From Tragedy to Victory, Part 1

My name is Guy, I’m fifty-four years old, and I’ve been a Christian since a teenager. I was very blessed to have been brought up in a Christian household with two loving parents. I met Hazel when I was fifteen, so we were really were childhood sweethearts. And we started dating for a number of years and got married at the age of twenty-one. I have two boys.

And we moved to a little seaside town in the southwest of England called Dawlish and the whole purpose of going there was to set up a ministry called Pastors’ Pad. And that was to provide soul care and respite for people in ministry. And we have been running that since 2011 and just seeing so many incredible miracles happen through marriages saved, people set free from addiction, people being able to take churches in new directions that could really reach people for Jesus.

And as well as doing Pastors’ Pad, more so heavily involved in the local church, I’ve been in Christian leadership for pretty much most of my adult life.

Let me tell you about Hazel, my wife and our marriage. Hazel was just the kindest person that I think I have ever met. People used to say that she would light up the room and that’s what I used to love about her. she had such a heart for people, she cared so, so deeply.

She had this saying that she always wanted to leave people better off than when she first met up with them. That was her thing. She never liked to leave a conversation or an interaction in a bad place. And really, that whole heart is I guess why I fell in love with her.

We have been not just married, but we have been best of friends, we have been soul mates, we have been buddies, we have traveled through a lot, we have had so many blessed years and like every marriage, it has its ups and downs. But having that commonality of being friends as well as mission partners and as well as lovers is such a powerful combination.

My friends would describe her as just the warmest, kindest person that you’d meet. When she entered the room, you knew it, not from the noise she was making but just how her smile just drew you in. She would always work the room, she would walk around trying to find people who perhaps weren’t talking to somebody and she would go along and just ask them who they were and what their story was.

One of my favorite photographs of Hazel is when we went on holiday last year and it was over to Cornwall, which was her favorite place and she sat in this huge, sitting chair all snuggled up with a lovely scarf on, and that was her. She just loved to feel snuggled and cuddled. with a cup of tea or coffee in her hand and just talk to people. She was really, really personable. We had so many years of blessing, a lot of fun, a lot of laughter, But as every family, you do have challenges.

I think the first, hardest challenge that we had was our youngest son nearly died when he was eight weeks old to an illness. So, we know what it’s like to sit by a hospital bed for a week to two weeks wondering whether your child is going to make it through. That certainly has a very focused effect on your prayer life and certainly when you’re in that environment and there are other sick children in beds nearby. So, that was a very tough period.

But the challenges really started when our eldest was going through perhaps his mid-teenage years and that was the point that we knew something was desperately wrong. He started to withdraw a lot, he was struggling with identity in various different ways, and chose to cope with that through self-medication of drugs and alcohol. And this was one of the hardest periods for us because we just thought, What have we done as parents? You know, why is this happening? why is our eldest not talking to us? Why is he not listening to the advice that he used to? And we realized something was deeply, deeply troubling him.

And then a few years later, when the problems with substance abuse got worse, it became very clear that there were underlying mental health issues. He was diagnosed with autism. In fact, two types of autism: Aspergers and BPD, which are really complex forms of autism; they fight against each other. And this really caused him a lot of distress. He got to the point where he was very, very paranoid about all sorts of things and this paranoia then started to lead to psychosis. We probably, for the last five years, had extreme concerns about his wellbeing, he had five suicide attempts, multiple self-harm, a number of times he tripped into psychosis and became extremely threatening. And this was really, really concerning.

We didn’t really know what to do; we reached out many, many times for help. And we didn’t feel that that was coming through the normal channels.

It was at that point that he got sectioned and was put in a secure hospital. He was then released. We were really concerned about the nature of that release. Anyway, he was put into temporary accommodation, which really was pretty horrendous. Hazel would visit him frequently to help with meals and cleaning and then we managed to find him a flat where at least he could be safe and have a space that he could feel was secure for himself.

It was three weeks later and our youngest son graduated from university and we enjoyed, we celebrated that. And then as we were coming home from the graduation, we got a phone call from our eldest son saying that he really needed help cleaning the flat.

So, Hazel, being the person that she was said that she would go and do that. I had some work to do for a big church meeting coming up, and I dropped her off at the flat and went off to a café for a few hours.

At pickup time, I came to find her to pick her up and put in a phone call, but there was no answer. I got outside the flat and knocked on the door and there was no answer. I knocked again, still nothing. At this point, I didn’t necessarily think there was a problem, but I tried ringing, Hazel's phone, I tried ringing my eldest son’s phone, and there was nothing. I started to bang on the door a lot louder, shouting up to be let in and then I got a text from my eldest son saying to call the police.

At this point, my mind was just all over the place. I shouted up for him to open the door and he didn’t. I then started to bang on the door very hard. He sent another text saying, “Dad, call the police.” So, I did. And then whilst I was on the phone to the police, explaining the history, he sent me a text saying he killed her.

At that point, I totally lost it. I was kicking the door as hard as I could, screaming in the middle of the street to be let in. The police came,

They took me in the police car to a police station and I was video interviewed for an hour and a half. And then after that, they told me that she was dead. I then rang my family and my best friend came and picked me up and I got driven back home. And then I had the horrendous task of having to tell Hazel’s parents what had happened and that’s the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

I think as a father and as a husband, you have such competing thoughts going on. I mean, none of this is normal; I felt sick and numb. You go through denial, “This can’t be happening.” You feel like from a husband point of view you’ve just got this huge hole just literally that has been  ripped out of you, a sadness and pain like I’ve never experienced. In terms of me being a father, how am I supposed to feel? The person who was my soulmate has been killed by the person I promised to unconditionally love. It’s an absolute mind bend. Absolute mind bend.

I think when people go through extreme trauma, they naturally rise up, they’ve got to get stuck in and get the job done I went into that mode where I was funeral organizer to family counselor to support for my youngest son. You’ve got all these things going on and what you’re not doing is dealing with your own grief, you’re kind of putting off because you know you’ve got the most difficult few weeks coming up. You’ve just got to get through it. You’ve got to do the best that you can, you’ve got to do the best by Hazel.

But if I’m being really honest with it, in the early days after all of that was done, I completely zoned out and withdrew. Some days I would literally curl up in a ball in front of the fire and just want to go to sleep and not wake up. I would wake up frequently in the night with panic attacks just like you’re suffocating, just that sense of loss and grief is just so unimaginable. I had two bouts of PTSD which were really terrifying and it was at that point I knew I needed help.

I think the hardest thing, as a husband waking up and just seeing an empty side of the bed. Within the first week or so, there was no doubt that the thing had happened because of the things I had seen and experienced and just that level of trauma. But you wake up and that was the loneliest time, the first thing, just to see an empty bed, see her photograph by the bed, just that sense of just complete loneliness and loss.

For months I used to play worship tunes, just hours on end, I’d have my AirPods in and I’d use that to get to sleep and that would really, really help me. I listened to a lot of Brandon Lake. Gratitude was the anthem song. Choosing to raise that hallelujah, you know, when you’ve literally got nothing, nothing fit for a king. All you can do is sing from your heart and just raise your hands, raise that hallelujah. And for me, that was probably the biggest song on my playlist that was just going back and back and back, because the only way I could deal with this was just to remember the good times that we had had and that was the attitude that I chose to put on, one of thankfulness for who Hazel was and for the incredible times that we had with each other. And just recognizing that Jesus is there, He gets it, He gets the pain, and best thing I could do was just literally lift that up to Him every time.

And this fits in really with some of The A.R.T. of Survival stuff you know, that was just an incredible tool for me. Really accessible, simple, practical, And as soon as I started reading it I knew I needed to really press into this book. And sometimes I would read just a page, sometimes I would just read a couple of lines and just sit in the wisdom that was there. And other times I’d read just a whole chapter. I typed up notes on my phone so I had it all the time with me and it was, genuinely my field manual.

At times when I needed to press into it a little more than a few minutes like for an hour or so, it became my bootcamp. I would run through some of the drills that were in that book. And I think when we get into aspects of that: “A” being about attitude, that was huge for me, because every day getting up was a battle and I thought to myself, I have a choice here. I can’t change what has happened but what I can do is I can choose the attitude that I go into this day with and that I end this day with. And that was just incredibly helpful for me.

And the days when I had no words then the attitude I chose was one of gratitude and thanks. When I really didn’t feel like getting out of bed, the attitude that I chose was that I am going to get out of bed. and I’m going to go for a walk and I’m going to enjoy the beautiful countryside that’s here.

There’s this incredible but simple expression from Chip about saying that there are victims and there are survivors. And the victims ask the “why” questions. I knew I had no possible positive outcome about asking a “why” question about what had happened. It didn’t help to go into the land of “should have, could have, would have,” because there aren’t answers. And so, focusing on these “what” questions literally saying, number one, what is in my control right now? I might feel like there’s a lot spiraling out of control but right now, what is in my control?

Number two, what have I got to do to get through the next day and sometimes that was broken down to the next hour and sometimes that was broken down to the next minute. It was literally that.

And the third question, really important, was what hope do you have for the future? And I knew that whilst I couldn’t understand why this had happened to me and my family, was that through my faith I know God’s got this, I know that there’s a future, that there’s a purpose that sits out there. I can’t explain it now, but I know it’s definitely out there.

We know from James chapter 1, that when you go through hardships, if you persevere, that endurance leads to maturity. It seems like such a contradiction that you can see joy through such hardships. But it’s what I have learned and from this teaching is the joy is the outcome, it’s an outworking. And it says in verse 12 that you get the crown of life so we’re looking at the end goal. So, my joy is in that crown of life that when I go to meet God in Heaven, He can say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I have run that race, I have got through that, it was incredibly hard, but I did endure. My faith lasted out and here I am. for me, that joy is knowing the fact that I am a child of God and that I am going to be back with Hazel at some point and I’m going to spend eternity with her and with Jesus. So, keeping my eye on the third “what” question is absolutely critical.

And this is one thing as Christians we so easily go into church singing these songs about mountaintop experiences, about valley experiences, about putting it all on the altar, all of that stuff. But when it comes to it, how much is just words or stuff that goes in your head? I either trust God or I don’t. I either trust that He loves me, I either trust that He’s got a future for me and a purpose for me according to His purposes because I love Him or I don’t.

God didn’t cause this, God didn’t make this happen, but it did happen for some mysterious way this happened. I will never understand it. But it is my desire, my dream to be able to help others off the back of this experience to be able to minister to them, through their grief, and to be able to win kingdom souls for Christ.

I have had so many moments when I’ve been on my knees saying, “Lord, how do I get through this situation? How do I plan and do a funeral? How do I ID my wife’s body in the mortuary? How do I go into a courtroom where my eldest son is going to get sentenced potentially off the back of my own testimony? How am I going to go into the flat where my wife was killed and gather up all the possessions? How am I going to deal with that?”

And so, from the resource point of view, asking for wisdom in those situations from the Lord is just so critical and the thing about James chapter 1 is, asking and then not doubting and being resolute about what you think God is asking you to do and just getting on and doing it, not questioning Him.

We either trust our Creator God who made this incredible planet, but yet cares for us or we don’t. And keeping our eyes fixed upwards is sometimes the hardest thing to do, but the most essential.

There’s a really incredible sentence in one of the chapters in this book where Chip says, “Is my hope determined by the size of my problems or the certainty of God’s promises?” Wow. That’s a real leveler in terms of helping you pray through these things and really helping to focus on God’s goodness and God’s kindness.

God never wastes anything. He’s going to use this in some mighty way. He already has been. And so, for me seeing God’s perspective on this has really, really helped me steer through. And, another song that I listened to a lot, a Cody Carnes song: Christ be magnified from the altar of my life.

And I feel as though my life has been put on an altar, the situations I have had to go through, but I know God has been there, I know He has been there right by my side all the way through this. So, having that theology, that real belief in who God is and how much He cares and loves for me and for my sons.

You know, God loves my son. I love my son. And if I can see that mercy and grace and kindness that God overlays on me, how much more have I got to do so for my son in this circumstance?