Reflecting on our New Chapter - One Year On.

It has just past the one year mark since we made the decision to start a new chapter in our lives and move to Stoke from Leeds. I really cant believe just how fast time has flown by. Next month will be officially a whole year since we actually made the move, but for now I thought id take a look back at how our decision has been turning out.

We made this decision in July 2015 to move our little family down to Stoke on Trent .After a lot of fasting and praying, we put our trust in the Lord and as they say we took the plunge and just went for it. When we told people of our decision, we were very surprised if I'm honest by how much opposition we actually faced from people we knew, especially a few of who we thought were good friends.

Here are a few of the comments we heard about our decision;

• "Are you sure you are making the right decision?"
• "Have you really thought this through?"
• "Your crazy to be going just like that "
• Mark had this said to him once, "Have you had a say in this decision or was it made for you?"

The comment that hurt the most was the following;

• " I heard that Mark was given an ultimatum by Gemma that she was going to move with or without him."

I cant begin to tell you just how much this comment hurt. I wont reveal who said it, but it was very hurtful. The decision to move was a joint one, and it wasn't an easy one. We had a lot of factors to consider which we did do before the decision was finally made.  It really hurt that people we thought were close friends would say such a hurtful thing.

Despite the opposition we went ahead with the move and had faith that all would work out.

We didn't know how things would turn out, but we were definitely not going to stay put and then constantly ask ourselves "what if ", so we did the move as we felt it was the best thing to do for our family.
Since we made the move, we have had so many blessings pour in. We were blessed to get our home within a month of the move, and Alex has had an amazing first year in the Reception class at his school. His end of year report  is fantastic and he has overcome so much and has excelled in so many things. He did an amazing job at Sports day. He received the following:

• 1st place in Sprint
• 2nd place in skipping
• 3rd place in hurdles

Alex is also doing amazing in his swimming lessons each week. He has brilliant swimming teachers who have helped him to learn to swim and gain so much confidence in the water. He does so well with swimming and can even do some strokes that we struggle with. We couldn't be more prouder of him.

Mark has been blessed this past week with getting a new job where his weekends are now free which is brilliant for us as a family.

We are so happy we had the faith to move and to ignore the negativity from some people and put our faith in the Lord and we feel that the evidence in front of us speaks volumes  and proves that this decision was the right one for us to make and its just a shame that some people couldn't support us and be happy for us.
However to those family and friends who did support us we want to say how much we appreciate you and love you. Thank you to those who did believe in us. If people cant support us and be happy for us, then we ask that you keep out of our business and please keep your negativity to yourself.