through intact. I wish you well if you’re battling through this part of life. One verse that constantly helped me was Jeremiah 29 verse 11, and I commend it to you.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11
In the summer of 1996, I spent a month helping out on a game farm in the northern Transvaal in South Africa. I decided to head north to Zimbabwe for some fun before heading home to the UK. For me back then, fun meant skydiving with good friends, with cool drinks in the evening. Life was all good.
The flight to 15,000 fee was uneventful. I stood in the cargo area of the plane and looked down. I took a deep breath, then slid off the step. The clouds felt damp on my face as I fell through them. At 4,000 fee I pulled the ripcord and heard the canopy open with a reassuring crack. My free fall quickly slowed down from 130 to 25mph, just as it always did. But when I looked up, I realised something was wrong – very wrong. Instead of a smooth rectangular shape above me, I had a very deformed-looking tangle of chute, which would be a nightmare to control.
I pulled hard on both steering toggles to see if that would help. It didn’t. I kept trying but I was burning through time and altitude fast. Within seconds I was too low to use my reserve chute, and the ground was coming up fast. I flared the chute too high and too hard. This jerked my body up horizontally, then I dropped away and smashed into the desert floor, landing on my back, right on top of the tightly packed rock-hard reserve chute.
I couldn’t stand up; I could only roll over and moan on the dusty earth. I was biting the ground in agony. I didn’t know the extent of the damage at the time, that I had shattered three key vertebrae and would go on to spend months in and out of military rehabilitation back in the UK, strapped into braces and unable to move freely. But in those first few minutes as I lay there, one thing I did know was that my life had just changed forever.
Sometimes it isn’t until we get knocked down that we find which way is up. Sometimes it isn’t until the sky clouds over that we notice the light. And sometimes it isn’t until we lie in the gutter that we begin to see the stars. The light of God has been the greatest source of hope this world has ever known. We can never be so far away that the light won’t reach us. Sometimes it is good to be reminded of that. Hope will always win – and the light of Christ reaches everywhere.
Extract taken from Soul Fuel by Bear Grylls, published by Zondervan in the US and Hodder Faith in the UK.
