Sailing With Thankfulness Episode 1

0:00 Stephen

We’re Stephen & Kerry and this is Sailing With Thankfulness. Over the coming weeks & months & years we’re going to be heading out on a journey – a journey on our sail boat called Thankfulness.

The Sailing With Thankfulness Journey & Vision

The journey actually started a couple of years ago, in fact more than a couple of years ago. We were both divorced with five children each and it was a pretty sad time. In those sad times it´s very easy to become bitter and focused inward. We decided to look outwards and went searching and found each other. We got married and bought a sail boat which is interesting because, at the time, we didn’t know how to sail and had never had any interest in boats but hey, what the hec? It´s a new beginning. So why not do something that we’ve never done before?

A year into our marriage we decided to create a vision for our marriage. That vision has three parts. The first part is the foundational value:

… seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.

Matthew (Matthew 6:33 ESV)

The second part is a call to action:

…Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…

Matthew (Matthew 28:18-19 ESV)

Jesus went around doing good so the third part is what we aim to do:

He went about doing good and healing all…

Luke (Acts 10:38 ESV)

What we’ve found over the last couple of years is that this vision for our marriage has stood the test of time. Things might be going well for us or there might be challenges. We may have a lot of money or little money. Family relationships might be good or they might be struggling. Whatever the circumstances, we can still pursue this vision. It’s not dependant on a particular goal or outcome. Every day we have a choice. We have a choice to smile at that person that we’ve just met and a choice to encourage somebody. We challenge you to create an intentional vision for your relationships.

Kerry’s Mental Health Journey

2:30 Kerry

My journey over the last three years has been a challenging one. There was some trauma that happened which led to a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depression and anxiety. This resulted in seven months in hospital. It included electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), transcranial magentic stimulation (TMS) and lots of drugs, and that was just to get me out of bed in the morning. My beautiful husband Stephen supported me through that time and I’m very thankful for him.

One thing I do know though is that in all of that time is that God is so faithful. He never left me. I wasn’t in the pain alone. I’m not healed yet but I’m certainly on the way. I wouldn’t have been able to do this. I couldn’t talk and I had a stutter, a very bad stutter. Just over the last couple of months He’s just been healing me step by step. I’m forever thankful.

I also know that He uses all the pain from the past to help other people. So part of my desire in doing some videos is to provide perspective from someone who’s struggled with mental health. From the inside to be able to, maybe, help some others or give them hope. So some of the blogs that I’d like to do are about there being hope because there is hope. So, as part of our sailing with thankfulness journey I’ll be doing some vlogs on “there is hope – my journey with mental health” and we hope to be an encouragement to many other people, just walking together with you in our daily healing & recovery, our marriage and new beginning, taking you on the journey with us. We’d love to hear from you as well.

I posted not very long ago about this journey because there’s a lot of shame attached to it. I stopped contact with everybody really, even including my family. It was just too shameful to admit how desperately in pain I was. It’s only just been in the last month that I’ve jumped back onto Facebook and I’ve been a bit brave and let people know about my journey. I can’t tell you how thankful I am for the many, many friends and family that have put encouraging comments and just said “Kerry, we believe in you. We love you.” That’s really been a huge encouragement to me.

I think that mental health actually needs to be talked about more. We can help one another, particularly in these times with stress in the workplace, with stress with coronavirus, with stress with family relationships. We can actually be an encouragement to one another.

I believe there is hope. So, stay tuned and we’ll be bringing some of that to you as well.

The Beginning

5:50 Stephen

We’ve bought a boat in Croatia. It’s a 37-foot Bavaria sailing boat. We know just enough about sailing to be competent and I think just enough to know that there’s a lot we don’t know. So we’ll be treading fairly carefully but at the same time being brave.

So we’ve got our boat and we’ve made some contacts in Croatia who also have a sailing boat, who also are going into the world preaching the gospel and going around and doing good. In a couple of days we’ll be meeting up with them and exploring how we can work together to build the Kingdom of God and to bless people. I encourage you over the coming weeks, months and years to come along with us on this journey. Your participation and interaction with these videos is going to encourage us and bless us. Let’s see see what good we can spread in the world as we bring you the videos of this journey sailing with thankfulness.

You’ll notice that there’s a Christian element to what we say. Please, I don’t want you to be threatened by that at all. That’s just who we are. I would just encourage you that if you don’t agree with some of the things we say that it’s okay. Just try and take something from it that you can apply in your life. All we can be is who we are. We don’t apologise for that and at the same time we don’t want to be forcing our views on anybody else. We are who we are and that’s what you’ll get

07:38 Kerry

Why is that? It’s because God is actually really important in our relationship and in our lives. He’s the centre in our marriage and the centre in each one of our individual journeys. I don’t know how I could have done my journey in the last couple of years without God. It’s essential and I’m pretty sure that’s the same for you Stephen, going through your divorce and your family relationships. Stephen couldn’t have done that journey without God. I actually don’t know how anyone does the journey without God but that’s our perspective. We just want to share from our perspective how faithful God is, how reliant on God we are and how keen we are to share this wonderful life that He’s given us together with other people as well.

It’s our hope and desire that you’ve found something in this video encouraging, inspiring or uplifting. If you did, make sure that you like it and subscribe on your favourite social media platforms. Be sure to click that notification bell so we can keep in touch. See you soon.