Why I've started writing?

Art for art's sake! And then there's the creative side to writing. Playing with words, grinding down like a well-roasted coffee bean to arrive at fresh and new aromas in the play of words alongside other words.

There's more. I have a story to tell. And when we discover others on the same journey as ours we find community, support and healing. Isn't that what we are all looking for in this life? Fellow travelers. Companions. No matter how far apart we might be geographically or spatially from one another.

So, let me move into the third person and voice my words as if someone has already read my manuscript which is entitled 'God.Boy.Ocean.' Now they will try to convey it in summary for to you as a sort of road map and for the journey ahead. Before we hear from my third person let me tell you I have written and rewritten a whole lot and so I'll break down each section of the journey into episodes - Like a long awaited Netflix series we've been waiting in anticipation for. Most of my blog posts will be titled 'episodes' but divided up into big size chunks to not bore you or give too much away at one time.

C.S. Lewis writes; ‘Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .’

This is why God Boy Ocean needs to be read. We need to know we are not alone.

God Boy Ocean is the story of a young man who tries to make sense of the hardship and tragedy he has experienced in this life. Nathan grew up in a home surrounded by a loving godly family. Nathan writes with raw authenticity about real-life moments that have shaped him and his faith.

God Boy Ocean takes the reader through various episodes in Nathan's life from great surfing adventures to crippling trauma and loss. This memoir-style book is layered with real-life stories to biblical characters and timeless truth.

God Boy Ocean leads the reader to the point of Nathan’s greatest suffering - his wife’s cancer and death. As a father of four and a pastor of a church Nathan struggles to make sense of this life-altering tragedy.

Out of deep brokenness comes Nathan’s transformation. And ours when we allow God to work in our lives. The journey then explores the beautiful wonder of finding meaning in suffering and deep heartache. We learn through the stories of life that God can bring out incredible beauty from the ashes of our own losses, failures and disappointment. In his journey his faith is renewed, love rekindled and hope restored.

We learn that God always has a ‘Plan-A’ for our lives and will bring that plan about as we surrender to him and embrace each moment of our journey. Out of the ashes, God brings a beautiful woman into Nathan and the children’s lives.

In Episode 1 we begin our story with the genesis of an idea - an idea that’s not about us alone but of a story worth telling. A journey filled with adventure, loss, grief, hope, and the work of God's redeeming grace. Each episode is written as a frank conversation throughout and at times moving from humor to grief and back again. Read as a journey and an experience, God Boy Ocean confronts us, makes us laugh and cry. It’s raw, brave, and freeing and a testament that we can all be trophies of grace.

In episode 2 Nathan shares some of his upbringing filled with stories of growing up in South Africa. We discover who and what shaped Nathan’s early years. We too learn that Jesus grew up in an obscure town as he grew to become the great rescuer of the world.

In episode 3 we learn about Nathan and Jo’s teenage years. Each episode follows different characters as secondary layers that have shaped the various lives added into the story that Nathan tells. Disappointment impacts us all and here we discover how.

Episode 4 is the beginning of a love for surfing and the ocean. Nathan explores what it means to accept the big difference between what we want and what we need in this life. From the near loss of his son to great disappointment at a leader in the church. We discover stories of trusting God’s sovereignty beginning to break through the darkness.

The central moment in episode 5 is the diagnosis of Nathan’s wife with terminal cancer. Like a door opens and closes on hinges, we walk into a painful retelling of that time. Cancer hurts everyone. A great wave crashed over them and the family. A metaphor of learning to surf truly big waves and facing a horrific near-drowning teaches Nathan how he was going to ride through this devastation.

Nathan writes in vivid detail about the final days of his wife here on earth. And to deal with such tragedy and grief Nathan has to learn this eternal perspective. Home is about our future.

‘There is a place east of here.’ In this episode, Nathan learns about life as a single father of four children. The struggle of living in the city he and his late wife grew up in and learning to deal with the depression that was close to overcoming him. We discover two little hero’s who teach Nathan about looking at grief and loss through fresh eyes.

We see moments in Nathan's life in episode 8 that shaped his faith and at times brought him to the brink of giving up his faith. Fighting this internal battle while being a leader in his church was what brought him close to breaking point. The second great turning point in the story is when Nathan meets his future wife-to-be.

Nathan never imagined that he would be getting married for the second time in his life. In episode 9 we learn what it means to surrender to God's plans even when we don’t understand. Through the death of Jo’s father when she was a teenager we are faced to confront our own fragility and the mystery of life. Through Nathan and Jo’s wedding, we discover that learning to live with vulnerability and brokenness can be the most liberating posture to this life of faith.

In episode 10 we discover that God truly works all things for our God and his glory as we trust him. Nathan writes about the lessons learned to come to the place of trust that with God there are no ‘plan-bs’. His second marriage wasn’t a plan-b and neither was the birth of his fifth child - all miraculous pointers to God’s ability to turn our ashes into beauty.

The final episode in the journey is about true hope. Hope is not wishful thinking but based on the track record of someone who can deliver on what they’ve said. Nathan writes with the desire to see the reader find their own courage and surround themselves with fellow travelers with whom they can begin to share stories with and let others know too that they are not alone.

So there it is. The road map ahead. And here's a picture of Jo, myself, and our daughters.