Through the Tunnel

Through the Tunnel:

free at last

Daniel Holland

Published by PUSH Publishing, 2010

Smashwords Edition

First published in paperback in 2010 by PUSH Publishing, London

ISBN-13: 978-0-9553783-4-8

www.pushpublishing.co.uk

Copyright © 2010 Daniel Holland

The right of Daniel Holland to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Scripture, unless otherwise stated is taken from the

NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,

Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995

By the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Cover design and typesetting by Joseph Laycock

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Dedication

There are so many people I could dedicate this book to – they are in every chapter, but the person I thank Jesus for every day is Beck. Beck has stood for me, stood with me and believed in me before I did myself. Her unfailing faith has been a pillar at times when everything seemed to be falling apart.

More than anything I want to honour Beck for showing me what unconditional love looks like. You are an inspiration.

‘He who finds a wife finds a good thing

And obtains favour from the Lord’

Proverbs 18v22

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 - A happy childhood

Chapter 2 - The day my world stopped

Chapter 3 - Searching for identity

Chapter 4 - Springwood

Chapter 5 - Winchester

Chapter 6 - Home

Chapter 7 - Job's comforters

Chapter 8 - High dependency

Chapter 9 - Rebecca and The Way

Chapter 10 - Hide and seek

Chapter 11 - The dark valley

Chapter 12 - Hope remains

Chapter 13 - Italy

Chapter 14 - Making headway

Chapter 15 - Victory beyond doubt

Chapter 16 - The Father's heart

Chapter 17 - Declaration

Chapter 18 - Free at last

Chapter 19 - The dark room

Chapter 20 - A bright future

Prologue

Fear gripped my stomach with icy cramps; desperate thoughts raced round and round my mind like a runaway train; surely they would derail me soon. The metallic taste had been in my mouth for days now.

You are going back to the mental hospital.

Did you really think you could escape?

If you try to break free I will make you more ill than you have ever been.

You have no choice, you know what you must do.

Listening to my accusers, thinking of the consequences of obeying their destructive agenda, brought torment to screaming pitch in my mind. I could see no way out. My emotions were frozen. They could not register love; all I could do was survive.

Staggering across my bedroom I opened the cupboard, and lifting another hidden bottle of vodka I took a huge slug. The feeling of being out of my depth was overwhelming, but I thought I knew what I must do. The wedding must be cancelled, there is no other way, tomorrow I must tell Beck.

All the arrangements had been carefully made; it was only a week until the wedding day. Friends and family were delighted that we would be married after all we had been through together. The love we had was precious, and it had been through the fire many times already. But over the last months and weeks the agony of pretence had crushed me, and as the day drew closer fears had grown into rampant monsters that bullied my mind. How could I have been stupid enough to think that I would cope with leaving home? How could I have believed that I was ready to take on all the responsibilities of marriage? How could I have dreamed that I was ready for a wedding, with all those people coming? How could I have allowed a situation that would cause Beck such pain? Denial had seemed the best course. Surely God would come through for me in the end; he had wanted us to get married after all, everybody said so. Wouldn’t God come with a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder and take all my dark fears away?

But it had not happened, and I knew I must face reality: I had to make a decision and accept the consequences. I must escape this wedding. How could I live with the shame? When I saw Beck the next evening I would tell her my decision and the wedding would be cancelled. It was a horrendous night; despite all the medication I was awake through each tormented hour. Normally I fell into a drugged sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, but this night my room was thick with a darkness more than night, as if it had been transported into a region of hell. My body was racked with fear, clenched with tension and my mind churned relentlessly. The only comfort I took was that after the wedding had been called off, my tormentors, having achieved their goal, might relax their efforts.

Beck had had her own misgivings about the wedding, but when she arrived and I told her my decision her pain cut me to the quick. She had put up with so much and been so selfless in her love. To be robbed of the marriage she had prayed for so close to the day was a devastating blow. It was bitter punishment to see the anguish in her face. Beck had done nothing wrong, quite the contrary, but now she must share my suffering again. How could we carry on? Where could we go from here? Surely it was the end.

Chapter 1

A happy childhood

‘I love you, O Lord, my strength’

Psalm 18 v. 1

-

I entered this world of time and space, screaming and gasping for air on the twenty-seventh of April 1976.

I was born on the sunny Mediterranean island of Malta, where the apostle Paul was shipwrecked almost two thousand years before. Dad was a teacher in a services school, and due to the threat of civil war we moved to north-east Germany when I was two. We lived in Münster, but in the English army quarters so there was little need to learn German. Dad was allocated an officer’s house and my first memories began in the quiet street outside our home. Long summer evenings were spent playing out with a group of English friends. There was a little wood opposite our house where we would build forts, ford streams and ambush each other. There was little to spoil my fun. I only worried about doing well at school and scoring goals in our games of football.

Loved and cherished by parents and grandparents, I had a privileged early childhood. I was the youngest of three children – Simon was the eldest and then Suzanne in the middle. I was a conscientious student, taking extra music lessons, and a boy scout. I played football every spare minute on the street in front of our house. An industrious child, I could entertain myself for hours with my Playmobile and Lego: I would only reluctantly allow my friends to play with them when they called round. We had a large back garden with plenty of room to play, and like most houses in Germany we had a cellar and an attic. Hide and seek was a favourite. There was never any lack of friends to play with.

I had been fortunate. I heard stories of English parents who sent their children to the German kindergarten where they had to toughen up and learn the language quickly just to survive. One of my friends at church had been through this, and I was relieved that it hadn’t happened to me. Fortunately, Mum was helping at the preschool group I went to. However, I was not prepared for the separation that would come when I went to big school at five.

My fingers had to be unpicked one by one from Mum on my first day at big school. Some of the other mothers told Mum to go home and have ‘something strong’ to drink as I was carried off wailing. Soon however, Mrs Brown, my first teacher, was elevated to royal status in my mind. She was the best thing going, and I would have done almost anything to please her. I swelled up like a big bladder of pride when my Christmas holiday story was read out to the class. She was my ideal, the sort of person I would marry one day. Mum told me that she was already taken. It was a shame, I thought, as she would have been so happy with me.

Mum was sociable and good at befriending people, always reaching out to include others less fortunate than ourselves. Heinz, a handicapped German man, was often at our house for meals. An eccentric but kind and quiet loner, he was grateful for even the smallest things that my parents did for him because he had so few friends or family. He felt comfortable enough to bring his girlfriend, Brigitte, to visit and when Mum opened the door they would practically fall in. They were an unusual couple by anyone’s standards, and he was openly affectionate to Brigitte. I was intrigued and horrified when he leaned over to give her a sloppy kiss in front of us. It was not like anything I had seen before.

Heinz reciprocated the hospitality by inviting us all back to his humble flat in a nearby tower block for ‘Kaffee und Kuchen’ – German coffee and cake. This was important for him as he found even small things stressful. He proudly cut us all a generous helping of the cake he had bought specially (he clearly had little money), but we realised the bottom was covered in green mould. He watched us intently, looking for the delight on our faces as we ate. We surreptitiously deposited our cake into handkerchiefs while he happily munched on his green mould as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Suzanne and I managed not to laugh until we left, and no one became ill!

On Sunday we would attend an army church a few miles away in the barracks. It was not large, and the few soldiers who did come were normally quite unusual. Some had learning difficulties and others were just plain odd. Often they were from the Pioneer Regiment, which was not the most glamorous in the army. They had a very difficult time from their comrades if they were bold enough to stand up as Christians, and were grateful for any friendship. We were a respectable Christian family. Mum and Dad did not get involved with the officers’ mess, or the drinking culture. I did not understand our ‘nice’ neighbours getting rowdy at the end of street parties we had on special occasions. At church I met my first charismatic Christian; one lively soldier from the Pioneer Regiment who turned up with a tambourine and proceeded to shake it during the hymns, punctuating the service with unscheduled shouts of ‘Hallelujah!’ He was more entertaining than anything else that happened in the meeting – I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His behaviour was alien to me but I liked him, he seemed to have so much fun!

I cannot think of a time when I did not know there was a God. Brought up in a godly home and encouraged to read the Bible from early on, I had a childish faith and love for God. I remember singing to Him in my bed before I went to sleep. I pored over my Bible story books about King David and Elijah. The army church was not very lively but the gospel was preached, and there were good people there. This was in a time when some people still went to church on a Sunday just because it was the thing to do, not out of any devotion, and this was reflected in church life. Mum taught the Sunday school, and I was the earnest student. I would put my hand up to answer before anyone else could when my mother asked, ‘Who was Jehoshaphat?’ I cannot give a date when I gave my heart to the Lord but looking back I think I was already saved; God had his hand on my life from an early age. I loved Him.

Mum and Dad were keen caravanners, and we would go off at the drop of a hat in the summer vacation to Luxembourg, France or deeper into mid-Europe for longer explorations. The excitement mounted towards the end of term when I knew Simon and Suzanne would return from their boarding schools in England, as Mum and Dad would make a special effort to make the holidays memorable for them. One of my favourite things was for the whole family to go caravanning; I couldn’t understand why we didn’t live in the caravan all year round!

We had ‘close fellowship’ in our caravan, especially if it was raining. The cramped conditions were exacerbated if we could not get out in the daytime, and tempers would fray. Dad would read Just William to us, and it was delightful to sit cocooned in the warmth of the caravan with a hot drink, enjoying the pitter-patter of rain and sheltered from the wind whirling outside.

I had greater novelty value for Suzanne and Simon because they only saw me at school breaks, and in the Christmas holidays when we would go out carol-singing the Germans were more generous as they favoured blond-haired children. Often we were invited in for ‘kaffee und kuchen’ and then asked to sing; knowing only a couple of lines of one or two carols did not seem to matter too much, although we got shorter shrift from the English families where sometimes we were told to go away with words I hadn’t heard in the Bible!

Christmas was a real occasion in Germany; ice-skating on the frozen lake, decorations and lights everywhere and Santa or ‘Pelznickel’ arriving by helicopter. There would be Christmas markets vibrant with colour, bustling with happy faces and fragrant with the sweet smells of cinnamon, pastries and mulled wine. The Germans were unashamedly proud of their culture and high standard of living.

It was normally traumatic when term started again. Suzanne did not settle very well at boarding school, and although Simon did not mind going he resented being the sole object of Suzanne’s affection in front of his friends. It was difficult for Mum and Dad to send them off under these circumstances, and there were lots of tears and even threatened escape attempts.

We moved back to Snettisham, Norfolk in 1985. It was exciting to live where Dad had grown up and to be near our extended family. Simon had finished at boarding school and was looking for work, while Suzanne attended the local high school. Mum and Dad were both teachers and worked locally. Life settled into a pleasant routine.

On Fridays I purchased strawberry bonbons carefully weighed out on scales and put