Rooted in Faith: Navigating Life's Complexities

What's the Story
Written By Matt Edmundson
 

Guest: Emma Fast

At 43, Emma has settled in south London after globetrotting, sharing a quaint terraced house with a tall man and four lively kids. She's a cherished part-time English teacher by day and a passionate allotment gardener by twilight. Her life's rich tapestry includes deep community ties, a love for lively chats, good reads, and nurturing growth—be it in her students, her garden, or her faith-filled life at the local church.

Here’s a summary of this week’s story:

In a world brimming with diversity and splintered by loss and identity crises, Emma Fast's journey offers a beacon of hope, beautifully illustrating how faith can anchor us amidst life's tumultuous waves. Her narrative, interwoven with profound experiences of grief, multicultural upbringing, and the quest for belonging, encapsulates the essence of being "Rooted in Faith" while navigating the complexities of life.

The Importance of Faith in Navigating Life's Challenges

Emma's story is a testament to the strength and guidance faith provides in the face of adversity. Growing up in Pakistan, with parents hailing from Finland and the UK, Emma's unique upbringing amidst various cultures furnished her with a rich palette of experiences. However, it was her faith that offered her solace and a sense of direction when life presented its inevitable challenges. Faith, as Emma poignantly shares, has been the bedrock upon which she has weathered the storms of identity confusion, belonging, and profound loss.

The Value of Multicultural Experiences

Emma's multicultural background is not merely a tale of geographical movement but a deeper narrative about the enrichment that comes from embracing diverse perspectives. This tapestry of experiences has equipped Emma with the ability to view life through a multifaceted lens, appreciating the beauty in diversity and the learning that arises from it. Her story illuminates the enriching impact of being a "third culture kid" – a narrative of growth, understanding, and the seamless blending of worlds.

The Complexity of Grief and Loss

The heart of Emma's story, however, dwells in the raw and emotional recounting of her brother Mikael's battle with addiction and his eventual passing. This chapter of her life brings to the fore the agonising reality of grief and the search for coping mechanisms. It sheds light on the long shadow cast by loss and the indelible mark it leaves on one's soul and faith. Yet, it also highlights the significance of community support and the power of remembering loved ones in their entirety, embracing both their triumphs and struggles.

Emma's reflections on grief and faith reveal a profound truth – that our belief systems do not shield us from the pain of loss but rather provide a framework for understanding and eventually healing. Her faith, deeply personal and tested through the furnace of life's harshest realities, emerges not only as a source of comfort but as a beacon guiding her through the darkness.

Embracing Life's Mosaic

The compelling takeaway from Emma's narrative is the recognition of life as a mosaic – a beautiful composition of varied and often unexpected pieces. Her story encourages us to embrace the complexities of our journeys, guided by faith, and to find strength in the diverse experiences that shape us. It speaks to the power of faith in offering hope, fostering resilience, and illuminating our paths through the labyrinth of life's challenges.

In "Rooted in Faith: Navigating Life's Complexities," we find not just Emma's story but a universal message of hope, resilience, and the unyielding strength of the human spirit when anchored in faith. It's a reminder that amidst life's ebb and flow, our faith can provide a steady compass, guiding us towards understanding, acceptance, and ultimately, peace.

As we reflect on Emma's journey, let us remember that it's the small acts of faith, the embrace of our diverse experiences, and the courage to face our deepest sorrows that weave the most intricate and beautiful tapestries of our lives. In faith, we find not only an anchor but the wings to soar above life's complexities.

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  • Matt Edmundson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to What's The Story. We're an inquisitive bunch of hosts from the What's The Story team on a mission to uncover stories about faith and courage from everyday people. And to help us do just that, we get the privilege to chat with amazing guests And delve into their faith journey, the hurdles they've overcome and the life lessons they have learned along the way.

    Now, if you enjoy our podcast, don't forget to subscribe and sign up for our newsletter on our website, which is what's the story podcast.com. It's your direct line too. The latest episodes and detailed show notes, and they all get delivered straight to your inbox. And the best part, it's absolutely. Free.

    What's the Story? is brought to you by Crowd Church. We understand that stepping into a traditional church might not be everybody's cup of tea, and that's where Crowd Church steps in, [00:01:00] providing a digital sanctuary, a safe space to explore the Christian faith where you can engage in meaningful conversations rather than just simply spectating.

    So whether you are new to the Christian faith or are in search of a new church family, we invite you to visit us at www. crowd. church. And if you've got any questions, just drop us an email at hello at crowd. church. We're here to help and would genuinely love to connect with you. And now, without further ado, let's get Let's meet your host and our very special guest for today.

    Sadaf Beynon: Hi, this is Sadaf Beynon, and I'm here with Emma Fast, who is a longtime friend of mine.

    We've known each other for years, since we were in grade school, so I'm gonna Over 30. Is that right? That's scary, that's really scary, [00:02:00] yes, of course that's right yeah, so Emma's here and I'm really excited for you guys to hear her story and to get to know her. So Emma, tell us about your growing up and tell us about how you became a Christian.

    Emma Fast: Yeah. Thanks for having me Sadaf. It's really my ulterior motive here was so I could have a nice chat with you, really. So it's really nice to see you. Yeah, so Sadaf, I grew up in Pakistan.

    I'm not originally from Pakistan, as you can maybe tell.

    So my mom is Finnish. My father is from the UK, so he hails from Bristol, the West country.

    And in 1986, they decided to move to Pakistan and work in Northwest Pakistan, what used to be the NWFP, but is now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. And they worked in medical work with a Christian Finnish Christian organization.

    And the way things were done in those days, in the [00:03:00] late 80s kids were sent off to the boarding school. That was in the foothills of the Himalayas and there were what, about maybe 150 of us?

    Sadaf Beynon: I want to say 150, yeah.

    Emma Fast: Yeah, from kindergarten to grade 12, from lots of nationalities. So in our graduating class, I think there were people from, there were 18 people from 14 different nationalities.

    Now of course, some of us work on a half, quite a few of those. So then you get to two nationalities for one. But yeah, so that's where I grew up in that boarding school. So from the age of six sadaf was in the year above me, so we went through boarding together, so we went Some of the information that I hold on Sadaf, I will not be airing publicly.

    Sadaf Beynon: Thank you.

    Emma Fast: Because it goes both ways. So it was a very kind of weird childhood in many ways, quite [00:04:00] unusual, such a mix in a melting pot. Not everything about it was beautiful or lovely.

    I know some people had a real struggle with being in boarding. I overall had quite a positive experience. Lots of time to just play with friends. Quite a tight knit group. I'm still friends with a lot of people from those days. Some of them are still my closest friends. Also really benefited from a lot of really amazing people.

    I sometimes feel growing up on the mission field, as we say, you see the good and the bad and the ugly of Christianity. It's like that whole thing that C. S. Lewis says about some of the best adverts for Christianity being its adherents and some of the worst adverts sometimes too. We're human, right?

    Everyone is and people have anyway, different issues they bring to the table. So I feel like I had the privilege of meeting some really amazing people. Who really spoken to my life, and that's my story of faith is that, I can name

    one [00:05:00] moment when I prayed, Jesus, please come into my heart.

    But as I've grown older, I've started thinking maybe that one moment isn't quite as significant as I always thought it was. It was much more of a process, just lots of people speaking into my life, modeling their faith teaching me, I feel like I got really good education in the Bible, what it teaches.

    And how people have lived out their faith from a variety of different cultures, lots of different denominations, a quirky childhood, but

    Sadaf Beynon: yeah, no, you're absolutely right. It was a very enriching experience for me too, but, and I understand not everyone felt that way, but yeah, I'm thankful for that blessing for sure.

    Emma, tell me how did you're growing up in this, your parents are from two separate countries. You're now in a third country rubbing shoulders with kids from all over the world. How did this impact or shape your identity and your sense of belonging?

    Emma Fast: Very good [00:06:00] question. So I feel really privileged not only to have grown up in that kind of that what we call the TCK, third culture kid kind of environment, but also the Pakistan side of things.

    I sometimes felt like I had a few different lives. You can relate to that, I know. So then I had my Pakistani friends also where my parents lived and then I spoke in Urdu and had, much more contact with a variety of Pakistani cultures. And how enriching was that? I've just feel so privileged to have had that opportunity to see such a part of the world that my parents weren't from. I sometimes feel like these

    extremes, finish, very liberal and the cradle of nudity and sauna.

    And just, quiet, lots of trees and peace and quiet.

    And then to Pakistan very conservative.

    Very busy, very loud. But yeah I just, I consider a lot of my Pakistani friends, still some of my best friends. I'm very thankful to have had that experience. In terms of kind of identity and belonging, well.

    I [00:07:00] once did a training because I was going to teach in Kabul one year and I was working with TCKs and they gave us like this checklist, like these are the typical features of what a third culture kid is like and I looked down that list, I was like, yeah tick.

    I fit the profile, basically read that and then you know who I am.

    It's annoying to fit into a box so neatly, but yeah, I think a couple things about it. One, I think I adapt quite a lot to who I'm talking to. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a chameleon that has maybe strengths, maybe weaknesses. It can be stressful sometimes, like feeling like I'm the translator, did a master's in Finland some years ago and it was an international master's.

    And so I had people from lots of different countries again, and I had this Aussie coursemate and I had this Ghanaian coursemate, both English is their first language, but the Aussie guy would always like use loads of idioms like, Oh, the traffic was completely chocka this morning. And yeah.

    I could just see that my Ghanaian friend had no idea what he's talking about.

    And I, I always feel like I've got to [00:08:00] translate. I've got to help them to understand. Anyway, stuff like that.

    I think I also always see that almost every issue has two sides. There's this way of looking at it and there's this way of looking at it. Oh, and there's this way of looking at it too. And so I probably sometimes dither a bit and don't have one strong view.

    I can always see multiple sides of looking at the same thing. Yeah. Then I think a sense of restlessness also, I always want to move. If I can't move country, then I want to move house or I want to move job. If I can't do any of that, then I want to move the furniture. That's the only way

    Sadaf Beynon: it reminds me actually, every time I do that, cause I'm exactly the same.

    I just end up moving things around in the house. It reminds me of all the times in boarding school when we used to rejig our bedrooms and make bunk beds back into low beds and then do triple beds and then move things around.

    Emma Fast: Oh my word. Do you know that, I learned something from boarding school.[00:09:00]

    Remember Aunt Hills? Where you had the high bed, then the middle size bed. Yeah. Yeah. Then the normal bed. And then the single bed. Yes. And you can put them. So now, because I have four children, we live in a very small house in London. They have an Aunt Hill in their bedroom.

    Sadaf Beynon: Oh, no way. I didn't know that's what we called it.

    Yeah, that's cool. Life. Life lessons that have come handy. Life lessons. Yeah. Okay. I wanna move on to your kids as well, but before I get there, I wanna ask you, how has your. How does faith help you navigate the complexities of, living in different cultures and your identity in that?

    Emma Fast: Yeah, great question.

    It's a hard question to answer. There's so many different ways of looking at it. But one very tangible example is I suppose, I've always had a sense that God is with me and God sees what I'm going through. So I've had many times when I felt quite misunderstood. Maybe none more so than when I first moved from Pakistan.

    So [00:10:00] I was 17 when I graduated from our high school there in Murree and came to the UK and I came by myself. Was really quite alone. And there was also quite a lot of stuff happening in my family. So it was quite a troubled and turbulent time in many ways. But I was incredibly isolated. I'm here living with this bunch of white British girls who I, some of them are still my friends now great friends.

    But I really felt like an alien from Mars. And, everyone's talking about what they watched on TV as kids, and everyone's got this sense of humor that I just don't like. It takes a while to adapt to a new culture's way of laughing at things. And now these days, I feel quite British and I have to watch myself like, try not to be exclusive in your humor, right?

    Bear in mind that not everyone finds the same things funny, but I've always had a strong sense that whatever is going on, however isolated I feel, God is there. He knows. I've been privileged to talk to the creator of the universe, try and seek his perspective. [00:11:00]

    I might not always have the answer.

    It's often a big process to figure out. I don't know why something happened. Maybe I don't know, we'll never get some answers, but just, I know he's there and I can talk to him. Amazing. Yeah, absolutely. And that's ultimately my identity is that, that I am his. Yeah. Yeah. And also belong to a community that's helped a lot over the years.

    So that wasn't easy at the beginning. It took a long time.

    Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. I know also from experience of moving from country to country and cultures, you you become a foreigner, don't you? And in every sense of the word, you move to a new country and you're a foreigner and you become, as you say, you're feeling quite British now, but then you feel too much of a foreigner to go back to where you came from.

    So you're just in this middle ground that doesn't really resonate with anybody. Yeah, it's not an easy, it's not an easy place to be, but I really liked what you said there, that having the Lord in it with you, who [00:12:00] sees you through it all and understands you it's it's such a blessing, and I think it's what pulls you closer to Him, isn't it having that space, yeah.

    Emma Fast: Yeah. And to a degree, as a Christian, we are told we are foreigners and exiles. We are sojourners in the world. And I think having a little bit of that restlessness is not a bad thing because, we, the world is not the way it's meant to be and we are on a journey and, one day the world will be the way it is and we are meant to long for that new day and, yeah. Yeah.

    Sadaf Beynon: No, I totally agree. So Emma, you're here now in the UK, as you said what does life look like?

    Emma Fast: So it wasn't that I came from Pakistan and then just stayed in the UK. I've had a few other meanderings. I alluded to working in Afghanistan for a year and then I was in Finland doing my master's for a while.

    And then I married this Canadian guy and who was living in Canada for a while.

    Yes. It's also a fellow, yes, see I fit that TCK just, I'm a living [00:13:00] stereotype. What was the question, what does life look like now, yeah.

    So we find ourselves living in Sutton which is really like the most average place in the UK to live, like we have average levels of ethnic minority versus white British people, average demographics in every way.

    I don't know why we're in Sutton in some way. It's probably not the place on earth I would have chosen. But at the same time, we've been here now almost 12 years. So I was pregnant with our first when we moved here. And now I have this wonderful community here. I can't go outside without bumping into somebody that I know.

    And I really like that. I work locally in a secondary school. Our kids go to school here locally. We're involved in a local church who've been a really wonderful community for us. And so life looks like, yeah, dropping kids to school, picking kids up from school, going to work, teaching secondary school kids.

    Now my kids are starting to get into that age, so I'm going to just have a [00:14:00] lot of teenagers in my life. Jordan, my husband works as an engineer in international development. So he travels sometimes, just quite a normal life.

    Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. I, it probably from the outside looking in, it probably looks quite normal, but what's it like raising now multicultural kids?

    Cause they're repeating that pattern, aren't they?

    Emma Fast: Interesting. Interesting. Thanks. Yeah, on one hand, they, the kids have three nationalities. They can have three passports. On the other hand, they're growing up in Sutton and that sometimes is scary to me. I think, oh quick, we've got to I don't know, move to Nairobi or something so they can experience.

    Some life experience, yeah.

    It's been a journey for 12 years. So I don't know if I've said yet, but yeah, we have four children. Our third pregnancy I have to be a bit careful how I say this, but it included a few surprising elements one being that when I went for my scan, [00:15:00] I I thought maybe I was about 10 weeks pregnant, however it turned out I was about 18 weeks pregnant and it turned out there were two heartbeats and so I was halfway through a pregnancy with twins before I kind of Twigged, really.

    So that wasn't a good lesson in human biology for me. And I'm the model for all my friends of, yeah, be careful.

    But of course, now we have them, we're not going to send them back.

    So we had a one child, then three year gap, second child, and then 20 months gap, and then twins.

    So I had three under the age of two, so that means three in nappies. It means I have perfected some wicked juggling skills, like answering the door while breastfeeding to while using the other leg to stop a toddler from escaping, things like that.

    Lots of memories of things like that. Sorry, I can't remember what the question was. Am I going into what I've learned about that? Sorry.

    Sadaf Beynon: No, that's fine. Yeah. Tell us what you've [00:16:00] learned.

    Emma Fast: Let's be honest. A lot of parenting is drudgery. It is, it's just hard work and it's not glorious.

    So shout out to everyone who's in those years.

    Yeah. They're coming out of that a little bit now. Life is, it's still hard and busy. Having three, the same kind of age just means that we're loud. Wherever we go, we're loud. We have lots of fights. I spend a lot of time refereeing. Identical twin girls and their fights are something to behold.

    So even this morning, okay, you think you've reached the limit of how many things that humans can fight about but this morning, so my eldest two have read the Harry Potter series. We're quite big readers in my family, which makes me happy as an English teacher but the twins are now reading the second Harry Potter book, and they're fighting about who's ahead of the other.

    This [00:17:00] was this morning's conversation, like how do you sort that

    Sadaf Beynon: out? One of them wants to take the book to school, but then the other one gets angry because then she'll be like a chapter ahead of her later when we get home. One of them wants to do it on audio book, one of them wants dad to read to them, one of them wants to read it by themselves.

    How do you navigate that? And then how do you try and bring it to let's look at our hearts here, how do we learn life skills about listening and expressing what you want? And you're allowed to have opinions and feelings, but we have to do that respectfully and yeah, that's just, that's before 7am, right?

    Yeah, so I guess I've learned, I've made so many mistakes and I'm very much learning about parenting. I, it's hard. It's wonderful. I've got four healthy children. Those are an absolute gift of God and they make me laugh and smile and keep me busy and never bored. But my goodness, do I see how much I like control?

    Yeah. Yeah. Comfort. Yeah.

    Okay. Let [00:18:00] me go back a bit to your family unit growing up and your elder brother Mikael was in my class when we were in school together. Why don't you tell our listeners a bit about him?

    Emma Fast: Yes. So as you well know, my brother was a brilliant person, possibly a genius.

    I always feel like the black sheep of the family intellectually. So there's three of us. So it was me and my brother quite close in age, 18 months apart. He's my big brother. And then eight years later, my sister, like eight years after me, my sister was born. And she's wonderful. and also very intelligent.

    She's gone into being a doctor. And my brother was always a big reader, big thinker. What do you say you grow up with someone like that 18 months apart. We were, sometimes it was like we were the same person, like all my memories of childhood, obviously, are [00:19:00] include him, and

    he started he had some troubles over the years, starting

    from his teenage years struggled with quite a few different things. But he started having struggles with addictions in his sort of late teenage years. And he had that struggle for over 20 years. And he died actually the anniversary of his death was on the two years this Sunday just gone. Yeah, it's very much, on my mind, very, still quite recent.

    Yeah. So he died following a long struggle with addictions of various types of different substances, which has had a huge impact on me and our whole family.

    Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Yeah. So what, if you're happy to talk about this, how did it impact you? Because you said you're quite close in age, you almost felt like you were the same person oftentimes.

    How did this impact you? [00:20:00]

    Emma Fast: It was just a big sorrow in my life. I just felt like I carried around worry. In the middle of the night, I'd wake up one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, and I just automatically pray for my God. It's weird not to have that anymore. He traveled a lot. So there were times that we weren't massively in touch, but I'm so thankful that we stayed in touch and had in many ways, quite a close relationship all through those years of course.

    It impacted so many things. It meant that visits were often quite chaotic. It usually took me a few days to in some ways, recover from seeing him because as much fun as we had together, and I tried very much to to keep it fun, and he tried really hard to keep it, that it wasn't always really heavy, that we were just having fun together, that kind of, we're two human beings and that's not hard to do that with your brother obviously, I was still fighting when we played Scrabble, about who would win, and, we'd still send the board [00:21:00] flying late into our 20s and 30s,

    We, had a lot of fun together, but there was a very hard element to all the visits, because there was just a huge worry for him, there was a huge sorrow. It meant there was lots of sides of his life that I know I didn't know about fully. He probably tried to protect us quite a lot.

    One way I cook was often by reading a lot and, I like to know about a topic. I think quite a few of us in our family probably did the same, like a lot of research into heroin. And to understand him. Yeah. And best approaches to support someone with those issues and but at the same time, there's a huge sense of powerlessness, helplessness, sometimes guilt, am I doing the right thing?

    Am I am I in any way enabling that behaviour?

    Am I doing everything I can to let him know that if he wants to get help, that I'm there for him? It was, it's a constant churning and turmoil around that, of course. Yeah. And then, even then when I had kids, just a sadness that he [00:22:00] wasn't in their life as much as he would have been if he hadn't had some of those struggles.

    He, it was hard for him to really be present with them. So I really cherish the memories and some of the videos I have of him with my kids when they were young. But like my youngest, they never really knew him. And that's really sad for me. Yeah.

    Sadaf Beynon: Um, his struggles with his addictions grew from when he was in his late teens.

    Yeah. And it never really left him. It didn't, was it always just something that just got worse and worse over time?

    Emma Fast: Ultimately, yes, there were breaks, and he tried various different treatments. A few times I was involved in helping him with some of those but he never really was able to in the long term to overcome, if he stopped one addiction and sometimes something else would take its place.

    So it was pretty chronic.

    Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it is. It's very sad. And I'm so sorry for your loss. And he was [00:23:00] brilliant. He was absolutely brilliant. Such he made us laugh so much in class. I remember that. Oh my word. Such a naughty sense of humor. But I have to say too, yeah, that's true. But I have to say as well that as, when he left school and we went different ways, different directions, I lost touch with him for quite a while.

    And I know talking to you I got a better sense of what that time was like for him. But tell our listeners about his brilliance.

    Emma Fast: He could have done anything. We always said, in terms of career, he chose to go into journalism, and he was an amazing writer.

    Honestly, some of the funniest things that he ever wrote were about procrastinating about writing. I'm a procrastinator myself. It just, There's nothing funnier than like someone writing a page about procrastinating. I don't know, just, yeah, he made me laugh. His humor was often quite dark.

    He'd even make jokes about some of his addictions and things. And, you feel like I really shouldn't be laughing about this, but he could [00:24:00] always make us laugh.

    He did some really cool things. He did some really interesting research into some kind of groups I don't know how much to go into this really, but just some he was interested in the part of the world that we grew up in, let's say.

    And he researched some sort of political groups and did some really amazing work on that. He wrote court reports for asylum seekers.

    And so say there was an asylum seeker from say Balochistan in Pakistan, where there's so much awful stuff happening. He wrote a kind of a situation report, which then aided their asylum claims.

    So I just have this sense that, maybe there's people in the UK now. We're Granted Asylum, partly because of him having written those.

    Sadaf Beynon: They've benefited from his work. Yeah.

    Emma Fast: Yeah. And he was a lovely person. That's what everyone said about him, even when we visited India, which is where he died talking to his landlords, his friends, his drinking buddies.

    Yeah.

    He was helping, always helping people, had a strong [00:25:00] sense of justice, right and wrong, kind person. Yeah. Charming as anything, could talk his way through any kind of situation.

    Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, he was a good guy. So tell me then, how does his loss, your grief, how does that how does that affect your faith?

    Emma Fast: Yeah, I have spent some time thinking about that. My faith, I wouldn't say it insulates me in any way from the sadness of it. I don't hover above because of some kind of Zen state that I can achieve because of faith. That's not what faith is about, right?

    It's not, my faith isn't actually about me. My faith is about what my faith is in, right? It's about the fact that I have something quite firm that I hold on to and I believe

    holds on to me. Think maybe it's less about how my faith impacts my grief, but more about how my grief also impacts my faith too, right?

    So, when my brother died we saw, we had to go and identify his body [00:26:00] at the morgue, one of the worst days of my life. And this was in India, you said? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I traveled with my mum and my sister after he died. And, just the kind of deathness of death, the finality of death, it, obviously it had never struck me in the same way as in that moment when I saw his body and then as I went into Easter, and now again, we're now coming up to the third Easter after that, I just think somehow the reality of what Jesus went through, the fact that the God of the universe, that's what we believe, right?

    That he came, he incarnated came and took on a body and then that body was killed. And that's absolutely central to our faith, isn't it? That's what he did for us. And in dying, he took on all the sin and the sorrow and the brokenness of the world. That's really hit home for me in a very different way.

    And even, though I still have so many questions about. Why did my brother have to [00:27:00] go through the things that he did? I believe that Jesus having taken all that on himself is huge. And the fact that we have a God who in the Bible, he's not the God who created the planet and then stayed distant, but he's a God who came close.

    And, so many verses have spoken to me, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. That Jesus came and walked through that valley and took on that valley and took on all that darkness and that brokenness for us. There's something very powerful in that.

    Yeah. That I hold on to. And then of course there's the hope side of it. The third day after good Friday. Is that he broke the power of sin and darkness and death. And He is making things new and will one day make things all things new and then things will somehow make sense, yeah. I just taught job actually this I teach at Sunday School. Okay. And we did a series on job for our kids age. Six [00:28:00] to 11. So you really gotta think what do I believe I'm teaching these kids . Yeah. And there's a job isn't necessarily the easiest book to teach.

    To that age. But I was just so encouraged again that the Bible is such a realistic book.

    Like you look at Job and in some ways the book of Job doesn't give a final answer to suffering. That in some ways we don't have a final answer to how. What's it for, and it would be wrong to give a really simple try answer, wouldn't it, to what happens. But to some degree, we're humans and we don't know anything.

    But the fact that God spoke to Job at the end of the book, through the storm, this absolute majesty that he would speak to job because Job mattered, and just said, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Yeah. Do you understand everything?

    And yet, he was good to Job and cared about him.

    And yeah, I believe God is there.

    Sadaf Beynon: You're so right. He [00:29:00] is, isn't he? And the hope that we profess, it's just it's just incredible. I know that your journey hasn't been an easy one and you've shared some of the things on here today, but I know there's been a lot of turbulence and it hasn't been smooth sailing at all, but I love that, that you're able to hold on. to that hope that you profess and you know that God is there and you're, you have faith in him if you could go back, back to our childhood days, even, and having gone through all this, I'm sorry, I should have said having gone through all of this and you can go back, what would you tell yourself?

    How would you approach life? Would it be any different from how you've already done it? Or would you approach it differently?

    Emma Fast: That is just a fantastic question. Um, I suppose the thing I would say to myself is just be still and know that I'm God. Relax. [00:30:00]

    I'm here. I do a lot of trying to figure it out and trying to control everything.

    So that's probably still a still something I need to tell my 43 year old self, daily. I'm sure I would have done some things differently. Yeah, I I. Yeah, but maybe you have to go through those things. No, but yeah, be still. I'm here. Yeah.

    Sadaf Beynon: I think I'm a bit like that too, the whole like trying to control things and then just let it go, be patient and let God do his thing.

    Emma Fast: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

    Sadaf Beynon: Emma, is there anything that you would, else you would like to add to, maybe I haven't asked the question, but you think would be good for our listeners to, to know or to hear?

    Emma Fast: Just a little shout out to my wonderful husband, long suffering. When we got together I realized this afterwards, we only had three things in common, [00:31:00] really. One was our childhood. So like I say, we feel like we come from the same culture, even though he's obviously he's from Canada.

    But we have quite a similar childhood experience because of living in Pakistan. And that's pretty big, actually, it just means there's a lot of things you don't have to explain. Yeah. Then we also had Eric clapton in common. So we had These are separate music collections and the only CD we had in common was Eric Clapton and now I'm really annoyed because of Eric Clapton's politics.

    I can't go to a concert with Eric Clapton because I feel, so it feels like that's been a bit marred actually. But Jordan's a big musician and honestly he wondered whether he could marry me because I don't like jazz. It was a really big deal for him, but he's somehow still holding on 15 years later, but the other really big thing that we have in common is our faith.

    And I just think that has held us through thick and thin, that we're both absolutely committed to [00:32:00] each other. And I think that a lot of that comes from our kind of faith that there's an unconditional commitment. I say that unconditional. Of course, there are cases where we're not talking about cases of abuse, etc.

    Yeah. Yeah. We're not giving up on each other, however hard things get. And we have had some really hard times, through my brother's death, but also I had long COVID, I've had, various illnesses and it's been hard. And also parenting and marriage together at the same time, you think, could I just get marriage sorted out first?

    And then it's so much easier to parent, but it happens all at the same time. And it's just so much to try and figure out. Yeah.

    But I'm just, yeah, I'm very grateful to God. Someone said about Jordan once, a friend of ours from church, if you cut him open, you just find gold. And I thought, that's just him.

    Both in terms of the fact that he's just so solid and kind, but also he's strong, because, I'm. I'm much more the extrovert and I don't know if you know the Enneagram, I'm very much an enneagram type 2 and Jordan's a type 5, like [00:33:00] there's a lot of tension that comes from that, we're quite different.

    And I worry, I worry that I'm the dominant one or whatever, but he's strong. And that's been really good for me. So I'll finish with a little romantic note there.

    Sadaf Beynon: No, thanks for sharing that. And Jordan is all that for sure. Yeah. Emma, tell us, what's your one message?

    Emma Fast: I think something I've been learning recently is that little things are okay. And what I mean by that is I think sometimes as Christians and people who've grown up with a lot of very amazing Christian people around us, you, we know we're not saved by our works, right? It's a gift of God.

    It's grace. We don't save ourselves. But we can put this other pressure on ourselves that you have to live like a really radical life and do something really big and amazing. And I think that does put quite a lot of pressure on. And of course, it's [00:34:00] true, right? We want our lives to make a difference and to use the gifts that God has given us to bless the world and to do good.

    But I think I have been learning that little things are also okay. Like just kindness to someone else. It's at the school gate that not many other people talk to, and I don't have to sort that person's whole life

    out, in fact I can't. Just being a friend, that is actually a little thing, but it's so important, And I can be quite, as we talked about with this whole sense of restlessness.

    Oh, I need to move somewhere. Maybe I need to be living in Pakistan, maybe I need to be doing more things than I'm doing. Actually

    Sadaf Beynon: God has put me where I am and he's given me these four kids that I really need to. Focus on what he's put in front of me and like even

    Emma Fast: sometimes I think very often about changing career.

    There's my 21st year since I qualified as a teacher. I haven't been doing it linearly. I've done lots of different things in between, but sometimes I start thinking, oh, 20 more years of teaching, I can retire is that really what [00:35:00] I'm going to do? I don't know. Who knows? It might not be.

    But. The way that I teach my students.

    They come into my classroom and there's 25 to 30 kids in there. I know

    sometimes very little about their lives. Sometimes you hear and you hear the challenges that kids are facing. And I just think, oh, I can be there and I can do as good a job

    for this one hour that they're in

    my life as I can.

    I can pray, I can try to build them up. I can teach them because education is a blessing. And I just feel let me do those

    little things. That God has given me. So I don't know, just relaxed. Am I? It's okay.

    Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, I know. I get what you're saying. That's it's so true. Like being present. In the space that God has placed us in. It's not always easy to do, but it's so important because he's got us [00:36:00] there for a reason.

    And I think you're right. Like we often think of what can we do that's out there and that's big and that's gonna, make a huge impact on someone. And I think what you're doing maybe because you're in the thick of it, you don't see it, but you're making a big impact even by doing those small things.

    Yeah. And so my question actually, do you find that takes a lot of effort to think about what those small things are or does it just come quite naturally if you just let yourself. Relax, as you said.

    Emma Fast: Yeah, no, I think it doesn't take an effort. I think, of course, it takes cultivating an attitude of waiting on God and praying for his perspective on things.

    Yeah, I think it, but it's a slow growth like most things in life, slow process of learning that, but actually it's a much more liberating way to live. Yeah. To not constantly have to [00:37:00] be proving myself but just a trust and a waiting, waiting sort of attitude. Yeah.

    Sadaf Beynon: Oh, that's great. Emma, thank you so much for sharing some of your story with us.

    I know that it's going to resonate with so many of us who's just, life is complicated, life is hard and how do we navigate it with our eyes on the Lord. So no, thank you for bringing that out. Emma, is there anything that you would say has been helpful to you in this journey?

    Yeah, a number of things, actually. A memorial for my brother. As actually, you were there a year ago. That was very helpful to have a community of people really supporting us. I loved it that you were there and other people who knew Mikael from childhood, that was just so important.

    It really was a time of celebrating his life without, sweeping under the carpet all the sadness that came from both his life and struggles and his death, but it really was celebrating [00:38:00] him as a person. And it was. I'm really thankful for just good friends. We also did a, like a memorial with some of his other friends, some of his London friends in a pub soon after he died, and that was a real eclectic mix of people, and a lot of people there, people that I wouldn't normally mix with people a little bit.

    Alternate with much more alternative lifestyles than my very straight laced lifestyle, let's say. And people who've, a lot of them have had issues with addictions in their own life and they know that story. I found that such a powerful event in that pub because they all wanted to know how he died.

    They wanted to know details of, what substances he was using. But it was done in such an. Like they all knew what it's like They there was no judgment whatsoever in their talk and I actually had this moment where I was like, wow, as a church, we could learn so much from [00:39:00] these people, about not at all being judgmental, about being loyal friends through thick and thin.

    So I actually found that, that event and those connections really meaningful for me. And I think probably vice versa, for them to meet the family as well. So I'm really thankful for that. Sometimes in church, we do like to just focus on the good stories and the happy stories and struggle a little bit more with just sitting in the sorrow and in the tension of unanswered questions.

    But I have to say, I've had some really really good Christian friends as well. And like when my pastor visited after my brother died. The verse that he quoted was, the day that I was dreading has come upon me. And I just thought, spot on. And thank you, God, that the Bible has verses like that in it, because that was my experience, for over 20 years, I was always waiting for bad news about my brother in many ways.

    And yet when that phone call came that he had it, it took the floor out from under our feet [00:40:00] and that is exactly, it just summed up how I was feeling. And I just really appreciated that kind of verse and just coming and just sitting in the sadness with me at that time. I have a book also that I really recommend about grief and it's American author.

    She's called Tish Harrison Warren. And it's called Prayer in the Night. And it is full of very rich theology around grief and being human. Really, I find her absolutely excellent. She's written another book that I've just read recently called Liturgy of the Ordinary. Okay. And it's very much about kind of meeting God in our very ordinary lives.

    Really recommend those strongly.

    Oh, thank you for that. We'll add those to the show notes as well so people can have access to them. Yeah. Great. Emma, so much for sharing that. That's really helpful. Really helpful. And I think our listeners might want to reach out to you. So if they did want to do [00:41:00] that, what would be a good way for them?

    Yeah, I'm happy for my email address to go in the show notes. Yeah, it's actually my maiden name still, the name that you accidentally called me when you introduced me at the beginning. Yeah. Sorry about that.

    Okay. And I'm conscious of time, so I think we'll wrap it up. Emma, thanks again. Really appreciate you being on here.

    Oh, thank you. So nice to chat with you Sadaf. And you too.

    Matt Edmundson: And just like that, we have reached the end of another fascinating conversation. Now remember to check out Crowd Church at www. crowd. church, even if you might not see the point of church. We are a digital church on a quest to discover how Jesus can help us live a more meaningful life. We are a community, a space to explore the Christian faith, and a place where you can contribute and grow.

    And you are welcome at Crowd Church. Don't forget to subscribe [00:42:00] to the What's The Story Podcast on your favourite podcast app, because we've got a treasure trove of inspiring stories coming your way, and we would basically hate for you to miss any of them. And just in case no one has told you yet today, remember you are awesome.

    Yes, you are. Created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. What's the Story is a production of Crowd Church. Our fantastic team, including Anna Kettle, Sadaf Beynon, and me, Matt Edmundson and Tanya Hutsuliak, work behind the scenes tirelessly to bring you all these fabulous stories. Our theme song is a creative work of Josh Edmundson.

    And if you're interested in the transcript or show notes, head over to our website, whatsthestorypodcast. com. And whilst you're there, sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get all of this goodness delivered straight to your inbox. So that's it from [00:43:00] all of us this week here at What's The Story. Thank you so much for joining us.

    Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world. We'll catch you next time. Bye for now.

 
 

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