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2007
9th July
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2nd July
Smile
26th June
Waterlogged
11th June
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21st May
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May 9th
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May 1st
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April 16th
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April 9th
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Small but deadly
March 28th
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March 19th
Mountains
March 4th
Lone Daffodil
February 26th
Working hours
February 19th
Memory
February 12th
Piercings
February 5th
Patience
January 29th
Surprise
January 22nd
Wind
January 15th
Honesty
January 8th
My Car
January 3rd
Happy New Year
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Working Hours
26th
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!
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