Well here we go. New years resolution for me is to start a blog. Why I ask myself? Will anyone actually read it? Who knows but here we go.
I'm Hazel, obviously, I'm a 30 something wife and mother. I have two brilliant boys called William and Andrew who I love to bits.
It's my spiritual journey that I really want to blog about though although I am sure some other bits and pieces will creep in here over the next few months.
I became a Christian 2 1/2 years ago and I was Baptised in water just before Christmas 2 years ago. As part of that wonderful day I gave the following testimony.
I am really
pleased that so many of my family and friends are hear today.
Accepting God into my life has been a big change for me and is
something that I want to share.
It was Dawn who has also been baptised today who invited me to the Ark. My son William had just started Charlton school and I thought it would be nice for him to go to Sunday school sometimes being as he was going to a chuch school. Dawn said that her family came to the Ark and I was glad that there would be at least one friendly face as it is hard going somewhere new be it a new toddler group with Andrew, William starting school or coming to Church.
It is not that I had never been to church before. My parents are not regular churchgoers but always let both my sister and I decide for ourselves. My sister has been a regular churchgoer for many years and I have always admiered her faith but never felt that it was for me. I was not ready to accept God's invitation.
Secondary school for me was a very difficult time. Emotional bullying became such a part of my life that it made me feel very worthless. Whether it was because of my sight problems and the extra help I needed at school or just because I made an easy target as I did not have many friends I do not know. If it had not been for my friend Lisa who was a bit of an outsider like me I am not sure I would be here
speaking to you all today.
Just as I left secondary school and was about to start my A levels my sister was christened and confirmed but again I did not feel that this was my path. I felt that I was clearly not good enough and maybe that was why I had been put though such difficult times at school.
For my A levels I went to a boarding school just for visually impaired children. At last I thought I would be accepted as who I was and would make friends easily as we were all in the same boat with our sight This was I now realise a very nieve view and it was not like that. I found it difficult adjusting to life where you lived and went to school with the same people and everyone knew everyone elses business and I found that making friends was not as easy as I thought it would be. I had for want of a better word a an emotional breakdown I really did not know where I fitted in as I felt I did not fit in either the sighted or the visually impaired world.
After university I started work at a Solicitors in Walmer and that same year met my now husband Kevin. I had never in my wildest dreams ever thought I would get married
and have children. I was absolutely thrilled when my son William was born.
I remember the midwife asking if I was concerned about passing on my eye condition to my children and I said no I was not concerned, technology had moved on and I was confident that if that happened we would deal with it when it happened.
William got the all clear and then two and a half years later our second son Andrew was born. We kind of breathed a sigh of relief as it is almost exclusively girls in our family who have had this eye condition. But by the time he was about 6 weeks old I was concerned about his eyes moving all over the place and at our 8 week check up with my GP she said that she thought he had cataracts. Then followed a lot of chasing up hospital appointments and waiting for referral to Great Ormand Street for his surgery. His surgery was very successful and he is doing amazingly well and already has better sight then I have and still the potential for this to improve.
Over the time leading up to and including his operations at 4 ½ months old I think I felt pretty much every emotion going. I felt terribly guilty that I had passed this
on to another generation. I felt foolish that I had been so confident to the midwife assuring her that I was not concerned if my children inherited my condition. Of course I was concerned and I was devastated.
Andrew is 3 now and over the last 3 years I have met many other families mainly though the internet who are going through the same experiences. Many of them have had no experience of sight problems in children and I hope that I am able to be a good example to them in that things can be tough but you get there in the end and there is very little you can't do when you set your mind to it.
So where does this leave me with my relationship with God. In all the emotional turmoil and in having to deal with a lot of the feelings I had as a teenager again I never gave God a seconds thought.
Then just over a year ago we come back to my invitation to come to the Ark. I approached it at first slightly skeptically and then with an increasingly open mind and over the following months really began to feel something stirring in my heart on a Sunday morning.
Since coming forward at the end of May and truly accepting Jesus into my life I now realise he was always there and waiting for me. I feel a peace in my life and in my heart such as I had never experienced before. I believe that it is part of his plan that I am blessed with such supportive parents, a dad who would do anything he could
to help me and a mum who has been through the same things as me with her own sight and of course with having children with sight problems too as she has raised both me and my sister. I may not have been very popular or had 100's of friends but those people I do count as true friends are very special and important in my life and that can't be mere co
It was Dawn who has also been baptised today who invited me to the Ark. My son William had just started Charlton school and I thought it would be nice for him to go to Sunday school sometimes being as he was going to a chuch school. Dawn said that her family came to the Ark and I was glad that there would be at least one friendly face as it is hard going somewhere new be it a new toddler group with Andrew, William starting school or coming to Church.
It is not that I had never been to church before. My parents are not regular churchgoers but always let both my sister and I decide for ourselves. My sister has been a regular churchgoer for many years and I have always admiered her faith but never felt that it was for me. I was not ready to accept God's invitation.
Secondary school for me was a very difficult time. Emotional bullying became such a part of my life that it made me feel very worthless. Whether it was because of my sight problems and the extra help I needed at school or just because I made an easy target as I did not have many friends I do not know. If it had not been for my friend Lisa who was a bit of an outsider like me I am not sure I would be here
speaking to you all today.
Just as I left secondary school and was about to start my A levels my sister was christened and confirmed but again I did not feel that this was my path. I felt that I was clearly not good enough and maybe that was why I had been put though such difficult times at school.
For my A levels I went to a boarding school just for visually impaired children. At last I thought I would be accepted as who I was and would make friends easily as we were all in the same boat with our sight This was I now realise a very nieve view and it was not like that. I found it difficult adjusting to life where you lived and went to school with the same people and everyone knew everyone elses business and I found that making friends was not as easy as I thought it would be. I had for want of a better word a an emotional breakdown I really did not know where I fitted in as I felt I did not fit in either the sighted or the visually impaired world.
After university I started work at a Solicitors in Walmer and that same year met my now husband Kevin. I had never in my wildest dreams ever thought I would get married
and have children. I was absolutely thrilled when my son William was born.
I remember the midwife asking if I was concerned about passing on my eye condition to my children and I said no I was not concerned, technology had moved on and I was confident that if that happened we would deal with it when it happened.
William got the all clear and then two and a half years later our second son Andrew was born. We kind of breathed a sigh of relief as it is almost exclusively girls in our family who have had this eye condition. But by the time he was about 6 weeks old I was concerned about his eyes moving all over the place and at our 8 week check up with my GP she said that she thought he had cataracts. Then followed a lot of chasing up hospital appointments and waiting for referral to Great Ormand Street for his surgery. His surgery was very successful and he is doing amazingly well and already has better sight then I have and still the potential for this to improve.
Over the time leading up to and including his operations at 4 ½ months old I think I felt pretty much every emotion going. I felt terribly guilty that I had passed this
on to another generation. I felt foolish that I had been so confident to the midwife assuring her that I was not concerned if my children inherited my condition. Of course I was concerned and I was devastated.
Andrew is 3 now and over the last 3 years I have met many other families mainly though the internet who are going through the same experiences. Many of them have had no experience of sight problems in children and I hope that I am able to be a good example to them in that things can be tough but you get there in the end and there is very little you can't do when you set your mind to it.
So where does this leave me with my relationship with God. In all the emotional turmoil and in having to deal with a lot of the feelings I had as a teenager again I never gave God a seconds thought.
Then just over a year ago we come back to my invitation to come to the Ark. I approached it at first slightly skeptically and then with an increasingly open mind and over the following months really began to feel something stirring in my heart on a Sunday morning.
Since coming forward at the end of May and truly accepting Jesus into my life I now realise he was always there and waiting for me. I feel a peace in my life and in my heart such as I had never experienced before. I believe that it is part of his plan that I am blessed with such supportive parents, a dad who would do anything he could
to help me and a mum who has been through the same things as me with her own sight and of course with having children with sight problems too as she has raised both me and my sister. I may not have been very popular or had 100's of friends but those people I do count as true friends are very special and important in my life and that can't be mere co
