MY LIFE CV

During one of my recent very restless nights, I started creating a life CV.  I was thinking about my experiences of life and realising that I have had a wealth of them. I bear some of their scars still.  I've written it from the point of view of a checklist, so as to remind me of the area in which I can identify and empathize with people. It's par t of my journey to become a pastoral assistant for which I'm currently in training. I was praying that everything I've gone through could be used to help others who are suffering and need support or just need to be understood.  So here we go :- 

• My father died when I was eleven, leaving me staring into a big black hole of insecurity
• Became part of my towns drug taking hippie community from age 14
• Abused at 14 which resulted in an abortion and the long road of coming to terms with this
• A few years of crazy mixed up mental issues, under a psychiatrist for a little while
• Joined a guru-based cult for a while - yet again, letting myself be controlled
• Left home at 17 to live with the drug dealer of my town - I've been a very bad girl..!
• At 19 I had a life changing experience with Jesus. The circumstances were  traumatic - too much to explain here. But the truth and reality of Jesus Christ and Christianity has never faded, but has been authenticated countless times over the last 50 plus years
• I decided that I wanted to be a missionary so started nursing training at Mildmay Mission hospital in the East end of London.  My nursing training was also adulthood training for me, a very good time of maturing
• Instead of going to Bible school I joined a radical Christian community in 1977.  The early years of this experience were also life changing and incredibly fulfilling - living with others who wanted to be 100% for God and live out the New testament in a real way. 
• This community then became very cultish in its practice (though not in its theology).  I am now a cult survivor as I learn in how many ways it affected my thinking and being.
• In a 12 year break from nursing, I became a commercial insurance underwriter and then insurance broker.  Quite a startling change of career but I felt a square peg in a round hole.  However, I just have had some administrative/negotiating ability..
• I made a celibate vow and then 15 years later I was released from it (by God, not humans!) However I know depths of heart searching involved in such a decision and still cry when I see Maria renouncing her nuns vows in the Sound of Music, remembering the conflict involved
• The sorrow of losing my mother just before I got married.  She was the one person who totally loved and accepted me for who I was, not for what I did or didn't do. And felt the sadness that she never knew my husband or her grandchildren 
• I met my husband in the community, we left and I got married aged 37.  He was 9 years younger than me...
• I have raised 2 beautiful children and have been blessed with all the rich experience that parenthood brings you
• The sorrow of seeing my sister die of breast cancer age 52
• I've had the adventure and challenge of moving country to France, bringing up our children there and working with the French.  (We avoided the ex-pat community and were well integrated
• I was a singer/guitarist in a French band, we performed in local bars and at charity events
• I started my own business in France but it didn't make enough money so had to work as a care assistant in a nursing home.  I faced up to the French medical authorities twice, on my own, to challenge their decision not to let me work as a registered nurse.
• 28 years of marriage gave me some insight into how to do a relationship (though with hindsight, not very well - I had a lot of baggage and so did my ex). A whole book could be written about this...
• Supporting my dear daughter through a terrible breakdown and the years of her slow recovery. The agony of seeing her pain, and not being able to take it away.  
• The deep pain of marital problems whilst still working as a practice nurse and having to be professional - this was very challenging
• The life experience of 30 years of practice nursing, seeing 20 different humans beings a day on a 1 to 1 basis with all their spectrum of needs and conditions.  Carrying a lot of responsibility in the last few years.
• Divorced at 66.  All the agony and trauma of finishing something you wanted to last to the end.  With the added stress/condemnation of it having been a christian marriage.  Plus worrying about the effect this had on the children
• I bravely started a brand new life in France after my marriage breakdown.  At least all my friends and colleagues said I was brave, I was just determined to do it.  I had more fear of driving on the motorways than of beginning again on my own - I knew God would take care of me.  And he did.  I rose back into my real self like a Phoenix from the ashes and felt more alive than I had for years.  I created lots of art that expressed my feelings and took back control - something I had not done for many years, perhaps since I was abused at 14.
• I experienced what it was like to be adored, loved and affirmed in every way in a relationship I had in France for 18 months with a lovely man who came to fix my boiler.
• I took on the responsibility of looking after a big old house and garden, taught myself practical skills, made decisions over maintenance etc etc
• However, with Mike, it was a rebound relationship for me and imbalanced - he loved me far more than I loved him.  And so the heart searching and pain that led to me deciding to end it - and his total devastation as a result. 
• A year later he committed suicide, so I know the trauma of dealing with perceived guilt plus the sorrow and regret over the tragedy of his action
• A few months later we suffered the loss of my dear brother Christopher.  There was a year of to-ing and fro-ing from France to Southampton to visit him in hospital, sort out his flat, find a nursing home for him, deal with many administrative issues, sorrow over his condition and finally his death in December 2022
• I then found myself in a state of intense loneliness, depression and anxiety living in a big French house with seemingly no purpose in my life 
• I decided to move back to England to be nearer to my daughter - she had missed me and needed me in the years I was away and I began to realize the impact this had had on her
• For the 4th time in my life, I sold or gave away most of my possessions and left one life to start another.
• I am now happily in that new life, and I could say much about that but not here!
• I've not mentioned the physical challenges, suffice to say I can empathize with those who have arthritic joint pain and need pain killers every night, those who fear they are dying of cancer because of a chronic  physical problem, those who suffer from insomnia and then the continual tinnitus which is sometimes like a roaring in my ears... I know and can understand.

So there we are. It's really just a framework, so much more could be said.I honestly am not seeking either sympathy, praise or for that matter criticism. But I think I've had quite a wide spectrum of experiences, both physical, mental and emotional that I wanted to record, but perhaps no more than other people. And to  summarize them in a way to help me file them away, after offering them to God for Him to use as He will.   I also have a quite interesting collection of inner scars, wounds and trigger points.  But, by the grace of God, Im living fairly well and free, not weighed down. Hopefully using my life experiences to inform the way I relate to people and express love to them.

As I said at the beginning, it is my prayer that the Lord will enable me to love more fully and authentically as a result of it all.

Love is the end game. All else bows the knee to this purpose and to Him, Who is Love Incarnate.