Learning to live in the unforced rhythms of grace
Britain may be leaving the EU; Donald Trump may be threatening to build a wall; New Zealand may be rocked by earthquakes and Delhi engulfed in smog. We may live in a crazy, messed up world. But where there is love, there is hope.
So, to brighten up your day, here are a few photos from Esther and Rob’s special day.
(There are another 390 or so on Rob’s Facebook page!)
All images (c) Matt & Esther Way Matt & Esther Photography http://mattandesther.co.uk/
It is really great to be celebrating Esther and Rob’s wedding. It’s great also to know that, while this is a very special day in itself, it is also the start of something very new and special – a lifelong journey of relationship and commitment between Esther and Rob.
So here are a few tips for you, Rob, to help you as you get to know Esther, and some little gifts to get you started on your life together.
Esther, like her mother, is very organised. This showed itself right from the moment of her birth. Helen recorded the following in her journal just after Esther was born:
‘[5 days before Esther’s birth] I started wondering when she would be born… She either had to be born before Saturday afternoon or after Sunday morning due to us hosting the youth group on Saturday evening and Pete leading the family service Sunday morning!’
As it was she was born on Monday morning.
That ability to be organised is something she definitely inherited from her mother, and has stuck with her ever since.
I know Esther has been very organised and efficient in getting all the wedding preparations in hand, whilst graduating, starting a new job, moving to Nottingham. I’m sure everything has been carefully plotted out on the wedding spreadsheet.
I’m sure one of Esther’s abiding memories of her mother will be Helen wandering round, at all the different events she organised, with a clipboard in her hand, keeping everyone in order.
So here is a clipboard for you to use, Esther, to keep Rob and your house, your jobs, your finances in order.
I think both Helen and I are to blame for this, particularly through taking her off to Cambodia when she was only 1 year old. When we returned to Bristol, one of Esther’s favourite occupations was to sit on the pavement outside our house: ‘Where are all the people?’
I think this passion for reaching out to other people, engaging with anyone, whatever their background, is something you both share. But, a word of warning – you never know quite where that might take you. So, just in case you end up going to Asia on some mad missionary adventure, here is a Kromar. It is an amazingly versatile piece of cotton: you can use it as a turban (though that may be tricky for Rob); a sarong; a loincloth; a sun-shield; face-mask; a baby-carrier; a nappy; a tablecloth, dishcloth…
When she was about 4 or 5 we went to a friend’s 18th birthday party and Esther confidently told us that she knew what she would like for her 18th birthday – a Barbie toothbrush. So that is what she got. I thought I would follow that up by getting two matching toothbrushes for you.
However, the high value she places on simplicity means 
that sometimes she can be oblivious to the finer things in life like vintage wines or whiskies. This was highlighted for me just recently when Esther was clearing out her room at home to move to Nottingham. She had put out a number of boxes of clothes and odd bits and pieces to give away to charity. In one of them were some jewellery boxes with cheap plastic necklaces and bracelets from Claires. I thought I would have a look through to see if there were any that might be suitable for Lois’ young grandchildren and came across the Sidebotham family Carnelian necklace among them!
When we moved from Bristol to Coventry, Esther wasn’t impressed. She reminded us of this regularly. ‘You’re making me do my piano practice and you made me move to Coventry’
So don’t be surprised if she comes out with things over which she is not prepared to give ground, or if she reminds you of the sacrifices she has made for you! When she does, you can remind her that the choices have been mutual with this I Love Nottingham mug.
This has a number of implications. You will see this in the way she reaches out to other people, and in the way she engages with some of the hard questions of justice, truth and confronting the world’s problems.
But first and foremost, she is an engineer at heart – inherits this from both her mother and grandfather. She loves the intellectual challenge and the practical application, and has clearly loved getting stuck into her new job rebuilding the A14.
She has her heart set on a career in Engineering, and you will both need to work out how you balance that with your married life, family, church involvement and Rob’s career.
It is worth taking an interest in her work, go out of your way to understand and support it. So I have got you a specially adapted hard hat, so you can visit her on site.
I have loved seeing that develop in Esther as she has grown, and it is something I have seen in Rob too, so it is my prayer for both of you that this will continue to grow and develop in your life together.
So my final gift is not a new one, but a copy of my book in which I summed up my prayer for you, Esther, as you left home, and now I pray for both of you.
Esther, for 24 years I have watched you grow and develop into a beautiful young woman. Now, as you set off on a new stage in your journey, I pray that you and Rob together will discover more and more what it means, not to leave your childhood behind, but to hold on to that childhood, and through that to enter more fully into God’s wonderful kingdom, here and now.
Earlier, Valerie and I prayed a blessing over Esther and Rob:
Jesus, do for Esther and Rob as you did in Cana of Galilee. Take the old water, their ordinary individual lives, and turn them into gospel wine.
That is a dangerous prayer.
It will mean that you will go against the tide of popular ambition and culture, not seeking the wealth, comfort, position or pleasure that ultimately fails to fill that gap in who we were created to be. Rather, you will, together, discover more of your creativity, of the gifts you have been given. You will use your minds to learn, to explore, and to discover. You will find new ways to celebrate and enjoy the goodness of this world and of each other.
It will mean, too, that you will seek to love your neighbours as yourselves. You will strive for justice and extend compassion to those in need. You will reach out and be there for others.
In doing so, you will make yourselves vulnerable.
But you will also be strong, because you will be following this journey together, you will be supported by your family and all your friends, and you will be held in the arms of God who loves you both.
So I hope you will all join me in wishing all the goodness, challenge and celebration embedded in that simple blessing, for Esther and Rob.
A week from now it will all be over. My duties as the father of the bride discharged: my speech delivered, the bank transfers completed; my little Esther – whom I have watched grow and develop over all these years – no longer just my little girl, but a grown, married woman.
And I will be left to wonder where those years have gone, to reflect back – with love and joy, pride and wonder – on all those wonderful times when I have held her close, celebrated her achievements, laughed at her antics, agonised over her struggles, and cried with her heartaches.
I will look ahead too, to the wonderful new journey she and Rob are setting out on: a lifelong pilgrimage of joys and sorrows, fun and hard work. I will pray with hope that their journey will be a good one, that they will know the blessings I have known both with Helen over all those years, and now with Lois: the tender moments; the shared struggles; the celebrations.
But for now, I am still the father of the bride to be. So I will wipe away those tears, put the finishing touches to my speech, check our last minute preparations, and look forward to a very special day.
Last week, my daughter Esther cleared up everything in her room (well almost), packed it into her car, and left home to start her new life as a working and soon-to-be-married woman in Nottingham.
This week, while I am engaging with child protection specialists from around the world at the ISPCAN congress in Calgary, my son Joe, has cleared up his room and set off for his new life as a working man in Harpenden.
My two children – those little babies whom I held so close in tender moments of fatherly love; or threw into the air, screaming with delight; those lively, growing individuals with whom I shared fun family games, and exciting holidays; those independent, strong personalities who caused such anguish with their stroppy moods and sullen teenage grunts.
As I helped Esther carry boxes down to her car, and again this morning as I sent an email to Joe, I found myself once more in a jumble of emotions: fatherly pride at the amazing young people they have grown to be; tears of nostalgia, joy and heartache as I think back on their wonderful childhoods and all we shared as a family; sadness that Helen isn’t here to share it with me and to encourage them on their way; strong hopes for their futures and all those hold: all the love, the joy and the pain of being a parent.
And I shall return to a different home and a new phase of our family life – filled with a sense of blessing at the privilege I have been given to be a father.
Two days ago I walked into our lounge to see my beautiful daughter, Esther, standing in her newly-bought wedding dress. Radiant.
And I had to leave the room.
Overcome by crushing emotions.
Does every father go through this intense turmoil? 
What a mix of feelings: pride; incredible joy; hope; fears; love; nostalgia; wonder; sadness; love. Above all, love.
I thought back to that moment, 23 years ago, when I had helped ease her into this world; to the many times I had sat with her on my knees, gazing into her eyes, or holding her close in a loving cuddle.
But that, my dear Esther, was nothing compared to the wonder of your birth: to help ease you out into the world, watch you fill your lungs and let out your first cry, cut the cord that had kept you alive those nine months, and pass you up to your mum, knowing that you were my daughter. Growing up to be a child, p3
I pondered in wonder how I had watched her grow and develop: taking her first hesitant steps; learning to use her hands; chattering away in beautiful baby babble; giggling in delight at games of peek-a-boo and round and round the garden.
And now, my little child, no longer a child, stood before me, resplendent. A stunning, grown woman, soon to be a bride.
She could have been her mother. 
Twenty eight years ago Helen, unseen by me, had tried on her wedding dress and no doubt brought tears to her father’s eyes. Perhaps Helen, too, in a greater light, is joining her heart with mine: filled with hopes for our daughter’s future; knowing that it is her journey now, with Rob; that it will have its share of joy and pain, laughter and tears; trusting that they will learn to love and cherish each other even more as the years go by; and blessing them with our undying love.
Six months from now I will walk down an aisle, my beautiful daughter on my arm. And once more my heart will be torn: filled with that incredible jumble of emotions, and that painful privilege which is to be a father.
Liebe Esther,
Letztes Jahr schrieb ich ein Buch für und mit Deinem Bruder. Die Initialzündung kam, wie Du weisst, durch seinen Entschluss, auf dem Einrad von Coventry nach Bristol zu fahren und dass ich ihn begleiten sollte. Etliche Tage und einige hundert Meilen später habe ich einiges über Joe erfahren und über mich selber. Es machte mich nachdenklich. Ich hatte bereits fünfzehn Jahre mit ihm verbracht, aber es brauchte etwas Ausserordentliches um mich zum Schreiben zu inspirieren.
