These past few weeks has been a bit of a blur for us as a family.

Life has had to continue but our first “experiment” has now moved on to the first steps of his own life. Bear with me as that isn’t as harsh as it sounds, but first I need to step back in history some 19 years.

19 years ago last Friday our eldest child was born desperately ill and very premature. Due to a combination of events (things we now see as directed by God) he was born 12 weeks (3mths) early at a hospital that wasn’t our local one. We were instructed to prepare for the worst and that if the worst didn’t happen then our baby would be severely disabled, never walk, never talk and bizarrely we were also told he’d never play a musical instrument! Well I won’t regale you with the ins and outs of it all but you may guess that he did survive.

Yes there is a permanant reminder of his early arrival – he is profoundly deaf, but like most things related to him it has all been taken in his stride. Were you to meet him you’d likely never guess he was deaf unless you work in the support of deaf people and even then you might struggle. Despite his deafness, like most children he can talk the proverbial hind legs off the donkey – even as a teenager. And yes he is an extremely accomplished musician to the point where he can play several instruments to orchestral standard and several more ‘just because‘. He also, until last weekend anyway, helped to lead worship in our sister Church and was frequently a member of the main band.

Beyond this he is also a straight A student and amazingly he even speaks languages, four at the last count, with an accent which is highly unusual for a deaf person. His straight A’s slipped a bit this year though because he contracted glandular fever – and whilst we knew of it, we didn’t know of its lingering effect quite as much as we do now. This illness is a real party pooper and saps energy almost like turning off a light switch. However they didn’t slip that much and he got high enough grades to start his chosen degree course – a double honours in Physics and Computer Science along with being awarded an excellence bursary for being one of the top students entering his university.

So, coming back to the present, last weekend (and those leading up to it) was very busy as we drove him to his new life. We busied ourselves with helping set up his little room, get connected to the university network, find his way around and so on. Then came the weird part of driving away knowing that he was now on his own. Yes we’ll always be there to advise, direct, care, love, etc but in reality the day to day decisions are now his. And it struck me as we drove away that he had been like an experiment.

Every decision we made, every action we took, every time we disciplined, every time we cared for him when ill, and so on and on was all an experiment. We’d never done this before and like he is now, we were on our own to make the choices. If we got it wrong, we mopped up the mess and tried again. If we got it right we took note of what worked and filed it away for re-use. Some might call it gambling but I prefer the experiment term. Another word which I didn’t think of at the time is pioneer – but whatever word we pick he has certainly been a role model in helping us guide his siblings.

Why tell you all this? Simply to give the Glory to God for his life. To thank God for the blessing he has been and the blessing he will continue to be as he starts his own experiments.

And I’ve saved his name until last. We firmly believe that all three of our children have been given God inspired names and that the naming of things is an extremely powerful process. His name then is Owen which means “a youthful warrior“.

Thank you faithful and marvellous God.