Tag: love

Answered Prayer: Finding a life partner

Published on by Poppy Fair1 Comment

True story: In November 2022, during a night of lots of crying, I prayed that God would send me a family. Two days later someone from church asked me on a date. Ten months later, I married said someone. 

I’ve promised you the highs and lows of the past two years, and I’m delighted to say that this is the happy story of how I found my life partner, Shem Fair. 

A God that hears prayers 

“And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.” (Luke 7:13)

A little background behind why I was crying out to God in that November 2022. I haven’t seen my dad since I was three years old, and he passed away in 2020. My mum, at this time, had Stage 4 cancer and it was only so long until she passed away too. Family relations with others were fraught and difficult. It felt like the little family I did have was slipping away. 

And so I cried out to God. I told Him that I was ready now, ready to have my own family. I needed something to look ahead to, everything was feeling very dark. 

I am so thankful for the power of prayer. God doesn’t always answer prayer in the way that we expect but He always listens. He is our refuge, an ever-present help in times of trouble (Psalm 46). 

But this time, He did answer my prayer – quite quickly and quite miraculously. Within two days of this emotional, late night scene, Shem asked me out on a date. 

Feeling like an Israelite 

Now, you’d think that after the prayer I’d prayed, I would have been very happy about all of this. Well actually, it sent me into a bit of a mini-break down. I didn’t know what to do and it all seemed rather scary. 

I did like Shem, very much. We’d grown closer and become quite good friends, often spending most of our Sundays together. I was happy about his request to get to know each other better, and yet I still felt fear. 

I reminded myself of the Israelites in the Old Testament. God had just freed them from being poorly-treated slaves in Egypt (you may be familiar with the story), and they were wandering in the desert on their way to the Promised Land. 

In Exodus 16:3, the Israelites complained, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted.”

So what did God do? He rained down bread (manna) from heaven to feed His people. But the Israelites still weren’t happy, in Numbers 11:4-6 they cried out, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.”

Although God was hearing and answering their prayers, the Israelites were still miserable and distrusting of God! This is a bit of a digression, I know, but I wanted to just highlight that sometimes when God is answering our prayers, we don’t always notice it. It’s our natural instinct to run in fear or complain, rather than stand firm and trust in Him. 

A Timeline of Shem 

The following days after Shem’s proposition, I spent time praying around making the right decision. I had just prayed for a family, and the timing of his asking felt very apt. But I didn’t want to get too carried away. I decided that whether Shem would be the one I married or not, it was good to take that first step and go on a date with him.

One of the reasons for my fear and anxiety was because I had a lot going on with everything happening with Mum. I, understandably, wasn’t sure if it was the right time to get into a relationship. 

But Shem was very patient and understanding of this. We decided to do regular check-ins to determine our feelings around the relationship. In January 2023, we officially became ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’. 

As Christians, we both felt that you date to marry. If you don’t want to marry the other person then it’s best to let them know ASAP to not waste each other’s time. Shem was always very forthright about this, and it often meant a direct line of questioning. On our second date, we were discussing marital roles and how we envisage the future. 

A snapshot from the happy couple's engagement. The author is showing her engagement ring on here finger with two glasses of champagne and a sunset in the background. The location of the picture is a field on Kelston Round Hill in Bath.

By April 2023, the conversations around marriage turned into conversations around our marriage and what that could look like. On 29th May 2023, Shem proposed at Kelston Roundhill, as the sun went down. 

Finally, we needed to decide on a wedding date – this came with a lot of difficulties, which I’ll talk about another time. We wanted Mum to be at the wedding but her health was rapidly deteriorating. We decided on 23rd September 2023 – sadly Mum died before this time. 

But God had answered my prayer. Amongst the sorrow and grief of losing my only parent, God had provided me with a new family, a fresh start, and a brighter future to look forward to. 

God has taught me so much through my relationship with Shem, and I’m really excited to share with you all. He has been so gracious in offering me a life partner that has helped me through the last few months since Mum passed away. And thank you also to Shem, for your love, support and ongoing patience.

There is so much more that I could say around this so I think I’m going to have to break this love story down – keep an eye out for more posts around this.

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfils the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them.” (Psalm 145:18-19)

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Learning to love, even when it’s hard

Published on by Poppy Fair2 Comments

As humans, we have an innate habit of responding selfishly. We naturally look at a situation through a blinkered lens that focuses on our own feelings and not others. When faced with challenges, we react rather than think. 

One of the biggest things I’ve learnt, and am still learning, over the last couple of years is learning to love especially when it’s hard. I still haven’t perfected this, and it’s something I’ve really been struggling with this week, so I thought I’d put down some of my thoughts around the topic. 

So first of all, how can we define love? 

What comes to mind when you think of love? Motherly love? Brotherly love? Puppy love? It comes in many different forms, and I think our definition of love is greatly influenced by films and songs. 

Very Well Mind describes love as “a set of emotions and behaviors characterized by intimacy, passion, and commitment. It involves care, closeness, protectiveness, attraction, affection, and trust”. They claim that it is one of the most studied behaviours, but the least understood. 

Similarly, most dictionary definitions describe love as a “strong feeling” or “passionate affection”. It’s all very ‘feeling’ based. But what if love is more of an action than an emotion?

The Bible talks a lot about love but I think it is summarised well in the famous verses of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: 

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

When I am struggling to love, I look back on these verses. How can I be patient and kind? Are my feelings coming from envy, pride, or selfishness? Am I trying to honour this person, or am I self-seeking? 

But most of all, love delights in truth. This means that sometimes, being loving means saying truthful things that are difficult to say. But not saying them from selfish ambition, but because you want what is good and honourable for that person. 

Now, I don’t always do this well. Often, when in the heat of the moment, I am easily angered, I do think about all the ways a person has wronged me, or sometimes I just want to give up on someone and not persevere in love. But it’s helpful to remember that this is not what we’re called to do. 

Under the heat

I think when facing trials is when we can be the most unloving. In the first few months after Mum was diagnosed with cancer, there were some rather rocky times. Getting such a scary diagnosis is hard. There were times when Mum really lashed out at others. It was also tough for family and friends, sometimes we lashed out at each other too. 

God sees, knows and understands the difficulties we face, the Bible often refers to these as “burdens”. When facing trials, the human in us wants to lash out at each other, but what does God call us to do? Love one another through them.

“Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” (1 Peter 3:9)

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves.” (Romans 12:9-10) 

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

Showing love when it’s hard

This is all very easy to say but when you’re in the thick of it and strong feelings of anger, hurt and pain are present, it’s a lot harder to love. I’ve been in situations where I think I’m showing people love and yet I’ve been hurting them, or the loving thing isn’t what they want to hear. What then? 

Well, when I’m finding it hard to love, that’s when I think about the love of Jesus, and His command for us: 

“Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:12-23) 

Now, it’s not often we’re in a situation where we actually have to die for each other. But how about: lay down one’s pride; lay down one’s anger; or lay down one’s envy. If Jesus died for us and showed the greatest love in that, and that’s the way we’re called to love, is it really that difficult to put aside our selfish ambitions? 

Well the answer to that is yes, it is – because we’re human! But thankfully, by recognising the difficulty to do this, and asking God to help us, we can respond in love, even when it’s really tough. 

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6) 

But sometimes we really don’t want to show love to someone. They’ve hurt us or wronged us, and we want to harbour that discontent towards them. And that’s when I also think of Jesus, I don’t love for me, I don’t love for other people, “I love because He first loved me” (1 John 4:19). 

So, there are my thoughts. This was all rather Bible verse heavy, I know. But when I’m facing such a challenging issue, I’m so very grateful for the wealth of help and knowledge that’s offered in the Bible.  

I’ve definitely felt challenged writing this, and it’s been really helpful to reflect on. So just one more verse that I want to take away from all of this: 

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

Responding to a Cancer Diagnosis: The beginning of Mum’s battle with cancer

Published on by Poppy Fair2 Comments

Here I am writing again, look at me go! I guess the tips from my last post have been somewhat effective. Something else that helped me schedule in time to write was starting to think about what I would write, which I found rather difficult at first. I have a lot to write about, but how to communicate it in an orderly fashion, that’s the challenge. 

Well, as I mentioned before, my last year or so has been particularly eventful so I thought I’d start at the beginning of that – my mum’s cancer diagnosis. Some tough stuff to talk about but I think it’ll be good to reflect on it, and I pray that my experience can be helpful to others too. So here we go…

10th May 2022

Mum had a lump. It turns out she had had a lump for quite a while but due to the busy-ness of life, and the chaos of the ‘Covid years’, she didn’t go to get it checked. In the months of March – April 2022, Mum was changing career from co-ordinating expeditions up Kilimanjaro to training to be a taxi driver – quite the dramatic change. This seems irrelevant, I know, but this shift of career was more life changing than you can imagine. To become a taxi driver, there are all sorts of tests you need to do – including medical. During her full body examination, Mum’s lump was found. 

A small reflection on this: God really does work in mysterious ways. What a random change of career – expedition co-ordinator to taxi driver. But if it wasn’t for the providence of this timing, who knows when Mum’s diagnosis would have come about.

So anyway, at this point all we knew was Mum had a lump on her left breast and it needed to be checked. On 10th May 2022, Mum had a confirmed breast cancer diagnosis that was “at least” at Stage 3 but we were waiting for further test results. These results later confirmed that Mum was HER2+, meaning that the cancer would grow more quickly. A month later, it was discovered that the cancer was at Stage 4 because it had spread to her lymph nodes on the right side. 

Responding to a diagnosis 

A diagnosis effects many people in many ways. As soon as there was any mention of cancer, I sought advice from online resources and found Macmillan’s “Supporting Someone” page particularly helpful – it really talks through the emotions of the person receiving a diagnosis, which is useful to understand if you want to support them well. Personally, I feel that I responded in the following ways: 

  1. Being there – My mum lived in North Devon and I live in Bath – sometimes being there didn’t mean physically. Even before a confirmed diagnosis, I phone and messaged Mum regularly. I wanted her to feel supported and seen. I travelled down on the day of her diagnosis, and then rather regularly as her journey transpired. It was important to me that Mum knew she wasn’t going through this alone.

  2. Research – There’s a lot of terminology that comes alongside a diagnosis. This can be confusing. There is also a lot of information on the internet – plenty of which can be rather unhelpful, and cause more anxiety and fear than is needed. I did research terminology to gain a basic understanding, but I tried to not go down any rabbit holes of what symptoms and longer term prognosis looks like. I felt that the most important research I could do was practical stuff. How can I support Mum emotionally? What’s helpful and unhelpful to say? What are the likely emotions I will feel during this time, and how could I process these?

  3. Faith and prayer – In moments of such uncertainty the only way I know how to respond is by praying – and when I say praying, I don’t mean praying that this bad thing will go away. I mean praying that God will give the strength to get through such a storm. Recognising through prayer that I know God sees past these current events, and He will carry me through to the other side. Praying that Mum will remember who God is and that He’ll be with her when everything feels dark and scary. To pray such things, had wondrous results. I had to keep reminding myself that death, pain and suffering is not the way that God wanted this world to be, and it pains Him as much as it pained me. This scary situation was an opportunity to draw closer to God, who wants to comfort and love me through such situations – what a hope to hold on to.

  4. And finally, choosing love – This is going to be a recurring theme as I discuss Mum’s cancer journey because during this whole experience, I think I’ve learnt the many forms that choosing love can take. I also learnt that the best way to know how to love Mum and the people around me, was by remembering who Jesus is and how He chose to love me. To love well, you must take a real look at your own heart, where your intentions lie, and who you are doing things for. Sometimes choosing to love someone means saying the hardest truths, sometimes it means not saying anything. But overall, I knew that the best way I could love Mum during this devastating time, was by pointing her to Christ and the love that He has for her. 

As I said above, a diagnosis affects many people in many ways. It’s tough news to receive and nobody responds perfectly. I’ve not written this to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t do. I just want to reflect, process and share my story of how I responded during a pretty tough time. 

I shared the below verses with Mum on the day of her diagnosis, and how true they remained throughout her cancer journey: 

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39

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A picture of the author in graduation attire with her mother that has passed away, stood in from of Bath Abbey.