We think we know the momentous and portentous events of our lives, because we have them mapped out with the big things – proposals, births, funerals – but love and grief have their own rules, and they funnel their potency into the little details, the ordinary objects of life, so that we are caught unawares by our emotion even whilst we are going about our daily business.
I was too ill to speak to anyone, so they could not love through words or presence.
Our church loved us with food and ironed clothes.
We were at the back of the hall, both of us, huddled up, our backs against the wall. Her coat smelt faintly of the secret cigarette she’d smoked before she came in.
It had been about four months since our lives had been irreparably split open and we were on the sofa together, watching TV. It had been four months since I gave birth, since the exertion of labour tipped my illness into ‘severe’, since the world outside had become closed to me; friendships paused, visits […]
“We’re married,” I whispered, like it was a secret, and we peeked at each other over large brown menus, the evening air still duvet-warm. It had been an early sailing and long drive, but we were here, and it was just as he said it would be. We were sitting in the square, surrounded […]
The car pulled up to the church, and the driver helped me out. I stepped onto the path, my silk-white high heels making the tiniest crunch on the gravel. And then I looked down at my dress. My dress! At some point on the journey it had turned yellow. It was bright yellow. My dress […]
Ruthie Davies shines with a passion for Jesus in everything she writes. It is a passion that goes deep, that has been tested in the considerable fire of grief. She has a beautiful Welsh accent that can be heard in this moving interview. Here is her story: For me, suffering cued neither the beginning […]
My family is crazy, and they drive me mad. They make me madder and hurt me more than anyone else can. But don’t you dare criticise my family. You don’t have the right. They are mine to criticise and I’ll defend them to the hilt. ***** It has been a strange sort […]
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Tanya Marlow blogs on the Bible, suffering and the messy edges of life [read more]
