How can you rediscover hope when devastation and failure tear your life apart? Becky Sedgwick from Parenting for Faith relates her personal experiences in this candid account prompted by a walk in a wood…
20 June 2021
A perfect place
We have a wood near our house where I often walk. It’s a small wood, managed brilliantly by a group of volunteers, and I love it!
I suppose if a child drew a wood it would be just like this one. It has a small shallow stream that winds through a little valley, clear water perfect for splashing through with wellies. There’s a pocket-sized hill covered with tall beech trees that grow perfectly straight, upwards to the sky. There’s a tiny waterfall where water rushes out of the hillside.
There are crooked steps climbing back out of the valley to a meandering path which leads to a wooden bridge where children sit, legs swinging, daring each other to jump into the pool of water below. There’s a lake with ducks and geese which twists and turns around the marshy ground that surrounds it, full of rushes and marsh marigolds.
In the spring there are snowdrops everywhere. As you walk, you can hear woodpeckers drumming on the trees above and if you are here at dusk, bats swoop to and fro seeking their evening meal. And somewhere hidden in the trees are foxes, badgers and deer.
Devastation and ruin
A couple of winters ago there was one of those great storms, with howling, powerful winds. The next morning I got up, put the lead on the dog and set out for the wood as usual – and my heart sank. It was so damaged.
Trees had crashed violently to the ground, tearing branches off their neighbours as they fell. Habitats had been torn apart. The crooked steps had been crushed under the weight of a great tree. The path by the little stream was completely blocked, tree after tree lying across it, creating great gaps where they’d stood. One had fallen, leaving behind a section of its trunk standing apart, jagged and sharp and painful, its raw white inner wood sharply contrasting with the dark foliage behind. I was gutted. My beautiful wood, ruined.
‘Jagged and sharp and painful… just like my beautiful wood, my life had come crashing down.’
When life comes crashing down
Unexpectedly I found myself transported back to 20 years earlier, when my marriage ended, and I was left a single parent with my young daughter. My overwhelming memory of that time is guilt. Guilt because I’d let her down. Guilt because she wouldn’t have the life she should have had. Guilt because she’d seen and heard things she shouldn’t have had to. Just like my beautiful wood, my life had come crashing down, ripping into the good things, devastating our world.
And that’s the thing. In my head I had constructed this perfect world I was going to create for my family. Mum and dad. Security, peace, joy, encouragement, everything my multiple children would need to grow up happy and well. I had planned it, prepared for it, done all I could to make it happen – but had failed. My daughter and I were homeless and penniless, and I had lost control of our lives. I didn’t feel worthy to parent her, let alone parent her for faith. So I grieved.
‘I had lost control of our lives.’
New life emerges
But through my beautiful wood, God gently showed me that it was okay. Over the next few months, as I walked, he pointed out what he was doing. Trees that had fallen across the stream had become bridges for small animals to cross. Some of the big branches had been pushed to the side to create guidelines for the pathways. A curious bird hopped out from under the shelter of a broken bough, and piles of rotting branches provided feasts for insects.
And there was new life too – fungi and small ferns growing from the stumps, the old wood full of nourishment. In the marshy ground, a robin, head cocked, stood on a branch that provided a safe foothold. In the upturned roots of a fallen giant, spiders wove intricate webs and tiny mammals made homes. My wood, no longer squeaky clean, was breathtakingly beautiful, full of opportunity, life, shelter, creativity and sustenance.
‘My wood, no longer squeaky clean, was breathtakingly beautiful.’
God turns brokenness into perfection
You see, there’s no such thing as the perfect world our children need to inhabit. We are sucked in by the stuff we see and read – how to furnish your baby’s bedroom; 50 books your kids must read; how to create the best summer holiday; ways to grow a happy family. I wanted that for me, for my family – and somewhere deep down I believed that I needed it to be like that so that I could parent for faith.
But God showed me that out of what we see as devastation, imperfection and failure, he brings so many good things, things that make us richer and stronger as we let him nourish and grow us. From our brokenness, so much can come. And far from stopping me parenting my daughter for faith, God showed me that my imperfect life is the perfect place to show her all that God has for her.
‘From our brokenness, so much can come.’
Not long ago, I heard that a friend’s marriage had broken up. They looked like the perfect family, loving and serving God together. This is for you, my friend, and for all of you in that place. You may feel like a storm has ripped open your life, crushed your dreams, taken away the possibility of doing things properly, destroyed your ability to parent, let alone parent for faith. But remember the wood.
Becky Sedgwick is the Parenting for Faith local coordinator, having previously been a children and families’ worker for nine years at St James’ Church, Devizes, where she ran Parenting for Faith courses.
Parenting for Faith believes that no matter what their life situation, it’s through parents and carers that God wants to reach their children. Through this fast-growing ministry, thousands are finding new confidence, inspiration and ideas for how they can help children and teens find God in everyday life. Many describe Rachel Turner’s three Parenting for Faith books as transformative: this amazing-value omnibus edition is the ideal companion for anyone on this journey.
‘The wonder of this book is its searing honesty. Through the lens of her own life-changing loss and learning from Habbakuk’s journey through profound pain, Mags helps us see how we might come to trust the goodness of God amid heart-rending devastation and chaos.’
Tracy Cotterell, London Institute for Contemporary Christianity
Do you have a passion for helping families find Jesus? Do you have a heart for those who feel their lives are too ‘messy’ for traditional church? Or who just don’t get the culture? That’s what Messy Church is all about – providing a creative, welcoming, hospitable, Christ-centred and celebratory space where all shapes and sizes, ages, backgrounds and abilities can journey together towards Christ – wherever the individual’s starting place.
