‘Woman Alive featured the faith story of my grandmother in 1996, and it inspired my own relationship with God’

When I was eight years old, Woman Alive magazine featured a story that, while I could not have fully understood at the time, would quietly chart the course of my own life of faith. It was my grandmother’s story of obedience to God, extraordinary faith and a willingness to venture onto the wild waves of the open sea.

A handful of years before it was published, my grandmother found herself gazing out over the English coast when the Lord whispered a promise to her heart. It was a poetic promise with tangible weight; it would require her to sell her home, learn to skipper, and travel the world by yacht; carried wherever the Lord’s will blew her.

The curious thing is that my grandparents were not sailors in any sense of the word. 

The curious thing is that my grandparents were not sailors in any sense of the word. They were practical, land-loving people who understood kettles far better than keels. And yet, my grandmother could not unhear it. For her, the tide had turned, and there was no going back.

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Naturally, this is the sort of instruction most people would politely question, pray about for another decade, and then file under ”probably not God”. But at the very same time, my unsaved grandfather had the exact same idea. No sermon. No persuasion. Just a shared, baffling conviction that this was the next right thing to do. So they did it.

They sold their home, bought a yacht aptly named “Promise,” and learned to sail, trusting God, nautical manuals, and a fair amount of trial and error. Their story, captured in Woman Alive, was one of radical obedience, deep trust, and the sort of faith that doesn’t wait until the sea is calm before stepping out.

READ MORE: ‘God led me to give up my secure job of 24 years, to run a school on a ship for missionary kids!’

At the time, my family had recently emigrated to the United States when my seafairing grandparents stopped by to visit. During that visit, they introduced me to chess and kiwi fruit - two things which would later become important. Years passed before I caught up with them properly and they handed me the map they had used to plot their sailing course and an original 1996 copy of Woman Alive featuring their story. That map, creased, handwritten, full of lines leading into the unknown, felt holy in a way I couldn’t quite articulate. It wasn’t just a navigation tool; it was a testimony. And just like that map logged their faith, their faith logged itself somewhere deep in my heart.

Inspired by their courage, I decided to backpack across Europe and visit other countries, echoing their journey in my own small way.

Inspired by their courage, I decided to backpack across Europe to visit other countries, echoing my grandparents’ journey in my own small way. I wasn’t sailing oceans, but I was stepping beyond the familiar, trusting God in new places, learning that faith often looks like movement before clarity. What my grandparents had lived out so boldly, listening for God’s voice and following it no matter how large the waves appeared, began to shape how I made decisions, dreamed dreams, and trusted the Lord with uncertainty.

What struck me most was not just that they obeyed God, but how they did it, timely, practically, with grit and trust and love. Their faith was not loud or performative. It was practical. It packed bags, studied charts, kept going when the sea grew rough and gave every lasts ounce of themselves to the people they met. They trusted that the same God who called them would also keep them.

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My grandmother later wrote their story in a memoir and dreamed of publishing it, of letting it sail into the wider world to encourage others of the Lords adventurous ways and unwavering faithfulness. She passed away peacefully and unexpectedly a handful of years ago but those last months were often laced with her dream to publish becoming a reality. After her passing, I knew God’s story was not meant to remain anchored on a shelf. I wanted her words, her faith, her willingness to trust God beyond reason to breathe courage and adventure into others who are standing at the edge of their own impossible instructions. Because that is what her story had done for me.

It taught me that faith is not about having all the answers, it’s about recognizing the voice of God and responding, even when the idea sounds utterly mad. Especially then. It’s about stepping into the boat when you’ve never sailed before, trusting that obedience is safer than comfort, and believing that God is far more invested in the journey than we realise. My grandmother’s story reminds me that a life of faith is not small or cautious. It is expansive. It is brave. And thought it can make you feel seasick, it always leads somewhere beautiful.

Some stories are meant to be told once. Others are meant to travel the world. Hers, I believe, is still sailing.