About
My name is Lloyd Portman, I am 74 yrs young and live in Christchurch, New Zealand, the country of my birth. I was the first child of 4 born to a family. Soon after I was born, my mother suffered a very debilitating bout of postnatal depression and was committed to a mental hospital.
She was so ill they had to restrain her in a straight jacket for her own protection. She received shock treatment during those 8 months restrained in that jacket and slowly she returned to a manageable state and could come home after 18 months away.
During my mother's absence, my father's parents looked after me. When mum returned home, we started living as a family for the first time. As if that beginning wasn't enough stress on the family, sadly, there was more to come.
Soon after Mum’s return, my father developed bowel cancer and subsequently died on his 26th birthday. I was not aware of the psychological damage done during those years, but grew up insecure and susceptible to rejection.
For me, school was a problem because I had an undetected learning disability of dyslexia. I always struggled with spelling and grammar and reading to where I learned to become an auditory learner. This led me to become a practical and hands-on person and I trained to become a farmer.
Fast forward 26 years ... while I was farming and milking cows 365 days of the year, I had an encounter with God and was born again, becoming a Christian. My life was impacted so much, all I wanted to do was go to Bible College. I felt certain I was called to the ministry.
God said NO to me about going to Bible College, and instead the cowshed became my classroom. He "met me there every milking time" and this was where He taught me. These were very exciting times and on one occasion, He made a statement that I have never forgotten.
He said "Now you have the choice to either walk with Me or the Church". Because I was very young in my faith, I asked Him what that meant for me? He said, "If you walk with the Church, you will have trouble with Me and if you walk with Me, you will have trouble with the Church!" Unfortunately, because I needed to be accepted, I learned how to do both.
We then moved to another district and bought a farm and joined a new congregation. After 3yrs God called me to pioneer a church in the neighbouring district. This church I Pastored owned the Christian bookstore in the town, which was staffed by 5 faithful volunteers. I was visiting the bookstore early one morning to select different gifts for each of the staff because it was Christmas time.
I had selected some gifts and cards and was about to enter them up in the book when God spoke to me. He said, "put the gifts back and take the blank cards home and give each of them something from the pastor's desk"!
I was excited about this because I needed Him to show me what to write because He had to write it! At the time I was ministering prophetically and the amazing thing which happened was, God gave me a prophetic word for each person written within a 4 stanza poetic format.
The other point was each prophetic word God fulfilled the following year for each person. Can you imagine that with my issues with language?!
This was the beginning of my journey as a poet. God Himself is the ultimate Poet and much of His word is poetical. I was amazed by how the scriptures were unfolded to me as I worked under His tutoring.
I now write a range of poetry in 3 different genres. Devotional Christian poetry, Inspirational poetry and Romantic poetry. I also create courses helping couples to communicate. I have recently created a 7 day challenge "Bridging the Gap" which is a 7 day course a couple complete together. It includes daily questions based on the days lesson which opens up great discussion opportunities to assist their communication skills.
I have a passion to help couples struggling with different aspects of their relationship and will be creating many more economically priced short courses in the future. These will be listed on the products page, and you can become an affiliate for these courses if you choose to.
My Devotional Christian poetry has a reflection following the poem and also contains scripture references. This Devotional poetry can be used as study materials for small groups. My poetry has been read from pulpits and the prophetic edge it has resonated with hearts.
The many testimonials I have received confirm what God has led me into. My focus is to write poetry which engages my audience in a visceral way where the words I write, being God inspired and reads the heart of the readers.