Good morning everyone. Firstly, I must apologize for not being on since I created my account, but unfortunately my wife and I tested positive for Covid and it knocked both of us for six.
I wanted to introduce myself and just say hi, from Scotland and quickly clear up how my name is pronounced as I have had some people on another app complain that its too complicated.
When I was born in 1978, my late father and my mother couldn't decide what to call me. I was the youngest of three and the other two were very simple - Bernadette and Jason. My mum wanted something of her Scottish roots and connected to her late father, while my dad wanted something connected to his Jewish heritage (my grandmother was from a family of Ostracized Jews (her mother had fallen for a "gentile" and was ousted by her parents). So they compromised - my full name is Aaron (pronounced 'Air-on') Iain (iain (i not L)- which is Gaelic for "John"), but I go by Iain because I prefer it and it stops people thinking I'm that famous Scottish Isle Arran - I'm a big bloke but not that big.
I have seven loves in life and they are Jesus, the Bible, Rugby, Football (Soccer to everyone in the USA and Australia), Computer Games, History, and writing (I am in the process of starting to write my first book).
Prior to 2015 I had been an amateur rugby league player for a number of years and I was also a Retained Firefighter. However, while living in Lancashire, I had a stroke in 2015 and fell down a flight of stairs. This unfortunately left me with a brain-injury and severe hemiplegic migraines as well as other health problems. My partner and I were due to get married on November 14th 2015, but my stroke put paid to that as it happened on November 11th and didn't leave hospital until eight weeks later.
For a long time afterwards I was angry, in fact it would be fair to say I was a volcano inside. My partner and I ran an online magazine and I caused that to go under because of my anger - we had a readership of 110,000 worldwide and a volunteer staff of 30 and through anger we went down to three staff and lost our readership. I blamed everyone for what happened instead of looking at myself and what I was into then. I drank...heavily...was deep into the Occult, I was a magus with a Satanic Coven, and didn't have a very good outlook on life.
After my wife and I moved back to Scotland to be near my family, I almost pushed everyone away, except for my dad and my partner. My dad had come to Jesus in 1990 and for a number of years had tried to bring me to the Lord too but I fought back and refused. Then, after having the stroke I felt a hole in my life - Satanism, Paganism, witchcraft, none of it filled what it but I was still angry. I wanted healing, but I wanted it on my terms, not what I felt my dad was pushing. Then, shortly after my dad moved in with my partner and I for a short period due to his health problems, came across the film 'The Robe' - it was a fantastic film that my dad had taken from video onto disc. In that, the lead actor came across a woman who knew Jesus, was never healed physically, but was healed on the inside and when asked why she was not angry with Jesus for not being healed she answered that she was healed - she was able to listen to people, understand their problems, talk to them and help them whereas she couldn't before, and that film answered a lot of questions in my life I wanted answered. Sadly my dad went to be with the Lord on the 18th October 2022 and I have been walking with the Lord since the end of 2023.
Sorry for this long post. Again, I just wanted to introduce myself and say hi.