James Duff November 20th 2016 ~ My Story

Morning! Hold on to your hats. This is just some of my story and it is a bit rough.After two visits to our house from the emergency CATT people (Crisis Assessment Treatment Team), I felt even worse. They couldn’t help me. The anxiety was crippling. I just wanted them to give me some sort of shot with a needle that would knock me out. I yearned helplessly for the unrelenting pressure to cease and relief to dawn even for a minute. Lying on my side in bed all day watching the clock tick, I would pitiably celebrate a minute passing. The darkest and saddest escape plans would flood and engulf my mind, offering relief but concealing themselves as the ultimate threat. The wall of my bedroom and the church stood only three metres apart. I had ministries I was supposed to be leading. I could hear the people, the singing, laughing and kids playing. This was all a harsh reminder of where I was supposed to be as I lay paralysed with the blinds drawn. I was a husband and a dad with another new baby. Jane was amazing, a beautiful constant in this redemption story. Some days the two older boys were not allowed in my room, it was just too much for me. Other days they could come in and sit up in bed with me, laying their adorable heads on me as we watched ‘The Price is Right’ together. That is all I could manage.Only a few weeks before all of this anxiety occurred, I had accepted a job to move my family across the country. A couple from the west, who I hardly knew, had bought a house for us to move into. I had put on the best James Duff I could for the senior minister and selection panel so they would employ me and now I was not even able to answer his or their phone calls. Did the people of St Philips really know what they were going to get?After abruptly moving out of our Melbourne home, resigning from my job, pulling the older boys out of school, we moved into a house of a friend in Geelong. It was there I was supposed to promptly get better. We only had a few months before we would hopefully be moving to Perth. The days were flying by as the race was on to get better. I remember Jane speaking with Malcolm about a month out from us moving, as desperation had begun to descend upon us. She bravely explained through sobs that she doubted we could make it and potentially Malcolm and St Philips could forget about us and look for someone else to fill the role. Malcolm would have none of it. He has since revealed that he was so impressed with Jane’s strength that he knew we would be okay. It was because of her strength that he employed me. I have chosen to receive this as a compliment.Jane got us on the plane. She had unpacked and packed two houses, looked after the kids, been the liaison between Perth and us and nursed a tremendously sick husband. Remarkably, I had begun to string a few days together of being able to shower and dress. It was with this glimmer of hope that the Duff family arrived in Perth. I gave my first sermon, with a forced smile, dry retching before I spoke. I felt waves of anxiety plunder me as I stood in front of people, with the constant nagging thought that they had landed a fraud. I waded through the sermon with great relief knowing it was tough and that maybe this was what it would always be like, but I encouraged myself that at least I could handle that.It was Easter of our first year in Perth that I felt like me again. It had been a year of massive struggle but it was a year when I grew in understanding amazing grace again. It was in the darkest, scariest times when ultimate fleeing was a real option that I heard Him. It was when Jane would smile at me assuring me it would be okay that I saw Him.It was when my boys would sit with me leaning their little heads on my shoulder and chest that I felt Him. It was being welcomed unconditionally by western strangers that I experienced Him.The true hero of this story is Jesus. He graciously provided a stunning supporting cast on both sides of this vast continent. It was only because of Him and through Him that I was healed. I knew in my darkest time when everything seemed lost that Jesus loved me. I was alive because of His great love and He had not finished with me by a long shot.Why tell this now? I’m not sure except that I know that stories are powerful and we want to hear yours no matter how ordinary, sad or wonderful they are. You are fearfully and wonderfully made and your story is worth telling because it’s God’s story.Blessings,  James