I Chose To Forgive

Today I’m leaving all of the darkness behind me as I renew my faith and love of the Lord Jesus. Now I know the answer to who will free me from the desolate dungeon of darkness. The simple truth is that it is the Lord Jesus Christ who will set me free. Doing the research and academic studies during my time here has greatly strengthened, stimulated, and enriched my spiritual life. Personally, I need to have evidence to give me a greater understanding of the culture and historical context of what has happened. Nothing is now undermining my faith in the trustworthiness of the Gospels and what they teach us about the Lord Jesus. All the historical evidence has rekindled my commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God who loves us, who died for us, and who sacrificed Himself for the sins of all mankind. There’s nothing complicated in understanding what the Lord Jesus did for us. It’s simple. Before coming here to Trinity Grace, I had a very simple view of what a church is – just a building where believers congregate to worship God.  I had a very simple view of what a sinner is – someone who does desperately wicked things. I had a very simple view of what a saint is – someone who;

My story of finding Christ starts at a very low ebb in my life: I was leaving home, that is to say I was leaving my wife Maureen and my two daughters Catherine and Sarah. Why was I leaving home? The true and honest answer is: alcohol. Having worked myself up to a very senior position with a chemical company called BASF I found the pressure too much and started drinking, and in the end, the job with BASF became too hard for me and I had to resign. Life at home with my wife and two daughters became very difficult and although I managed to find a job as a postman, the day-to-day pressures of married life took its toll and I found myself having to leave the family home. I found a rented home with a man called Jim; later on, I discovered that Jim was a Christian. I enjoyed living in this rented home with Jim and a few other lodgers. Then Jim invited me to come with him to the church, but I said “No”. Then Jim asked me again to come to church and again I said “No”. Eventually, for the sake of peace, I decided to go with him to church! I went to church, and then I went again and again, eventually accepting;

I willingly went to the Salvation Army, and grew up going to Sunday school, then joined the young people’s singing group, and later the brass band, and Songsters. I have to admit that I was not a very good singer, nor did I play a brass instrument very well. For most of this, I was contented, and yet, with all this activity in the Salvation Army, I now realize, that the Bible in all its full glory was not presented. True, the Bible was believed in, and even read, yet brass bands and songsters seemed to be the emphasis in the life of the Salvation Army. When I was about 19 I left the Salvation Army I just drifted away, I started at college in Manchester, and in the holiday break became involved in a religious cult, a very silly thing. I was involved in this religious cult only for a year or two and only on the periphery yet, now looking back I regret ever being involved in it. With the religious cult behind me at the age of 26 I became a progress chaser at a soap manufacturer. Now living at home, enjoying my own company, and for most of the time happy with life, life was fine, no problems, no ambitions, just ambling along. Then, something happened;

I became a Christian at the age of 29 when God revealed Himself to me in a spiritual way showing me how I stood in His sight. All my life before becoming a Christian, I had always believed in God, even to the point of fearing Him. I would often think about standing before Him when I died, and it would send shivers down my spine, but I never fully knew why. The problem was that my belief in God the Creator, Jesus His Son who was crucified, and the Holy Spirit had no substance. I had no real knowledge or understanding. My belief was innate within me and I did not understand properly. However, I was always fully aware of His authority over me. I took going to church very seriously, till I reached my late teens, then I went out into the world, and God became just someone I believed in, not fully understanding why. My life in the world took me down many paths, some good, and some bad. However well my friends thought of me, and however much my family loved me, I never felt secure or 100% happy. Sometimes I would pray because even without any knowledge of Him, I just felt I could trust Him, and that nothing was impossible for Him to perform.;

In July 1962 I went on holiday again to Douglas in the Isle of Man. I had just won a lot of money on the roulette wheel in Bolton and because of my change in fortune decided to join some younger lads to this old haunt. On the second day of my holiday, I decided to try to follow this winning streak on the roulette wheel in the local casino in Douglas. I lost all the money I had gained in Bolton and spent the rest of the week borrowing from my friends. Later in the week, we gathered in a hotel in Douglas for our usual drinking session. As I sat there I began to feel an intense hate for the hotel and all it stood for. The hotel lounge was heaving with people and in a moment of madness picked up pint glass and threw it through one of the hotel windows. The pub began to empty quickly until the manager shouted for all to stay where they were until the police arrived. I did not care and when the police did arrive and question the scores of people in the lounge I still did not care what happened to me. When the police came to our table my four young friends protested their innocence and after about;

I grew up in a large family fully committed to attending a Church in Little Hulton, where we attended twice each Sunday and also Sunday school in the afternoon. We were all in the church choir. When I left school I went into nursing and it was there that I met with a Christian nurse who invited me to her church to hear the gospel. I started to attend the church and it was then that I realized that being a Christian was having a personal relationship with Christ, of knowing him as your Lord and Saviour. I came to know Christ as my personal Saviour and Lord. To know the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as being the ultimate being that deserves all our praise and worship. Throughout nursing, I attended the Nurses Christian Fellowship where I met other Christians and together we sought to witness for Christ. On becoming a Christian I didn’t feel settled in the Church at home, and became involved with a local mission church where I served the Lord for many years. I was once asked why I did not return to my home church where I was brought up. I replied that I did not feel happy reciting words from a book when I could personally speak to the Lord in;

I have been told, but I was not aware of it myself at the time, that when I was one month old I was taken on a Whit walk with my Mother. At this time my Mother was a member of the Primitive Methodists. Growing up as a youngster I was, with help from my mother, always aware of God and the Christian faith. I attended Sunday school, first within the Primitive Methodist Church at Summerseat near Bury, and then I went to St. Wilfred’s Church of England Sunday school, simply because all my friends did. When I was 11 I stopped going to church: no big fall out, just sort of stopped going. This would have continued I guess forever, except when I was 16 I read a wayside pulpit, which said: “A Sabbath well spent, is a week of content” This saying found an agreement in my heart, and so I started going back to church with my Mum, we both went to the Primitive Methodist. Very soon after starting to attend I was asked to teach in the Sunday school, which I did willingly. At this time I was not a Christian, I had not committed my heart to the Lord, but then two events happened in my life that changed this: First, when I was 18 or;

Around 18 months or so ago I had my second Heart attack. After my treatment, I was offered the chance to see an occupational therapist as part of my Cardiac aftercare. Its main focus is how to cope with my condition, as my symptoms due to my spinal damage are hard to distinguish from Angina, It is To get me the help I need at Home and to learn to relax and reduce my stress levels. For this last task, my therapist taught me mindfulness techniques. And while it was nice every week to sit down and meditate for half an hour, it took many weeks for what she was teaching me to make sense. But over time, I learned how to put my anxieties into perspective in the real world, and learned how to cope with many worries that arise from having a time bomb in your chest. Something else happened too, however. I developed a hunger to understand more, to find myself spiritually, and internally too I felt some shifts. I became more emotionally sensitive. I began to develop compassion for other living beings. I began to develop empathy. This was overwhelming at times. I could not understand what was happening inside me. I knew it was not a breakdown, I had been through that before, and this;

I was born in Bacup in 1932 and my mother, being a staunch Methodist, taught me to pray from a very early age before getting into bed each evening so as a child I never had any doubts as to the existence of God. She also sent me to Sunday school each week and I really liked it. There was no mention of the importance of having one’s sins forgiven, however, although I learned a lot of Scripture for which I am now very thankful. I did, become, however, very interested in Jesus when I was 7 or 8 years old and at one stage really would have loved to have been with the children in Jerusalem at his triumphal entry there but sadly, none of the teachers were very interested in the wishes of individual children, so although I tried, I didn’t get much encouragement and soon gave up trying, When I moved up into another class the teacher there began to read to us the life story of Wilfrid Thomasson Grenfell who was a Doctor and keen to get the Christian message to the inhabitants of Labrador, which is the most northerly point of the American continent. He encountered great opposition though from his friends and authorities alike but in spite of this he gave up everything in;

I am married and was just 15 when my wife Lindsey met, it was at school. I have to say she is such a wonderful wife and mother, We got married in 2008 and went on to have our first child, Isaac, in 2011 and then Ethan in 2014. God and my family are everything to me. Growing up, I can’t say that I grew up in a Christian family, and that I was surrounded by Godly people and the church from the very beginning. But I was raised with a knowledge of who Jesus our Lord is, this is because throughout my childhood I was always made aware of the man of Jesus, I would read a book, my Dad had got for me called the book of bible stories which it had in it most of the stories from the bible. I was not that old when my Dad told me about God, probably 3 or 4 years old. I thank my Mum and Dad for all they have done for me throughout my life. I loved it at Easter time in our house, watching the films about Jesus. It’s such a shame these days that no one talks about the real meaning of Easter; it’s as though society has turned its back on Christianity! But not all, because;