Life has a habit of not always going the way you want it to. Things seem to being going along okay and then suddenly something comes up and smashes you in the face. Times like this aren't easy but are a common human experience. They shake us to the core and make us question who we are and our deepest held beliefs.
The song I want to share with you today was written by me after a time when my life was shaken to the core - twice. Actually the experiences of that time still affect me to this day. Bad experiences have a way of doing that. There are some things in life from which we never fully recover. There may be a degree of healing over time, but the scares are still there and we are not quite the same as the person we were before.
It all started back in December 2005 when I began to suffer health issues. The problem was that no one really had any idea what was going wrong with me. I had gone from regularly working 14 hour days, to struggling to do minor things for 14 minutes! I had problems with walking, I developed tic like movements, and numerous other unexplained symptoms. I saw numerous doctors and had numerous test done on me, but nothing significant was found. The nearest I got to a diagnosis was one of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or, as it is usually referred to, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). I had to give up a job I loved and have never worked again since. At nearly 63 years old I'm now unlikely to.
For someone who had always worked and provided for his family, the loss of work was a huge thing to cope with. I know this is old fashion, but as a man, I saw providing for my family as a part of who I am. Not having tests that showed what was going wrong with my body just made it worse. It felt like I must be making it all up when i knew I wasn't. I have since developed other illnesses that are understood by the medical profession, but that's another story.
Losing my health was nothing compared with the next thing that was to hit me and my family. In September 2008 my eldest son died, he was two months away from his 26th birthday. I won't go into any details at this time, although I may write about what happened at a future date, all I will say now is that it was sudden and completely unexpected.
This song was written about 4 years after we lost David. My family and I had been through one of the worse things that anyone has to deal with. Although suffering is suffering and I'm not sure it's helpful to compare one persons suffering with another. I questioned everything I believed. I had been through anger, pain, doubt, regret and just about every emotion that comes with grief. However, strange as this may seem, even in the depths of despair I knew that God was with me in it. I know that such an idea may seem trite to some people, but all I know is that I don't know how I would have got through this dark period in my life without the knowledge that God was with me in my suffering. That, although I have no explanations as to why suffering happens, he never let me go and still keeps hold of me.
So this song expresses my faith but I hope that doesn't put you off listening to it. Like the other songs I've shared, this one is also sung by Marri Nallos. Marri took my recording of me singing it with my croaky, not very good voice, and sang it with passion and feeling. I hope you enjoy listening to it even if you don't share the songs sentiments.
The picture was created by me using Wombo Dream, an AI Art program. I have all rights to the song and video.