My Mother went to a Catholic school as a child and from what she told us children the children were dealt with firmly. Although Mother knew a lot about religion she had many negative stories to tell. As time went by Mother preferred the more worldly type of lifestyle and she brought my sisters and I up to appreciate what we could gain from the world.

I left school at 15. Signed up for the dole and ended up working for Maori and Island Affairs. Which wasn’t to bad except they often seemed to have trouble remembering that they had to pay us money for working for them. Finally at 18 I joined Tokoroa’s working class and got a job at Kinlieth working on the Sawmill Logend. Also when I was 18 I was kicked out of home, but at least I had a job and eventually as the years went by I got married, and my wife and I had two children – Tracy and Rachel. When Tracy was 4 and Rachel 3 my wife decided to move on and she left. For 6 years I brought up Tracy and Rachel by myself. Camelia and I decided to try again and she moved back.

Six years went by and life went downhill for us in a big way during this period of time. With two more children – Grace and Jim life was harder. Our debt was huge running into the many thousands while our house repairs sunk us all into misery. One year ago my life was full of strife, I was overweight, unfit, excessively tired with lots of stress embedded deep into my very soul, and panic appeared to be my middle name. I drank coffee like it was life’s own nectar and smoked cigarettes like they were logs to keep the fire in my head going which in turn set aglow my bloodshot eyes. I have no idea what my blood pressure was at that time but it must have been impressive, in a negative way. I was thinking that the world had nothing left to offer me, I felt burnt out, tired and alone, even though my family lived with me

I taught myself how to write internet web sites. I taught myself how to write computer software. I sold computer programming courses over the internet. But things just didn’t seem to get better. I had done what society expected of me, I worked late nights, I gave up most of my social life, listened to the hype of the new millennium, believed in the system and like many before me and many who will follow after me – I fell flat on my face, totally exhausted, broke, with no-one to turn to. My debts were piling up, my house needing many repairs, my car off the road, I needed money to feed and clothe my children. My wife left and it was my children and I to deal with our depressing life and survival. We were truly alone.

I had been caught up in the river of technological computer hype that was flooding the world, and down that river I went on a raft that could barely hold water, but I had faith, after all it was written, everywhere there were the signs, this was the hyperspace, the dot com era, a time to earn the fast buck, the hype was building up a gigantic dam that was rising up to flood the world with glorious money, money for everyone who was there taking the trip, nobody could lose according to the many experts that were found on all those web sites that streaked around the golden globe of wealth. But the dam busted before it was full and my raft and many others sunk into oblivion.

What could I do? I could drown my sorrows, but I had, had enough of sinking. I needed a hand out of the river of despair, not to sink into it deeper. I struggled on with not much promise of success. What about the next turn, the river of Hope?

Many, many people fall into the trap of the miracle of modern society, the entire world was caught in the American Dream. You are told that if you put in a dedicated effort, set goals, do long hours, don’t give up, make sacrifices, then the world is your oyster, the rewards would pour in and all that was left for you to do was to count the money. It didn’t happen, I made many changes to my life and other peoples lives, I helped lots of people, but the end result was the same, all that work came to nothing (for me and my family), and if I continued to struggle to conquer the juggernaut of success, I was bound to fall into an early grave.

It was time to sit back, take some desperately needed time out and think, rest, meditate and pray for answers. Just before my ex wife left my family and I found God, it was to late to save my marriage, but it wasn’t to late to save my life. I am totally convinced today that if I had carried on the way that I did over a year ago I would have either been dead by now or at least seriously on my way there. In God I found hope, it took time for this hope to grow. Since then my life and my children’s lives have changed in many, many ways. First I had to learn to relax and take things easily. I read more and more of the Bible trying to discover what God had planned for me and my family.

As the months went by I found that I was changing. My bad habits were drifting away as I learnt more about what God wanted of His children. I wanted to be more like what God wanted me to be, to do this I obviously had to change my way of thinking and my way of living. I found out that God has a specific plan for each and everyone of us and all we have to do to get this plan is to call on God and recognise God for who He is. Another thing we have to do is to lead good Christian lives, this is another thing that is not easy to do. I learnt that all people are equal in Gods eyes, so I figured naturally that all people should be equal in my eyes. I found out that God loves everyone, so I figured that this was another requirement that I would have to learn, and I have.

Sometimes I still get a little sore at people but I have learnt to expect people to behave the way that they do because of the way that they are. I also learnt not to expect people to be the way that I want them to be just because its the way that I want them to be. I learnt that my previous bad temper which was born from frustration at my life, it had to go. God is slow to lose His temper and so should I be. I learnt that my children are Gods children as well. So I should treat them as Gods children. And those moments when my confidence was low and I felt like sinking into the sand to hide myself, I realised that God has faith in me, and if God can have faith in me He obviously knows something that I don’t know and since God knows all, I had better learn to have faith in myself.

I learnt that Jesus walked the path of love and He had a deep care for all people. I realised that I had to be the same, that I must learn to love and care for all people of this world, no matter what race, creed, or gender people are. I learnt that the physical pleasures of the world are not what life is all about. I learnt that we humans have to have an equal Christian spiritual life as well as a physical life. Our physical world and the Christian spiritual existence need to balance out. While we walk the physical world we can also walk the Christian world giving love and care for both.

All the best from
James Martin Sandbrook.
‎Friday, ‎30 ‎April ‎2004, ‏‎8:05:42 PM.