8th July

I reckon that at long last I’m beginning to relax. I still feel totally exhausted and even a short walk leaves me feeling a little dizzy, so that means completely crashing out and I’m glad I got extra food in yesterday as I really have no energy for doing anything at all. I suppose it’s called unwinding and letting the tension out and I’ve not left the campsite today. I’ve basically read a lot and even done a watercolour painting. I’ve learned to talk the talk so I could pretend it’s in the Naïve or Outsider Art genre but that wouldn’t be honest so let’s confess it really is an almost child-like beginner’s piece of work. But that’s where I’m at and I felt nicely relaxed pushing my watercolour pencils and then a wet brush around a suitably crinkled sheet of paper, so who cares.

My parents have decided I make nice coffee so they called on me a couple of times today and that ended up with a marathon computer lesson… not!  They’re completely computer illiterate and even though they own a PC they can’t do much more than switch it on, but they remain fascinated by the internet so I gave them the tour. The Google Maps drive down a relative’s road in Australia, a glimpse of their grand-daughters Facebook world, the peregrine falcon webcam on Derby cathedral, a hint of Amazon shopping and the wonders of U-Tube… it was all there, until my dad insisted on understanding the mechanics of posting a blog and then I lost them.

The past few weeks, months and even years have been so incredibly stressed after living with an on-going death sentence over my wife that it’ll take a lot for me to really let go but I know I need to. I have an opportunity to start again and believe that in Christ I have everything needed to change my life… as I suppose I’ve always had. My life has been wonderfully blessed in so many ways and yet there have always been challenges and some big mistakes made as well. I ended up in a job that never made me happy for 27 years or so… why? I sometimes wonder if the ridiculous stress levels I put myself under at work for all those years don’t have some bearing on my contracting M.E. And now I’ve had this so called ‘incurable’ mystery illness for 12 years and maybe, just maybe if I can now side-step heavy stress I might at least take a step forward in managing the condition, or even being healed. That’s a hope I’ll never give up on.

Job 6:8 ‘Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for.’ (NIV)