“You wait and see, one day…”

Ok, first off, I know I’m a bad person!! I’m still alive, still here and yeah I know haven’t bloggedfor a month( a month exactly, would ya look at that!!). But honestly it doesn’t feel like that. As ever, time that I’m down here is just running away from me. Weeks go by like seconds and kinda squidge into each other and before I knew it, I’ve been back from Christmas over half a term!! I’ve been here 6 months, oh my gosh!! So yeah, a term and a half left… which scarily, as I was working out the other day, is a little under 20 weeks left here. My response to this “Say what now?!?” It feels like yesterday that I packed up my gubbins and trolleyed on down the A34, and now in like 19 weeks I’m gonna be doing the whole shebang in reverse!! I am so completely in the mindset of “Let’s make every second count and do all I can” now for my time left, cos I don’t want to waste any of my time here. Because, when all is said and done; In spite of all the ups and downs and the crazyness of things down here… I’m gonna miss this place so much when I’m gone!!

What I really wanna talk about though today, what the title of today’s blog is about, is how very very right so many people were about things!! Ok, so expand on this rather cryptic sentence…

In 2007 and the beginning of 2008, things weren’t so great. I was trying to work through grieving in “the right way”, I was working through issues that I felt like I was too young to have to deal withand that didn’t seem fair. I was confused about how my family dynamic had changed. I kept telling myself that any way I was choosing to deal with things was the wrong one and there was always gonna be a better way out there.  I was still very aware that there was a call on my life from God in to some form of ministry, but just at the point when that seemed to be the only sure thing in my life that got turned upside down as well. When my original gap year plans fell through I honestly didn’t know where to go or what to do. I was steadily doing worse and worse at school simply because I couldn’t be bothered to be there and didn’t see the point. I was bored of teachers telling me that I was going to do really well even if I didn’t work, I wanted them to see that I knew “me” better and that at the rate I was going I was going to do really badly because that’s what I deserved. It got to the point that this time last year, about 4 months until I was due to finish school forever, I came very close to jusr dropping out and giving up.

All the time that this “season” of life was going on I was continuously being told by a huge variety of many people: “You wait and see, one day when your doing youthwork full time all of this will come in usefull. One day, you are going to be able to relate to a young person better than anyone else because of the horrible things that have happened.” And loads of other stuff along those lines. I kinda got a bit bored of hearing that in all the times I was really hurting that I was writing bible studies and talks for myself. I thought that maybe these people who kept telling me this were a little bit right, that maybe I could be able to use my “story” to make young people see that I wasn’t born fully formed as a youthworker but that it took some work getting here. I never imagined that in my first year of full time youthwork that I would see how right they were!!

In our groups there is a girl who is 16, her dad died about 2 years ago and she doesn’t have a clue what to do with any of the things she is feeling . She hasn’t been able to sleep properly in those 2 years, she’s doing badly at school because she is so tired and doesn’t really want to be there, she decided that she wanted to drop out in January but is still hanging on at school for the minute and she is reluctant to go and see the doctor or a counsellor because of a really bad counsellor her school sent her to. I din’t realise that I’d only have to “wait and see” a little while and that “one day” would be right now for me to come across a young person who I relate so deeply to. Every time I see her, my heart goes out to her that little bit more, willing her to just carry on going Even though it seems like the hardest thing in the world. 

When we were talking about thigson Monday it was so good to be able to share some of my experience with her. To show her that it’s not gonna be all bad forever, that it’s possible to come through this bad patch, and that I would be there for her supporting her whenever she wanted.

It felt odd, but Monday night was the first time that I honestly thanked God for all the poo from the last 3 years because I know, I know, that without it I would have been a young and naive youthworkerout of my depth struggling to find the right words; but with it I was a young youthwoker able to relate to a young person on a level that another worker couldn’t knowing the right things she wanted me to say.  

To sum up, I just ask that you would join me in praying for this girl. That she would really take the opportunities to open up to me and phil and accept the help we offer, and take this chance to deepen her relationship with God.

But also as an extra thing, pray for yourselves, that you would find the “desert flowers”. When all seems rubbish and you honestly can’t see what God is doing in a certain situation, keep your eyes open and your hope alive for the good thing to be at the centre to flip it all round and rearrange your perspectives. I pray that you would all “wait and see” and that “one day” you would find that flower in the desert.

Lex xx