Charlie's Story

Going into the Covid lockdown I worked freelance as a sound engineer for live events… Then suddenly I didn’t… It took all of about two hours for the whole industry to send out an email stating, “Unless you’ve heard otherwise, it’s all gone”. 

In that moment I felt very little Joy! I had already gone through enough recent life changing situations, my health was suffering badly from a chronic condition and my mother had passed away the year before, I was struggling. Now I had the added stress of raising my first child (due in a month!) and no job to provide for him and my wife.

Now here enters a small phrase that will never cease to be true. “BUT GOD” Despite all that went on: 

• I started lockdown with no job. BUT GOD provided for us. 
• We didn’t have much at all ready for our son. BUT GOD gave us everything we needed.
• We were all grieving the loss of my mother and that our son would never meet her. BUT GOD filled us with his love and strength to keep going. I could go on and on..

In such a hard time it would have been so very easy to be consumed by all that was going on around us. I had every reason from a worldly view to lose all my Joy. But our amazing God said otherwise. 

Psalm 16:11 says ‘You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence’ Even the challenges we went through turned out to be some of the best things that could have happened to us. Sometimes we don’t see it straight away, but the Joy of the Lord is always our strength.