February 2025 Archives

My uncle, Brendan Eaton (Bung) passed away in January. Here’s the story I shared at his funeral today.

The story I want to share of uncle Brendan is about one of the most frightening moments of my childhood, and how he was there for me in that.

In the hospital a few weeks ago I heard the stories of Brendan, Rosey, and the hill trolley. Building a kart to race downhill at a breakneck pace, and then loading your little sister in it. It sounds like even as a kid Brendan had a love for vehicles, and maybe a respect, but definitely a need for speed. But it was more than the hill trolleys and motorbikes and cars – he also liked to help others experience the thrill and adventure of it.

So if as a kid for him it was hill trolleys and his little sister, by the time he was older and my uncle, he’d graduated to bigger toys. Quad bikes, specifically. And he even got a farm to ride them on.

So together with my sister Clare and brother Aaron we’d get dropped off to Toodyay for a day with Bung and Mush, and the quad bikes. I day dreamed about it, easily the highlight of every school holidays. He taught us how to ride, about safety, respect for the vehicle. But he also taught us – and showed us! – how to have fun. Nothing like that sense of adventure and thrill seeking as a kid.

That’s the first thing l want to remember Brendan for: teaching and modelling and giving us that sense of adventure.

The second is what happened on the day I crashed the quad bike. We’d been having fun in the paddocks for a few hours already, and were coming back in for the end of the afternoon. Brendan was on one bike in front, I was driving the other with my brother riding on the back, chasing him back through the gates and to the house. As we came to the corner where the gate was, there was something I didn’t see – a guy wire from a nearby pole. I hit it, at speed. The bike lifted, my brother went flying and landed on the barbed fence, and I ended up pinned underneath the bike. My memory of the moment is dark – I can’t remember seeing anything. I remember hearing myself screaming, and my brother screaming. I remember feeling trapped. The burning heat. And I remember Brendan shouting, the shouts coming closer.

See the flip side of adventure is that sometimes the risks eventuate. And in that moment, as an eleven year old, it felt like it was all over for me. But it wasn’t. Uncle Brendan was there in a moment, lifted the bike off, and got me and my brother to safety.

And that’s the second thing I want to remember Brendan for. That incredible strength, loving strength, that was there to help pick up the pieces, and let us know we would get through this.

And those two things have shaped me – willingness to live large and take risks. And the knowledge that when it does fall, there’s loving people who’ll be with you on the other side, as he was then, and as he has been even up until this last year.

Bung, I am so grateful.

Last night I was journaling, still processing some of the things that happened in the final year of my marriage – and in particular, some of the things I felt to be God speaking to me at the time, and how I had interpreted them.

See at one point, right at the very beginning of the unravelling – the first time I wondered if it was the start of the end of our marriage – I went outside the front of my home, looked up at the stars, and felt like God told me: everything is going to be all right.

I needed that message of hope, and I clung to it. But I interpreted it as your marriage is going to be all right. And in that, I felt like I had permission and endorsement to question a lot of the prior things I’d held to be true about marriage – maybe things are going to shake up but the relationship will be alright. Take some risks. I even wrote a post about how learning the difference between right and wrong isn’t always clear cut. And some of my decisions and choices in that time ended up being ones that led to a lot of hurt – and regret.

And so I was journaling last night, and wondering: how did I get it so wrong? And wondering if my spiritual compass and ability to discern things is still so off base. And I had a verse from Isaiah pop into my mind.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts”, says the Lord.
And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts
Isaiah 55

But by this point I was tired and didn’t go much deeper. I literally ended the journal entry with “Isaiah 55?” because I felt like there was something there for me to hear, but I didn’t have it in me to sit in that space last night.

I think I was wondering if the way to interpret this was that I was too willing to ignore wisdom from church and the bible and community and do things anyway, and those choices made the breakup worse and more painful than it already had to be. And maybe my take-away should be that I need to be more humble and submit my life choices to God’s ways (not that it’s always obvious! But I was really deconstructing a lot of my framework of wise life choices and willing to be a contrarian and ignore advice that previously felt settled).

So perhaps that reading of “my ways are higher than your ways” is that I need to be humble, and submit, even if I don’t get it, because there’s wisdom there that is deeper than my own reasoning.

And there’s almost certainly some truth there.

But then I came back to it this morning, and opened up Isaiah 55 again. And this time I read it completely differently.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts”, says the Lord.
And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts
Isaiah 55

Reading this verse 12 hours earlier the focus was on my failure, reading it in the morning, the focus was on God’s goodness – and awe at the idea of thoughts beyond our ability to reason.

When I re-read it, instead of viewing it as a statement about wise life decisions or even morality, I thought about that night out the front of my house: everything is going to be all right.

And that thought was true – and 18 months later – is more true than I could have known. What’s ended up happening was in fact beyond my capacity to imagine from where I was that night. If God had laid it out in all the detail I don’t think I would have even wanted it, or understood how it could be good.

But perhaps there’s things God knew, and those thoughts were higher than my thoughts.

And I feel like with that perspective I can have some compassion for myself too. Yes there were regrettable decisions that led to hurt. And yes – I can definitely grow in maturity and discernment. But there was also a path forward that was so outside my ability to understand, that I was always going to have to be stumbling forward with limited understanding, and relying on trust.

And so this morning I’m grateful for God’s ways, and that from a situation that was so bad that I’d lost the vision of a hopeful future, there is a path forward that has more hope and grace than I could have imagined.

And I’m reminded of how scripture can speak in multiple ways. One day I can read a verse and see my failure, and then the very next day, I can read it and see only God’s surpassing goodness. I do still want to grow in discernment – of wisdom and folly – and also grow in the humility required to follow wisdom from the bible and from the church and wider community, even when I’m questioning it. But I’m glad to be reminded that there’s an overwhelming grace that permeates our lives, and is far beyond anything we can imagine, and far higher than our thoughts.