God provides........a wife!

I'm back at my desk after a very hot sunny morning surveying sewage works. I'm measuring water depths to calibrate my calculations. But there's quite an ecosystem out there - bugs feed on the sewage, spiders and housemartins feed on the bugs. There's also rabbits and pheasants, and I'm told foxes too.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. This is a blog about God changing your life, if you let him take the driving seat. This post is about what a man needs most.

At school I as not exactly the Mr Cool that had a crowd of girls buzing around him. In fact I was unhygienic and snotty-nosed, and generally unpleasant. No girlfriend action at all! Well, there was one girl, that put up with me for three consecutive morning breaks - 3/4 hour in total. there was a girl that I really liked, and a pinched a rose from the school gardens every day and put it on her desk. After tolerating me for several months she finally said "I like you Simon, but nt tat much!". Oh well! My second school was boys-only, and I almost forgot what the opposite gender looked like.

Going to University I thought would bring new fortune in this department. But then in a moment of insanity, it clicked in my mind that the purpose of going to college was to get a degree, not to get distracted by other things. So I rashly vowed to God that I would not get involved with girls while at college.

I still asked one or two girls - most said a flat no, but during a year out from college (I had to re-take some exams) I felt exempt from my vow and developed something with a lovely young lady. But I wasn't very comfortable and soon elft her, explaining it wa not her fault but to do with my vow, etc. After college I tried to see her agian, but it was too late.

During my first job, my colleagues were in no dobt about my faith, but were very scornful of my idea that I would only marry another Christian and that she would be a virgin. I oved to a new job and a new church in the north, and after I had been there a month i thought "If i'm going to be part of this church I need to start pulling my weight", so I started welcoming people who looked like visitors. One was a young lady sitting at the end of a row, looking rather sad. As it happens, she was praying for a husband! So when I welcomed her, and it turned out she had already been at the church for 4 years, and we had had a laugh, and i had given her a lift home, and she had invited me in for coffee - I went home very happy!

Within a month we had our first official "date", and 11 months later we were married. First baby the following year. 17 years late we are still together, have six kids, a minibus, and a very big (by English standards) house. I'm not going to pretend it has all been easy and that there have been no dark days or rows, but we are still very much in love. I am totally convinced that We were made for each other by God, and this conviction helps in the hard times.

Had you seen me as a school boy, you could easily have thought no one would ever love me. But God has changed me inot something more attractive, and has given me the wife of my dreams.

My Normal life is not just an adventure - its a good one!