{"id":6619,"date":"2025-01-24T11:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T11:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/?p=6619"},"modified":"2025-06-11T17:49:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T16:49:22","slug":"coming-to-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/coming-to-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming to Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]by Lisa Williamson<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve lived in Brighton all my life, although I was born in Lewisham. Aged 38, I gave birth to my first daughter, Madeleine, at Sussex County Hospital on 19 October 2000. I was living by Seven Dials, a place I knew well as I had previously lived there as a child and went to the local school.<\/p>\n

My younger sister Joanne was a Christian and she and her husband, Christian, agreed to be our daughter\u2019s godparents. I chose St Peter\u2019s because, although I was not a regular church attender (we did go to Sunday School), I had an emotional connection with the church. It was a place I was grateful to see, even though I had not been inside.<\/p>\n

My sister Joanne had cancer in her early twenties and just after I had given birth to Madeleine, her cancer had come back. It was important to me to have her and her husband as godparents. The then vicar Father Michael agreed for us to have the service after the main service. It was a lovely day, and afterwards we went to my parents\u2019 house near Preston Park.<\/p>\n

I gave birth to my second daughter, Raphaela, 18 months later, on 18 June 2002. By this time, my sister was very ill and sadly died two months later. Raphaela (pronounced ra-fayler) was baptised in St Philip\u2019s church in Hove where we had just moved. In a year, I had had a baby, lost my sister, and moved house still grieving for her.<\/p>\n

In 2004 I joined the diocese of Chichester as a communications officer. From this time my faith journey really took hold. I am so grateful to be able to look back on that special day of the baptism and know that God was with us, to know that he has always been by my side through all the difficult times and good. I don\u2019t know how I would have managed without His guiding, unconditional love. Jesus, counsellor, redeemer and saviour.<\/p>\n

I am grateful too, that my sister\u2019s husband is still in our lives and that he has a lovely family now who we see often. Joanne is never forgotten. God is good.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lisa Williamson describes how an emotional connection to St Peter’s evolved into a life full of faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":6360,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community"],"yoast_head":"\nComing to Faith - St Peter's Heritage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/coming-to-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Coming to Faith - St Peter's Heritage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lisa Williamson describes how an emotional connection to St Peter's evolved into a life full of faith.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/coming-to-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"St Peter's Heritage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-24T11:01:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-11T16:49:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/North-Window.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"sandy.matthews\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sandy.matthews\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/coming-to-faith\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/coming-to-faith\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"sandy.matthews\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/#\/schema\/person\/78206572fd69a6db536c4b574fef6fbc\"},\"headline\":\"Coming to Faith\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-24T11:01:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-11T16:49:22+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/coming-to-faith\/\"},\"wordCount\":382,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/coming-to-faith\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/North-Window.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Community\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/coming-to-faith\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/stpetersbrighton.org\/heritage\/coming-to-faith\/\",\"name\":\"Coming to Faith - 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