Phil Stoddart

A lazy day, sprawled out on the beach, inhaling the sweet scent of summer and the excited chatter of children. High in the cloudless sky the sun shone brightly and my body was satisfied with delicious warmth and seemed near to the point of ultimate peace.

Hours passed by as I drifted in and out of sleep and slowly the warmth crept away. It was with a shudder that the realisation of utter coldness dawned and made me screw up my eyes in frustration. I gnashed my teeth and wailed like the wind of a storm. No more peace or harmony to soothe the body, just a reckless anger looking for someone to strike.

What does it mean when the Bible tells me God hardened the heart of Pharaoh so that he wouldn’t let Moses and the Israelites leave the land of Egypt? Did God use Pharaoh as a mere tool for evil so that he could display mighty signs and wonders for all to see and believe that there is indeed a God in Heaven? If so, then I must question the value placed on his life.

I thought all human life was of equal value and that God didn’t want anyone to perish. Did Pharaoh have a choice; did Judas Iscariot, the man foretold in the Old Testament as the betrayer of Jesus have the opportunity to take a different path?

God is good; in fact all goodness comes from him. If he didn’t breathe goodness out into creation there would be no good. Goodness itself is merely a description of God’s character. God is love; in fact if there were no God there would be no love. Love is also another amazing facet of who God is.

We exist because God spoke us into life. Made in his image we have the capacity to resemble him. Like a child bears aspects of his parents, we too are equipped to be good and to love. We exist because of love. The simple explanation is that God wants a family, a people to love and be loved by.

The sun shone and warmed my body as I lay upon the beach. I absorbed the warmth and experienced a deep satisfaction, but when the sun departed, a great change occurred and I was different, so utterly unlike the person of a few hours ago.

How do you harden a man’s heart? Does God pump a syringe full of venom into the veins or does he simply withdraw himself? I believe that Pharaoh, Judas and all of us choose the paths we walk and that there are some paths that are very wide on which the sun will not shine. The further we walk on these paths, the less that goodness and love will accompany us because God will not walk them.

They are evil paths. They attract the people who want to live independently, who do not want their lives lived in reference to God. But these people fail to realise these paths only exist because God allows them to. Love does not demand a response, it implores and grasps you by the shoulder but it does not insist.

Choosing to live outside of God means choosing to live outside of love and all that is good. As you continue in that choice, your heart grows harder and harder until suddenly the sun is no longer shining at all. It is dark and cold and all memories of warmth seem unreal and distant – as if they had never existed. And now you are angry, gnashing your teeth and weeping with anger. You are consumed with the cold of bitterness and rage.

For a brief while you search your soul for something good and warm but find nothing. You have become the very evil you once despised in the light of the sun. In rage you accept this and finally lose the inclination to even look for something good. There is no good, there is no love, there is only the darkness, there is only Hell.

“Though you are like a grain of sand
I consider you
Though I am infinite beyond comprehension
I watch over you.”

My heart replied, “How can I know this?”
For if I know I am truly loved
Finally and completely
Love that remains true to the end
And leaves no desire for anything more
Then my soul is truly satisfied
And I do not want for anything else.

When is the darkness most dark?
The black fabric is thick and suffocating
Breathe it in and speak it out
We merge together
And are one in heart and mind.
When is the darkness most dark?
In the complete absence of light
When there is no prospect of the slightest flicker
For ever and ever
There is no such thing as light.

“Though you are like a grain of sand
I find you
Though I am infinite beyond comprehension
I seek you out.”

When is the light most bright?
Into the deepest depths of darkness
The Son appears, seemingly uninvited
And we laugh at the irony.
It took an age to bow this low.
Layer after layer and day by day
Yet beyond the heart and mind
Awaits the soul and only a flicker of light is needed.

How can light say so much?
The sight alone brings a delicious thrill
But more than sight is here.
To see him is to sense goodness
And that is a truly wonderful sensation.
I feel his eyes boring deep within
Breathe it in, the liberation of perfect love
Laughter, wildness and freedom to live.

It wasn’t about obeying the rules for his sake
They were only ever set for us
For he desires our companionship.
More irony: we sing it’s all about him
But now I hear his eternal song:
It’s all about us!
A lover only seeks to love and be loved.

JESUS YOU RUIN ME
How can I not love back my marvellous Saviour?
I weep in your presence
Because you have revealed yourself
And the statement is final
You are the Last Word.

After three or four days of what some would call man-flu, but I would call a highly plausible flu-like virus, my body revived to welcome the half-term holiday. Amy disappeared with a friend and her parents into one of those increasingly unpopular 4×4 cars for a week’s holiday in the Yorkshire Dales while Heather, Tom and I headed off down south.

Far too early on Sunday morning we drove down the A12, once again passing the site of the crash where Claire and Jenny lost their lives. It’s not a nice feeling, not even now over two and a half years later, and the mind cannot help but imagine the impact of two cars colliding and the screams and the blood. It looks like nothing ever happened now, as if the road just swallowed a meal of five people and licked its lips and closed its mouth tight without a trace.

We’re on our way to a church in Great Dunmow where I have been invited to speak by a friend who helps leads the church along with his wife. We get there with plenty of time to spare but time never seems to be enough for all the last minute technological arrangements that involve setting up a DVD clip and a presentation. I like using these things; they split the talk up and hopefully keep folks’ attention going. I’m a teacher and the classroom has taught me that attention spans are in dramatic decline. The nation is getting dumber and quicker to let their minds off the leash and into the open space of who knows where?    

The church meets in some sort of media studio and they have advertised my visit in their local paper as well as to some other churches so that the studio is full and friendly chatter fills the room and coffee and biscuits are being served before the meeting starts. I can tell the people who are in church for the first time. They are looking at their watches and wondering when the service is going to start. So I introduce myself to a mother and teenage daughter who are sitting nearby. “We just saw the ad and fancied coming”, they say. Amazing really and quite brave to just turn up into the unknown. I guess they thought it would be quite impersonal and formal and easy to be anonymous. No chance of that.

The service starts with an encouragement to engage with Jesus during and then the instruments start to play and all sorts of spontaneous gestures are being made as songs are sung. I wonder how the visitors are handling this. There are no instructions to sit or stand or join with a prayer and they can’t know any of the songs. It must be really quite awkward but worship is what church does and these are difficulties that are experienced amongst every congregation.

It’s time for me to talk. It’s never the same, always a different angle and this one is to do with understanding that how we handle what happens during this life has a bearing on the one to come. I know that the reason Claire and Jenny lost their lives has much to do with the fallen world we live in. I also know that it was no plan of God to bring them home so early. Jesus was angry on the day they died. I will never forget being propped up against the garden fence on July 1st with my body on the verge of closing down. With my eyes closed, light flooded into me and I saw him standing there so powerful, so majestic and so angry. He was there to protect, to assert himself and I could barely contain the sight.

Yet Claire and Jenny lost the opportunity to bring more glory to him. Whatever their lives had offered that was to be it and no more. I wonder about my friend Maria who has MS and can do nothing more for Jesus other than continue to live and praise her Saviour. What price her life now other than this? The answer must lie in eternity and for this we can only trust God. When the conditions and circumstance of life don’t seem to make any sense whatsoever, we have to turn to God who sees the grand sweep of eternity and trust him that he works all things to good for those who love him – even the things we cannot understand or will appreciate in this life.

It sure was a pack out this Sunday morning. Whoever put the chairs out had no option but to ignore the highly important needs of those over six feet in size (me). I couldn’t stretch my legs out but I did get a good view, sat next to Heather, Tom and brother-in-law Gordon who had come down for the service – all the way from Gainsborough! Heather’s parents were also there for the occasion.

There were seven of them getting baptised and the service started with them each saying a bit about why they were doing it. Amy was the second one up and spoke clearly about the car crash, the difficulties that followed and a pulling through to an even deeper love for Jesus.

That in itself was pretty tearful for Heather and me to sit through but then her friend Tegan also spoke and talked about how she had been affected by the difference belonging to God made for us. She told how she consequently became a Christian and the difference this was now making in her life.

After the seven testimonies came the baptisms and Amy was dunked by Jamie her friend from Year Dot and Erin who has looked out for her over the last few years just as she did for Claire and Jen. It was all pretty special but the best was yet to come.

We sang songs afterwards and worshipped Jesus and his presence came on me really powerfully. I couldn’t stop trembling and crying at the sense of his sheer kindness and purity and love. Words from songs seemed to fuel the intensity of the experience and I could barely control the muscles in my face. I haven’t experienced anything like that for a while. It was truly amazing. Once again my face was dripping with tears and once again I didn’t care. I crave meetings like that with him. They sort of blow everything else out of the water.

Later in the afternoon it was time to embrace the wintry blasts of the great outdoors – a veterans football game at Corton. Our mission was simply not to lose as we really only needed a point from the opposition to help secure promotion to the next level up.

We were rubbish. With the wind blowing a gale into our backs, we somehow allowed them to have a one-nil lead by half -time. But then the snow came and covered up the lines, so rather than playing the second half into a gale, we had the pleasure of the game being abandoned and so the score didn’t count. Rescued by the snow!

In the evening I spoke at the first meeting of the latest Alpha arranged by our church. It was at the Costa Coffee shop on the high street and it was freezing. But the place was pretty much full and I spoke about society and the media are pretty totally anti-faith and then about the case for Jesus and a bit about the crash and the difference being a Christian makes.

I hope it was ok. You never know and I tend to trust God to give me the words for such talks and just have a general idea what I’m going to say. I refuse to get flustered about doing talks.

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A trip with church folk

The Stods take Lauren to see the seals

See the kids go rigid on another walk too far

Trip to Benacre part 2

A walk with the brother-in-laws family.

A trip to Benacre in Suffolk. Part 1

Somerleyton, Suffolk in December 2006. The ducks are hungry but will bread be enough?

Duck Wars

Early in the morning Amy insisted we climbed a rather tall mountain in the lake district. Who were we to argue?

Amy’s delight. The Lakes Aug 2006

Stods and friends on holiday in the west of scotland. Claire and Jenny were meant to be there, so Abi and Sam stepped in

Scotland Aug 06 Holiday

The grand opening of presents. The last one before Claire and Jen went to the land of everlasting Christmas

Christmas Presents 2005

In Christmas 2005, Jenny and Amy battled it out at table tennis in the garage for an extra present.
Amy vs Jenny