The words below I had posted elsewhere in 2008. They give a brief glimpse into a very “character building” time in our lives. Twelve years later we can see how God’s hand moved and His faithfulness kept us. We still remain close to and have many friends from those days.
Life has been strange of late. After some difficult times in the church we came to Ballymena to minster in, we moved on and have been attending another fellowship.
Green Pastures have been such a tremendous blessing in our lives and have really looked after us in what has been a tremendously testing, but blessed time.
Tracy and I have seen the faithfulness of God in ways which we knew in theory, that is the Bible told us. but now we know for ourselves that so many of His promises are true.
Many days we have woken up and have literally had to trust him for our daily bread, but every night we have gone to bed having had our “three square meals”. Praise God for His faithfulness.
As I write this, I am celebrating my 38th birthday, I am still unemployed,but I continue to be amazed by what we see Christ doing in and through our friends and family around us.
We are moving into a house next week that a wonderful Christian couple has given to us RENT FREE for a year whilst Trevor goes to work in the good ol US of A for a year.
God’s timing is impeccable, even if His answers never quite seem to be according to our understanding.
This Friday evening, my good friend Billy Morgan is hosting a Praise evening in the Washbasin in Ahoghill, to raise funds and support for his upcoming trip to Israel. please, if you know the lord, pray for Billy, he is tremendously involved in ministering to people whose lives are broken in the vice like grip of addiction.
Billy has seen one girl go off to Shechem House in Newbridge this week, and another has just recently finished the Teen challenge programme there. I count it a tremendous privilege to be allowed to minister into the lives of the likes of Billy., and humbling that they would seek my advice and counsel on occasion.
Please pray for us as I seek to find employment that would stretch me, allow us to meet our financial commitments and to give financially to the work that God is doing here and also allow me to carry on with a lot of the one on one work I have been doing of late.
Also pray for Tracy, as she manages our house, she is the one that has the burden of trying to juggle our finances at this time of faith growing. She is wonderful, and I am truly blessed to have her as a wife.
Our cute and cuddly Zoe celebrated her fifth birthday last week and just keeps on getting cleverer and cleverer by the day and goes from strength to strength in school.
Alisha continues to excel in the creative side of things, with involvement in ballet, the school choir and learning the flute. Academically she has come on amazingly since we moved to Ballymena at the beginning of January 2007.
Naomi is wonderful, two and a half years old now, I can have a full grown up conversation with her and she continues to point out the shortcomings in my behaviour like the voice of a pure conscience.
Hopefully my posts will not be as few and infrequent in the future.
Blessings
Stuart
This POST is part of a wider collection to show the journey that would eventually lead me to the cross of Jesus Christ, my personal redemption, and my journey of faith afterwards. If you would like to know more of my story, please click on my “About” page and take it from there.
Alternatively, you can visit the Media Links page and see a short visit done by BBC Radio Scotland for an interview I did there.
I have now released an early edition of my story, Completing the Tenner.
I have also published two poem books: Simply Jesus and Five Weeks in May
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If you or someone you love, needs help with the Christian response to addiction, or if you would just like to know more or need hope, please click on one of the following:
The Haven
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Bethany Christian Trust
Jumping Jacks Outreach
Cornerstone Assemblies of God, Maryland
Broken Chains Ayr
Easterhouse Community Church
Stuart Patterson
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Completing the Tenner 