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2007

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Working hours

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Piercings

February 5th
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January 29th
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January 22nd
Wind

January 15th
Honesty

January 8th
My Car

January 3rd
Happy New Year

Working Hours
26^th February 2007 

As you know I am a Christian youth worker. I decided to become a youth worker for the church when I realised I could join two of my passions – my passion for the church (despite all it’s faults and frustrations, I love what it stands for and the potential it has as a life changing and world changing group of ordinary people) and my passion for young people. I love working with people who are discovering what life is all about without all the hang-ups that us grown ups seem to have. I love hanging out with people who are honest about how they feel, who don’t excuse what they think and who are desperate to find out who they are, the people who are longing just to be given the opportunity to be listened to and taken seriously. I love working with people who know how to have fun!

 One of the many things that I like about my job is the flexibility – never having to go into work in an office from 9 – 5, Monday to Friday. My weeks are never the same and having my office base at home means I get to do paperwork and preparation in my pyjamas! The downside to working from home is the inability to switch off. The stuff of work is all around me all the time (largely due to my untidiness and everything being spread all around my house!) and it can be hard to get away from that. A lot of the young people I work with have my mobile phone number which means I am constantly accessible to them, and they don’t tend to stick to my working hours! It seems that crises don’t always (if ever) come at convenient times. Therefore when I am not working, when I get a stretch of time where I can be me – just Nat, not Nat the youth worker, Nat the counsellor, Nat the problem solver, Nat the agony aunt – I am very protective of it.

 There are a handful of kids in my neighbourhood, ranging from 3 years old to about 11. These kids, although loved by God, are horrid! No really, they are awful! They are constantly being destructive and obnoxious, and recently have taken to throwing food at my house. It started with cereal – wheatabix and cornflakes! – and then progressed to potatoes and eggs. I kid you not. They climb over my back wall and chuck stuff at my back door and windows. I haven’t done anything to annoy them, they are pleasant enough to me when I see them, and in fact they even wave to me when I see them out and about, but come nightfall, they start the food flinging. I have tried reasoning with them, I have tried talking to their parents (who claim that I must surely be mistaken, their angels would never be so naughty!) and I have tried getting really angry with them. In fact my mum went out and screamed at them last week (I have never been so scared by my mum – she was terrifying! I urge you to never get on the wrong side of her!!) 5 minutes later we were under attack by a barrage of bananas! It has got to the point where I hate the very sight of these kids, and I have started swearing under my breath when I see the little blighters.  

I work with such a cross section of children and young people, not all of whom are always polite and respectful of me. This I can cope with, but heaven forbid them to be rude to me when I am not working! I have no patience for them, no love and definitely no forgiveness – can they not see I am off duty? Do I not deserve a private life, a time of peace far from anyone not able to vote? Have I not earned some time off?

 Um, no. Well, yes, but no. We are all entitled to time off – God rested on the seventh day and we all need to rest and recuperate in order to be able to work the rest of the time. But loving each other, caring for others, forgiving those who’ve hurt us, now that’s a full time job. Jesus didn’t command us to love our neighbours during working hours only, when it was convenient to us, when we weren’t too busy or when we felt like it. We are called to love all of the time, every waking hour, every person. This in fact sucks when these people who I’m supposed to be loving are, at that point, hurling breakfast foods towards me! It also sucks when I’ve had a hard day at work and I am tired and irritable (doesn’t happen too often – me being irritable that is, not me working hard…that happens all the time!!) and the last thing I want to do is forgive some little fiends who I don’t think deserve it.

 And then it strikes me like a thunderbolt. I don’t deserve forgiveness, I am not always that easy to love, and at times I too can be destructive. What if God decided that he would only love me in working hours, if forgiveness only happened when he wasn’t busy with other, more important Godly-things, if he would only spend time with me when he wasn’t fed up of seeing twenty something, freckly gals. Luckily for me, and you, God isn’t like that – he’s open for business (or relationship might be a better word) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the rest of our lives, and beyond. He will never run out of love, will never be distracted or too tired to properly listen, and best of all, he never, ever thinks that we are unforgivable!

 Being a Christian is not a hobby or part-time job. It’s not something you can do in your spare time, when it fits into your tight schedule. It’s a life choice, it’s a way of living, a way of being, it’s who we are. I don’t want to be a Sunday only Christian I want to be an all-the-way, all-the-time Christian, which is why the next time I’m confronted with flying food I will try to utter words of blessing instead of curses. And I’ll then invite them to one of my youth clubs, so they can see how much fun I am at work!