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Snapshots, 4th March 2025

  It was the first time my world collided with suicide. Of course I had encountered the concept before, some a little too familiarly; a colleague of my parents, her brother had put himself in the canal or maybe the river. His Dad turned his back for a minute and he took the car keys and left never to come home. My mother explained that scenario to me, she didn’t keep secrets like that. My aunt’s brother had done similar, he wasn’t found for 6 weeks. I was glad after I didn’t remember that detail until it came up in conversation years later. There are snap shots in my mind of that awful empty day, the cheery daffodils, my happy baby, the stones in the car park, the orange of the search and rescue boat, the bald head of my friend’s friend who I knew was a diver, the silence, there are no words on a day like that.   I can’t remember how I found out that morning, who told me? Of course it wasn’t the first time, it was the fourth, it wasn’t a shock in the same way that it was...
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BK/AK

  13 th April 2026   It’s at the moment of the split. The sky is blue, The clouds are billowing white, The cherry blossom is in full beauty, The stark red of tulips Glimpsed through the brittle beach hedge. The magnolia magnificent in the neighbour’s peeping around the gentle haze of green fuzz unfurling in the hedgerows. The camellia spilling its barbie pink blossoms on the gravel.   One phone call A strangled cry Spilled coffee Horror Disbelief Devastation Flinging the phone away No.   The violent end of normalcy The shattering of natural The agony of death The terror of suicide. The questions began Children still played until the pain filtered to us all. We need help, this is bigger than us. How to find words to say why The dreadful silence because there are no words No answers Each revelation only worse. No bright side. No “at leasts.” No glads. Only wrong, only pain, only defragmentation of...
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Culture of Secrecy.

  It happened again; my grief was raw and unfiltered, it looked like anger, there was hurt there. It shocked some of the people around me, one person wasn’t shocked, my feelings weren’t too much, she asked me questions and was concerned and joined in with me. The people it shocked didn’t know that level of feeling was lying just under the surface in my soul. They care about me but have no idea about the inner workings of my heart, maybe they don’t know how, on good days I choose to believe its ignorance not indifference.   It was the silence that got me again. I abhor silence, actually I crave quietness, the day before suicide so cruelly destroyed our world, Jesus gave me a word for the year ahead; “Be Still” and attached to the promise “and you will know I am God.” I clung to that promise, it all the turmoil. When everything was swirling around, all the chaos and pain and emotion and the thousands of questions, the command to “Be Still” was balm. And I can truly say I cam...
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Resurrection Sunday

  Inspired by Jacob Sherif's Easter Sunday message 2026.   The story of Jesus has the power to transform our story, John 20 v 1-10. In the beginning was God, John starts with this in his gospel and is quoting Genesis 1. Jesus’ story eclipses creation. Jesus is here to undo everything sin has destroyed, Jesus becomes personally present, in the flesh, to confront sin and destroy that which has destroyed all of creation. Jesus is presented on the Day of preparation of the lamb for Passover, day 6 of the week. It is finished. On the 7 th day He rested in the grave. It’s now the 1 st day of the week, it’s a new creation week, it’s an entirely new reality that has been born. The darkness of sin, death and destruction is defeated as the Light of the World rises. 1 John 2 v 8; “the darkness is passing away and the true light is shining.” When Lazarus rose from the dead he came out in his grave clothes but for Jesus these are left lying there useless, orderly, never to be needed ...
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