From deepest Essex to Sunny Swansea

At 16 I went into plastering full-time with Shaun, my brother-in-law. But I started working when I was thirteen and a half. I worked through my school holidays and so from that early age I hardly had a summer break, only when I went abroad.

The next couple of years consisting of working all the time, girlfriends (again) break-ups, getting back together and breaking up again, pubs and clubs as life plodded along.

Nothing much to report really apart from a year of chronic illness. . . .

. . . . And the illness came to an end in a very strange way. In a nutshell all the ligaments and cartilages in my feet wore away, which left my feet in very, very strange shapes due to swelling. I was also in an aweful lot of pain. The thought of chopping them off crossed my mind once or twice, let me tell you. And after getting lots of treatments which included anti-inflammatory, t strength pain killers and a few cortisone injections straight into my feet. Still no change. I was desperate but my cure came in the form of a guy called Ray Brown.

Ray Brown was a former Irish bricklayer but no longer. Now he has a 2000 year old spirit called Paul who was a friend of Jesus Christ, working through him. Paul cures and heals people. And crazy as it sounds Paul healed me. He gave me back my life and I’ll be forever grateful for that.

Don’t be afraid of the unknown because you’ll never know how it can help you, or indeed when you’ll need it.

Fast forward to the ripe old age of 25 and that’s when I met a girl from Essex who I later married. That relationship ended and it was a bitter blow. Anyone who has been told those words “It’s over” will understand. You invest so much time, so much energy, so much heart and soul into it, that when it’s taken away it really knocks you down. To me it was a right old sucker punch, took the wind right out of my sails, if I’m honest. My faith in a lot of things had been taken away. And what happened was a time of emotional distress.

Sudden change and due to the fact I had paid out a lot in equity to my ex because I stayed in the house. Then, very soon afterwards, the credit crunch happened. So add together falling property prices, less work around, a single income, higher mortgage, personal loans, credit cards, and two young plasterers I kept in work equalled financial hardship. Here’s no shame in getting knocked down. We all get knocked down. It’s how we get back up that matters.

Like I said my faith in a lot of things had been taken away and I may have been on a bit of a downward spiral. . . . that was until I met my destiny.

My destiny, my saviour, if you will, and my little ray of sunshine. In a nutshell the person I was put on this earth for: which turned out to be a little lump of loveliness from Wales. Classic!! So realising soon after meeting her that I had to be with this girl, I put my house on the market and waited, and waited and waited. As many of you will know, things weren’t just moving at that particular time. But after 8 months of hasstle and aggro, shed-loads of miles due to the Essex and Swansea commute, the joyous day came, the day I could leave the Essex trap. Yes!!

So after paying the solicitors and estate agents along with some smaller loans I’d taken out, I walked away with just £1500 in my pocket from the sale of that house. But my mindset was that I was grateful that had any money at all: there were so many people in negative equity and were really struggling. Those people didn’t have the luxury of a clean slate and a fresh start as I had – so I was blessed.

So here I am in God’s country and ready to take on the world. But you’ll have to wait til the next posting.

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See you soon
Jamie