The last 4 years have been for me perhaps the most difficult period of my life. In short, I have lost my wife, sold up everything and moved to a new city to start a new life.
This post is not about seeking sympathy but about indicating here that there has been a significant hiatus in most aspects of my life - physically, psychologically, emotionally ... and of course spiritually.
My wife got an initial cancer diagnosis back in 2012. After surgery, she was theoretically 'clear' for 5½ years, but in February 2018, we received the shattering news that there were now cancer cells spread throughout her body. She underwent all available treatments but succumbed to this hideous disease in December 2020 after a courageous battle.
42 years of living with this amazing woman ended with a crash and I was unsure if I wanted to pick up the pieces. Because of normal public hospital waiting lists in Australia - and complicated by the covid-19 pandemic surgery cancellations - at the same time as my wife's passing, I was scheduled for major surgery. The surgery went ahead in February 2021 and then I had 5 months of recuperation and repatriation.
By the grace of God, amazing healing took place over those months and I emerged from the fog in around July and took a 3-day trip to New South Wales to think about things. I'm not going into detail here; it is sufficient to say I decided to pick up the pieces and start a new life away from the trauma (and the geography) of watching my wife slowly slip away.
I signed a contract to sell our unit on the Gold Coast and move to either northern New South Wales or Toowoomba in Queensland. Just after the contract went unconditional, I fell and broke my ankle, tore the ligament and sprained the joint - all in one slip while doing the laundry. At which point I was close to asking for the earth to swallow me up. I was in a 'moon-boot' for 6 weeks while I sorted, culled, packed, stored, bought a caravan and moved out.
3 months of 'spring cleaning' my life by the Holy Spirit - itself an amazing and at times frightening journey - and I decided that with covid-19, New South Wales was not going to work, so I sought out a place in Toowoomba.
Through the profoundly amazing grace of God and the equally amazing love and support of my family and my friends, I am settled in my new place and really really enjoying my new life. It takes a lot of getting used to the changes and disruptions involved in losing a spouse of 42 years and attempting to start afresh; it has not been easy. But, in all honesty, I could not have asked for more or better than I have received: grace and help, sufficient for the need.
And today, I opened my laptop, logged on to this blog and started tapping. The BIG question that comes to me almost every day is this:
In the years that have passed since my wife became so gravely ill; and with covid-19 pandemic sapping and snapping away at us all, what have we become as a people and as a nation; and where is Australia at NOW in the plan and wisdom of God?
Sure, there are many things in my journey of grief and loss; of healing and restoration ... but perhaps those things are co-incidental to the 'main game' of what God is doing and saying at this present time.
I have for some time now been mulling over this question of what does God think of us Aussies; and where are we at in respect of what God is doing in His world. Is He a laissez-faire God - hands off and let it all happen without control or restraint? Personally - I don't think so.
But the one thing I can't escape is the perpetual feeling that we are living the title of the 2006 book by Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo: Adventures in Missing the Point. Indeed, the niggling feeling about this has been with me since 2006.
For me - at this point - it has come to a head in the present era ... an era of war and disease and pestilence and disaster:
Ezekiel 34
That's all I'm going to say at this point. I encourage everybody to read it - in a good English translation - but to do so with a humble and open heart; and not bringing presuppositions and historical baggage to the reading of it.
P.S. By the way, over the last few years there has become available a brilliant new pair of bible translations that I have come to love alongside the NASB. For reading, I've taken to using the Berean Study Bible; and for studying (alongside the NASB and Tyndale) I'm using the Berean Literal Bible.
All the best for now; catch up again soon.💞
