JOHN'S JOURNEY

Hey guys, hope you’re all keeping well and not going crazy in lockdown and are buzzing off all your online school work. I really miss hanging out with you all and can't wait for some Mario Kart and Exploding Kittens soon. 

For me, Christianity has always been a part of life. I was born into a Christian home, with very godly parents; I count this such a blessing. 

Through school, Christian life was made somewhat easy as I went to a Christian school. Although it was a Christian school, it was far from perfect, however, every day we spent time with Jesus at school and all of our teachers knew and loved God. To me, this was really important and helped me through my teenage years. I stayed in this school until fifth year and completed my GCSE’s and then after this, I went to Lurgan College. 

However, life for me was going to start to change in a drastic way just as I was leaving fifth year. My dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2005, when I was 15. For the first year, he seemed to be making real progress and surgeries and treatments all seemed to be working and going well. However, the second year of his illness wasn’t just as smooth. Dad lost his battle with cancer on 25th July 2007. 

For me, this was a pivotal time in my life; I was 17. This is the point in any young man’s life where they should be out driving about with their mates. I was starting to adjust to life without my dad. 

Whenever you are faced with something this big and impactful in your life, there are two really common paths that people take in their Christian walk with God. You can either get really angry at God and turn your back on him or you can just run to Him. I used to jump between these paths almost daily for the first few months. However, as I wrestled with God on why my dad had to be taken from us, I realised that God was ok to handle my anger and that being angry at Him didn’t mean I had to turn away from Him. 

When you start to realise that God is your Father as much as your earthly dad is, and that God’s love is boundless towards you and He loves you more than any earthly love, you start to find your identity as a child of God, centred within the love of the Father heart of God. Then, you can hand all your concerns, fears, worries, anger and every single thing that you’re carrying over to your Heavenly Father and his is able to carry you through. 

I know I shared a lot of this one night at Collective when I was on the panel, but my dad was an incredibly Godly man and he never faltered through his whole illness right up to the point where God took him home. He always knew that God was in control and whatever happened, it was His plan for his life. The whole way through his illness, dad used to remind us all of Romans 8v28 where it says “ALL things work together for good, for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose”. It doesn’t say “some things”, but it says “ALL things”. This includes the bad things, even the loss of someone we love. 

The world we live in looks very different today than it did only a few short weeks ago. With that has come a lot of different emotions and everyone is dealing with lockdown in their own way. Whatever emotions you’re currently having right now, God can handle them. He is bigger than this, and “every name will bow before the name of Jesus” (Philippians 2v10) and that includes names like stress, worry, anxiety, COVID-19. Every single name. 

So today, as you read this, no matter what you are dealing with; maybe someone in your family is sick, or maybe you have lost someone recently, remember that Father God is able to deal with everything. He shoulders are big enough to carry it all, and He is able to deal with your anger and still love you with His boundless love.