The Turn of a Century and a Change of Heart
Who would have thought that the turn of the century would change my life quite literally forever?
From 1998 to the year 2000 I was living a life with one foot
in Zion and the other in Babylon. It was
with the turn of the century that I made a huge decision. This was to find my own testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and to spiritually learn to stand on my own two feet. I recalled a scripture in my years of
Seminary (early morning youth scripture study):
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love
the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon” (Matthew
6:24).
I found it difficult to break ties with some of the people I
had been associating with for over two years of my life. One of these people was a young surfer guy
who I had been keeping company with for all this time. I knew that spiritually I could not move
forward unless I severed those ties, but in order for me to do that I would
potentially feel lonely.
Then, I met someone, someone who was good to be around.
Jim and I met in January of 2000 at the
Launceston General Hospital. I had been
working on-call at the hospital for a number of months as a hospital aide,
helping out on the various wards whenever the regular hospital aide was
unavailable. I was called quite
unexpectedly to work full-time in the Pathology department of the hospital for
8 weeks. Truly this was an answer to
many a prayer, offered primarily by my mother as it gave me an opportunity to
earn more money, gain more work experience and also keep me away from a certain
group of people that were spiritually draining.
Looking back on this part of my life, I can see that the Lord’s hand was
very much in this diversion on my life’s highway.
There was a wide demographic of people who worked in
pathology. The office staff were lovely,
primarily women (which was not something I was excited about due to the
cattiness you often get with a bunch of women).
The medical scientists were on the strange side and the guy who was over
the mortuary was a character.
Paul Stancombe was a popular man in the pathology department. He always seemed busy and everybody liked him
(‘Stank’). Paul was always the same;
friendly, happy and on the move.
It was after my first couple of days in the office that I
noticed this tall, dark and handsome stranger floating around the labs and in
and out of the office. His eyes were a
beautiful bright blue and his smile was truly magical. I loved the way he carried himself and how
confident and friendly he was with everyone. It took a few days for us to be formally introduced and it seemed
almost immediately after, we started to hit it off.
In all honesty, as corny as this sounds, I felt alive again. I guess I had spent so much
time doing the same thing over and over with the same people that this was all
new and exciting. Not only that, but Jim just felt really good to be around.
When introduced to the young man I learned that he was Paul
Stancombe’s son, Jim. The surname was uncommon and I wondered if he was any
relation to Lucy Stancombe. Turned out
Lucy, was his older sister. Lucy and I
had a mutual friend when we were young, her name was Katrina. Katrina lived in the small town of Legana, a
couple of doors down from my granddad Reeve and we attended both Riverside
Primary and High Schools together.
Katrina and Lucy did gymnastics together and from time to time the three
of us would hang out on the weekends. An
even cooler part to this story is that every summer when our family would camp
at Bridport with a few other LDS families, both Katrina’s and Lucy’s families
would be up there also. Katrina’s and
Lucy’s families camped at another beach to us, but Lucy and her older sister
Jess, would often venture down to Eastman’s Beach (the cool beach) because
their grandfather camped just a few sites over from my family’s annual
spot. I always knew that Jess and Lucy
had a younger brother and I think I even recall a slim little Jim at Bridport
all those years ago, but I never met him.
That was until January 2000.
To be continued…..
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