At 42 I met Jesus, and found life
At the time of writing I have been a follower of Jesus for 2311 days plus a few hours. The last six plus years have been wonderful and devastating, freeing yet isolating, the most challenging but also the most rewarding years of my life.
But lets back up a bit.
In late 2014, at 42 years of age, I was in deep despair. At that point I had been with my then husband for 23 years, married for 18. After four miscarriages we had one child, a strikingly handsome, loving and severely intellectually disabled son. …
Despite what you have been coerced into believing, you matter.
I’ve been free from my abuser for a little over six years. Since escaping I have been in and out of counseling, read numerous books, prayed for healing, and gradually some semblance of a human being is arising from the ashes.
That’s no easy task when you have no recollection of who you were before the abuse began.
I spent 24 years with my first husband, a deeply insecure man whose hatred of women would not become evident until he had me well and truly trapped. A man who would demean, control, and isolate me for more than two decades…
Should happily married Christians be ‘calling back’ believers who leave their spouse?
I remember sitting in Church in winter 2015. I had been a Christian for about two months and we had a wonderful speaker, South African Trevor Hudson, visit our Church for a weekend conference.
I had never experienced anything like it. This softly spoken, humble man had this brand new believer on the edge of her seat for two straight days. The topic was ‘transformation’. Over six sessions he talked about ‘transforming discipleship’, ‘transforming mission’ and ‘transforming worship’.
But one of those one hour messages I will never forget, the topic, “transforming relationships”.
I braced myself. I had left my…
It’s got nothing to do with narcissim, arrogance or wishful thinking.
I committed my life to Jesus Christ at 4am on 20 March 2015. After 42 years of life without faith, of drifting from New Age to Buddhism to Atheism I was met, in the depths of my despair, by the only One who was bigger than my struggles.
Within weeks my Executive Assistant, who had been working for me for few years, and had been my friend for several more, resigned from her position at the law firm that I part own, and walked away from our friendship.
Her reasoning? She could not stand by and watch an intelligent successful…
Examining the uncomfortable questions.
One of the many challenges of writing about your own experiences of domestic abuse is the flack that you cop in the comments. Of course there is always the option of ignoring them. The problem with that that for some of us, me included, the primary purpose in writing about our experiences is not to make money, but to impact lives.
And to impact lives you need to engage with people.
That’s why I write. I write because when I was trapped in the prison that is domestic abuse, I honestly believed that there was not one person out there…
A case for context.
Long before I considered myself to be a person of faith, I was fascinated by religion. I wanted to understand this deep conviction that could motivate people to act in ways that demonstrate both the best and worst of human behavior.
Religion, sometimes the same religion could drive one person to unspeakable violence and evil, and another to literally put their life on the line for the sake of humanity.
I consumed books about religion. They ranged from Becoming Sister Wives (about Fundamentalist Mormons and plural marriage) to The Torn Veil, the true story of Gulshen Esther, a disabled Muslim…
It’s a difficult day for many people, for many reasons.
Some days I wonder if it was ever part of God’s eternal plan for me to be a mother. I question whether I pushed the issue, convinced for some bizarre, twisted reason that a baby would make things better.
I struggled to stay pregnant, with four heartbreaking loses (two very early) before my son was born. His issues started early, with failure to thrive and constant illnesses in his first year.
He had his first seizure shortly after he turned two, rapidly lost what speech he had developed and disappeared into himself. …
Now it happens even when I barely write, here’s how.
I know.
I hate ‘how I make X on Medium’ as much as you do. I guess that’s the point.
Unless you write a ‘viral on Medium’ (not just viral) article straight out of the blocks, Medium is going to leave you disappointed and discouraged. Because, for the vast majority of us, Medium is a game of the Tortoise and the Hare.
Slow and steady truly does win the race.
I started writing on Medium in October 2019. Within two weeks I was in, what was not so affectionately referred to as curation jail. …
The relentless agony of an estrangement neither of us want.
This time last year I published a tribute that I wrote for my only child on his 19th birthday. It was written through tears of grief, my agony of not seeing him spilling out onto the screen.
Since then I have written many articles about the struggle I have had, since, escaping a long term abusive relationship, to maintain a relationship with my only child, a stunning, young man with autism and a severe intellectual disability.
A young man who turned 20 a few weeks ago.
If you have been following my story you will know that I won the…
A year ago Medium changed the topic “Women” to “Feminism”. They are not the same thing.
Last night I published this piece about Ovarian Cancer. It was self-published and I did not expect it to be curated. This morning I noticed that it was and went on the obligatory search, thanks to Medium no longer telling us what topics our work has been distributed in, to find it. After not finding it in Health or Self I was surprised to find it in Feminism.
Ovarian Cancer is not a feminist issue, it’s a women’s issue.
Feminism is essentially a movement of people who are committed to social, economic, political and personal equality (not sameness) of the…
Matilda Fairholm
Breaking the silence of long-term domestic abuse, writing about my adult conversion to Christ and the reality of starting life over in my 40's.
