Six months of gurning. Six months of face-twisting sipping as I slowly acclimatised to sugarless tea and coffee. Through embittered lips I’d send fierce thought arrows to God.

‘I’m doing this for you, you know, to let you know I’m really sorry I messed up’.

Yes it was an unfair accusation – because it was my choice. But I figured it was the price I had to pay.

My whole life I’d ladled in heaped spoonsful of sugar to many, daily hot sweet drinks, so this was a significant step to take…OK, so I’m over dramatizing slightly- but it really did take a long time to actually get to the point of enjoying a cuppa again.

And all the time God was silent.

I was apparently doing this for a silent, faceless God. Not even one who was powerful or loving enough to send unexpected gifts along the way to sweeten the process. Not a sausage of encouragement.

Except that, unexplainably he felt so real I couldn’t actually give up and say ‘s*d it’ I’m not that sorry.

Because I was.

Sorry for hurting other people, sorry for letting myself down.

Sorry for making bad decisions.

Sorry that other people had dumped their rubbish onto me.

Sorry for beating myself up all the time.

Sorry that life had dealt too many raw deals. 

Sorry for so much that had mis-shaped my life.

Sorry I’d not been just better…

Just sorry…

I knew deep down in the deepest core of my ‘knower’ that there must be a brighter, kinder, more fulfilled way to live.

A yearning to start afresh which somehow involved wiping the slate clean. Show this God who’d been little more than a legend, a myth and peripheral to my life that I was serious.

I needed to find a way forward – to find some peace, discover who I was, who God was.

There was a God-shaped hole in my life and I needed to discover how to fill it.

Then one day I slurped my morning cuppa, it tasted good, like tea was supposed to taste.

And I smiled and slurped again

And I felt God smile as I allowed the warmth to slip down my throat.

His warmth spread right through me as I reflected on the cost of that need to show him how sorry I was. It was as if he wrapped his warm love right around me and said. ‘Welcome home… I’ve watched and wondered, would you, could you do this? It wasn’t my test it was yours and you succeeded, now here we are… drinking tea together and it’s all right.’

Over the next few months nothing changed, yet everything changed.  I still ricocheted from one dilemma to another, but was that a light at the end of the tunnel? Sadly not, it was a metaphorical huge steam locomotive belching smoke and blaring whistles about to run me over.  It would be so easy to say my sugar-free life became smoother after I did my deal with God, Sadly not. I still lurched from strain to stress but was it my imagination or in the worst of times could I almost feel some kind of gentle awareness around me? Not a ghost or spooky kind of presence, just an awareness of kindness, of strength and peace beyond my own reservoirs of kindness, strength or peace. Perhaps I was just daydreaming…Trouble is, when the locomotive of life comes steaming towards you it tows a waggon load of hassle complete with a dumper truck of old hurts to compound everything. So unravelling everything I needed to unravel and dealing with everything I needed to deal with wasn’t going to be a quick fix or simple job. There was a lot of angst and issues to unpack and dump.

After a day’s work I’d go for a walk round the village and sit on the park bench by the canal to clear my head. One specific summer evening I got chatting to a lady I’d not met before. It turned out to be a life changing chat. She was lovely and apparently a trained counsellor and bizarrely a Christian who had recently moved to the village with her newly retired vicar-husband.  In an unguarded moment I started pouring out a little of life’s current woes. Her response was to listen without interrupting or judgement. The next day, she popped a note through my letterbox with her phone number and an offer to give me a weekly slot for counselling at a much reduced rate to help me untangle my thoughts and reactions.  It was a timely, practical and un-patronising response and just what I needed even though I’d never considered counselling before.

After my Big Gesture to God giving up sugar I’d not actually embraced any further spiritual ramifications or thought more deeply what that was about or for. However I’d saved  myself an average of twenty spoonsful of sugar a day so that wasn’t a bad thing and I’d met a someone who was the perfect helping hand when I needed it. I reckon God has a vastly different time table to ours, and he was happy to wait until I was ready to take the next step. I also reckon God is a gentleman so he doesn’t force where he’s not welcomed, and his technique for making himself known uses more of the ‘carrot’ than ‘stick’ way of moving forward. He’s a God of infinite patience but when he steps up the game it’s usually rather challenging and not uninteresting…

The post 2. After the Porch first appeared on Bryony Wood.

Unforgiving slashes of rain chill the hot tears on my cheek.

Head down, hands stuffed into shallow pockets I am wandering the streets because I cannot bear to be at home nursing well developed anger and despair. With leaden steps, I drift towards the parish church, past that row of cottages that look so pretty in the daylight, but are now silent and dark.

The ancient wooden doorway offers some hope of shelter as oblivious friends snuggle blissfully in their cottagey cocoons.

Alone in the musty, dusty porch I curl in the corner away from the wind and rain, sitting amid plastic coated parish notices. Drips of water run down my neck; flippin’ raindrops on flippin’ roses. Huh! My shoes squelch after trampling through unseen puddles.

The hurried scuffle coming from the far corner shoots a wave of adrenaline. My eyes strain to see whose furry territory I am invading. Actually, after the initial instinctive panic and peering, I can’t care enough to find out.

I am supposed to be at the peak of my life, young enough to change the world and old enough to know how. I am supposed to be happy and successful, but my grubby halo slipped and strangling every word I have given up saying.

All I wanted was to be a nun or saint.

How did it all go so wrong?

In utter weariness, I close my eyes and remember.

Green hills, blue sky and sunshine, someone running across alpine meadows, dancing with arms outstretched and singing surprisingly well. Was that Julie Andrews or was it me? Memories mix with dreams. It seemed so simple back then; be a nun, find my purpose in life, possibly discover a rich husband, love his children and above all, run free across mountains wearing a dress made out of curtains. Blissful childhood naivety gone sour. I had tried singing about my favourite things, but things still felt bad, really bad. I had attempted to climb every mountain but that just led to exhaustion, my confidence levels were so low that I had no grain of confidence in me– or anyone else for that matter…

The Sound of Music was more than just a film when I was a kid looking for inspiration and meaning.

I soon grew up from being a mere eight-year-old to a wiser ten-year-old when nuns and edelweiss became so boring. For a short while Maria, the singing nun was upstaged by Joan of Arc, she was a proper Heroine, with a capitol H. Much more gratifying than a curtain-wearing nun. I had even been to France. I was a fickle child and went from the singing nun to a burning heroine and developed new aspirations to be like Joan- because we shared Saint potential.

Taking tips from my Ladybird ‘Book of Saints’, I listened out amid bedroom teddies and Osmond posters to the silence, hoping to hear a voice from God. I practiced being tied to the stake. Well, not literally tied to a stake, but standing in front the mirror, bravely ignoring imaginary flames licking my body. Ten years old and dreaming of God’s call. Dreaming I might be special.

‘Saint Bryony’ had a most satisfactory ring.

The memory fades and now in the cold corner of a village church porch, in the cold reality of failed relationships and generally failed life, there was no heroine to inspire, no hero to save me. Saint Joan had long been relegated to gather Ladybird dust on a forgotten shelf. Maria’s mountains and meadows, and distant childhood dreams of being ‘someone’ had all vanished in a cold, bitter clutch of reality. Thirty years old and hiding in a doorway. Disillusioned, depressed, and divorced. Not special.

Not a saint by any stretch of imagination. Just rubbish, discarded and lonely.

Moreover, it was all my fault. I’d not played the game by the same rules that Maria or Joan did.

I had tried so hard to be good. Actually, for some time I’d tried really, really hard to get things right, but just couldn’t make the grade. There was clearly no hope of being a saint. I would even struggle to qualify for basic sinner status.

They had followed God’s plan, Maria and Joan. I had ignored him.

God had never spoken to me; I guess he was, is, so disgusted with me that even in his church, there would be no comfort.

Looking back, am I surprised how some very deep instinct must have been beckoning me to find this place to shelter, to this place of all places?  Although instead of finding a warm, fuzzy sanctuary, all I heard was a mocking, cold, mean voice telling me how pathetic I was; how nothing could ever be right again. I wallowed in my own misery while the church clock ticked and clunked round another chimeless hour.

Tick tock clunk…Tick tock clunk…

They say the night is darkest just before dawn.

That night, before the sun even thought of waking up, the slowest dawning of hope started to stir in the pit of my being.

From somewhere beyond the walls of a church porch, a quiet sense of gentleness seemed to whisper hope into a lost and broken heart. Something promised a glimpse of peace. A warm blanket of reassurance gently rested around my shoulders, tucking in well beneath every goose bump. Lingering sobs quietened and I lay back against the stone corner. Was that a dot of light somewhere at the end of this tunnel?

Surely, there was something I could do, to make a fresh start?

Fingers curling in anticipation of action… feet starting to twitch ready to step forward…Dawn breaking through into the darkest night. Something I could do to determine a new beginning? Find a way to climb out of this black hole?

And slowly, ever so slowly, I began to formulate a plan. Something needed to kick start my emotional rehab, to make proper retribution, be find a suitable punishment to make amends, and show this God, who was somewhere beyond my reach, that I was seriously sorry.

That’s was making the presumption Maria and Joan’s mystical God was actually real.But drastic situations called for drastic solutions.

I would give up taking sugar in my tea and coffee.

The post 1. From Saint to Sinner first appeared on Bryony Wood.