People at Glendale - Greg

Before leaving school I wanted to join the youth training scheme at our local YMCA as a youth worker, but the course was withdrawn and somehow I fell into a career in hotel management, which eventually led me to the kitchen department. The bug of ambition bit and I left for greater things…….I became ever more focused on cooking and my obsession left everyone else as second best.

Within the year, at the age of 19, I won the national title of Young Chef of the Year. Things couldnt have been better, with a blossoming career, media attention, job offers from the finest restaurants in the land, not to mention a wonderful girlfriend, I had the world at my feet, or so I thought.

Then it all went wrong. I decided that my meteoric rise was something I could come back to at a later date, so I set off on a world-wide travelling adventure with a friend. Within the first few months we had been robbed of all our belongings and were back in the UK.

My world collapsed, no money, no job offers, no girlfriend and my relationship with my family was tense to say the least. I was already involved in drugs, but now I began to drink very heavily and the next three years were very much blurred and forgettable. I was my own worst enemy, I became evermore self-absorbed and I swayed from intoxicated euphoria to depression and suicidal thoughts.

It was at these darkest moments, on the brink or possibly in the midst of a nervous breakdown that I considered that if there was a God what he would make of my suicide? What would the eternal ramifications be? It may have been cowardice, or it just may have been that my childhood Christianity came through for me when I least expected it.

There are many, many episodes in my past that I am ashamed to share, some of which were unlawful. I lived life to excess and thought I was a man of the world. In reality all I did was leave a trail of destruction, disappointment and hurt, especially to those who loved me.

My family pulled me together and after meeting a chef who had just left working in one of Englands top ten restaurants, I felt compelled to offer my services to John Burton-Race at L`Ortolan restaurant for free. He did more than oblige, he paid me a fair wage, gave me accommodation and took me under his wing; he subsequently put my career back on track.

After working in several of Britains best restaurants, enduring much verbal, physical and psychological abuse, hard work and sacrifice I ended up with the success I had craved but my personal life was still a mess. I then met Anita and within the year we were married, out of London and into the Dorset countryside. My job didnt work out and we needed some stability, and that is how we arrived at a rural Hampshire village called Faccombe.

I was still in a position to cook and develop ideas in a grand private household and Anita and I had quality time together. Although Anita is a Christian with a strong faith, and her example of righteous living is something I loved dearly, I never questioned her beliefs and Anita never put any pressure on me to become a Christian. At 32 years old I was confident in myself with a good lifestyle, marriage, career, the trappings of success, etc. At no point was I looking for religion or Jesus, as far as I was concerned I needed no God to make my life complete, everything in my life was just fine.

However, six years ago, with time on my hands and still focused on my career I went to university part-time to study culinary arts management to advanced diploma and then onto degree level. Rather conceitedly I thought some highbrow literature was just what I needed to while away my train journey. It just so happened that Anitas brother (a very educated guy) had asked us to take some books back to South Africa, perfect!

Of these books the first one that took my fancy was Finding Darwin`s God by Kenneth R. Miller. The book delves into the debate Can evolution and God coexist? or put another way can science and religion be bedfellows? This started me thinking and one book led to another, Anita and I started to discuss the issues and I went along my first theological debate, and a roomful of Christians!

As my university course developed so did my thinking, the lecturers did more than just educate us in the finer points of culinary arts management, their common goal was to challenge and develop the way we thought, to question everything we had come to understand. In doing so I became more interested in worldviews, religious faiths, and spirituality in general. New age friends, Christians, atheists, colleagues, the music I listened to (especially Stevie Wonder and The Beatles) and my family all influenced me and were signposts on my spiritual journey.

When I first realised that there was a possibility that Jesus was not the mythical figure I had always believed him to be, my search gathered momentum.

Meanwhile …..Anita joined a Christian Why? refresher course. I discreetly read some of the study books and then moved onto C.S. Lewis among others. C.S. Lewis advises in Mere Christianity not to let issues which we find difficult or at times inconceivable to solve become so that we give up on Christianity as things will be made apparent over time, make notes and carry on!

Just over 3 years ago my heart was convinced that Jesus Christ was the divine being he claimed to be, but my head was not. I prayed for grace from the Creator to overcome and not long after I received the revelation I needed.

It was then that I prayed a prayer of repentance and asked for Jesus to come into my heart, I turned away from my old life and placed Jesus at the centre of my new life. For the next 2 weeks I grinned from ear to ear, a bubbling exuberance of joy and peace, very much like the first flushes of being in love.

The Christian life isnt an easy option, its the narrow path, an uphill struggle but compared to the life I once knew there is no comparison. Life in a relationship with God is all you need, put your faith in Lord and begin to feel the power of the Holy Spirit as he restores and cleanses your soul, reversing the cogs of a sinful nature and a heart that now points back to our Creator. Hallelujah!

I am so grateful that I worship a God of patience, forgiveness and infinite love and that I came to faith before it was too late. Be certain that Gods unconditional grace, love, mercy, and forgiveness is for everyone, he is the God of second chances, no-one is beyond redemption all you have to do is ask…….he is waiting, he always has been.

God is a God of free-will, a loving and trustworthy God cannot be anything else. He gently knocks on the door of your heart, but the handles on your side. Let Jesus Christ into your heart today and his love will transform your life as well.

If you are yet to take that step of faith I pray that your heart will be touched by the Lords loving hand and that you may begin to consider the possibility that there is a God that offers unconditional grace, mercy, forgiveness and love to all those who ask and that your journey will eventually end at the Lords feet in humble adoration.

Praise the Lord!

God bless,

Greg