Voysey

A couple of years ago I read Resurrection Year by Sheridan Voysey – a very moving and thoughtful account of the ten years he and his wife spent from first trying to have a child to recognising that it would probably not happen, biologically or otherwise. It is about their faith in God, and what He taught them through this time – though without sugarcoating anything. Well, now I’ve read the sort-of-sequel, The Making of Us (2019), that Sheridan kindly gave me.

As I mentioned last time, Sheridan and I go to the same church, and know each other a little. We know each other rather better now than we did in 2017, when I read his first book, and so it is correspondingly stranger to write a review of a book he has written – particularly a memoir. But let’s plough on! (Btw, he also challenged people at church to wear yellow in a photo with the book – hence the picture.)

If Resurrection Year took a broad focus, The Making of Us looks at a much shorter time frame: a handful of days. It looks at the time that Sheridan and his friend DJ spend walking along the northeast coast of England, following the path that the monk Cuthbert had trod hundreds of years earlier. It was a hundred-mile pilgrimage. It starts on Lindisfarne, and they timed their conclusion in Durham to coincide with a display of the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Along the way, Sheridan and DJ discuss all manner of things about how to cope when life doesn’t go as planned. It follows on from the themes of Resurrection Year, but also looks at how Sheridan has had to rebuild a career on the other side of the world, after being successful in radio in Australia. They discuss where God is in these moments, and the enormity of His love.

The finest of earthly love we’ve felt is but a twig next to his Jupiter-size affection. A single leaf to a rustling forest. A mere microbe to a mountain. A faint candle to a galaxy’s worth of suns. And until I dwell in this – dwell in a love that reaches beyond all measure, stretching higher and deeper and wider than I can imagine – until I rest in this reality and let this love define me, I will forever seek my worth in lesser things.

What Sheridan is so good at is using the specifics of his life to guide anybody reading the book, drawing general lessons from individual events. The conversations he includes with DJ are doubtless highly edited for the structure of The Making of Us, though they feel their most authentic when discussing the trials of the walk itself – the blisters, the map-reading, the accommodation. I love the idea of putting this pilgrimage alongside the metaphorical journey towards understanding an identity in Christ, particularly when this identity isn’t playing out as hoped or expected.

There’s a lot in here for the practising Christian, including useful Bible references to support what Sheridan says, but I think anybody would find this memoir moving and of value – and I’m not just saying that because I know I’ll be seeing Sheridan soon!

I should start with the disclaimer that I know Sheridan Voysey a little. He goes to my church, but it’s quite a big church and I think our conversation probably has never gone further than me offering him a choice of tea or coffee. But he does sometimes speak from the front, and I once heard him speak about much of what happens in Resurrection Year (2013) and it was very moving. Soon after, I bought the book… and, eventually, I read it.

The book (a memoir of sorts) starts on Christmas Eve, 2010, in Sydney. This is from the opening pages:

“Let’s just get some takeaway,” Merryn says.

It’s dark but the rain has eased as we walk back to the car, with our packet of mince pies and some bread rolls for tomorrow’s drive. We get in, shut the doors, and Merryn bursts into tears.

“I feel so depressed,” she whimpers.

A Chinese restaurant is open. The motel has a vacant room. We dump our bags on the floor and the food on the table. Merryn collapses on the bed and my heart breaks into a thousand pieces.

I pull out my journal and write:

God, this is cruel – leaving us in the wilderness. We’ve walked round in circles for years – tired, thirsty, and confused. One minute we’ve glimpsed the Promised Land, and the next minute you’ve barred us from entering.

This section is really opening at the midpoint of the story, and it quickly goes back to 2000 to fill in the gaps. Over those ten years, Sheridan and his wife Merryn had been trying to have a child – naturally, through IVF, through adoption. After ten years, they have realised that the final door is closed, and that it almost certainly isn’t going to happen.

The first half of this excellent book takes us through those painful years – painful for the waiting and the hoping as much as the disappointment. We more or less know the outcome from the outset, but it is still a heartbreaking journey to witness, and to share. And Voysey writes it approachably, like a friend filling in a friend on the disappointments he and his wife have weathered, so it does feel like we share it.

Alongside this, of course, is the rest of life: Sheridan’s career as a radio host goes from strength to strength, while Merryn’s career is not going in the direction she wants. What she does want is the chance to work abroad, in an area of science that I couldn’t begin to understand. Their plan is to go to Switzerland – I was a step ahead, as I knew perfectly well that they ended up moving to the UK. Indeed, to Oxford. Indeed, my church – which has a little cameo. And that is exactly what they do.

The second half of the memoir looks at their ‘resurrection year’ – the healing and restoration that God could provide in this move across the world. Certainly it came with its own struggles: while Merryn thrived in her new role, Sheridan had to leave a job he loved, and found it hard to pick up his career in England. And the grief at not having a child couldn’t just go away – Voysey writes about how it affected so many parts of life, from planning for the future to being introduced to a pregnant neighbour.

Resurrection Year is not a theology book, but it is centred around God and soaked in the experience of living with Jesus. I don’t know what somebody without faith would make of it, to be honest, though I’d be intrigued to hear. Voysey never questions his faith (I think there comes a point in a Christian’s life, certainly in mine, where they have seen and heard too much to doubt God’s existence) but he and his wife do question Him about why this is happening – and ask themselves if they have made the right choices, and so on. And He answers questions and prayers in unexpected ways during this ‘Resurrection Year’. But above all this is really just a beautifully honest book about a couple’s experience, told in simple, poignant, disarmingly and almost ruthlessly honest prose.

I read the whole thing in a day or so, and I’m keen to read more by Voysey – and it also makes me wonder what other good faith-based memoirs are out there. Suggestions, please!