These last few days have been interesting and given me much ‘meat’ for thought. There has been a lot odf excitiment and a lot of sadness, and I think there will be more of the same over the next few days. As you know, I am in the last few weeks of my time at Gillingham YFC – and this is the backdrop for my rambling thoughts on Monday.

 

On Saturday night we had a big GYFC event at The Black Lion Leisure Centre. The manager, Dave, is a Christian and keen for us to make use of the facilities. We had a night of games, followed by D2 gig, followed by pool party. During the event I found myself needing to go outside as it suddenly hit me hard that this was the last time I was ever going to be doing anything like this.  I don’t usually get emotional, but I think I was getting close there!

 

The thing that really got me was that I have seen a number of those young people 5 days a week for nearly 8 years. It’s weird to think that I will probably never see them again. I will hope to hear stories, but the casual chats on the bonnet of my car while they ‘spark up’ are quickly vanishing. I’m going to miss that kind of interaction.

 

Today, I led my last team meeting. It was a normal occasion, no tears or anything like that but, again, I left thinking I will never do that again. I will never again sit in that room working out the plan for the next period of time with that group of people.

 

Through all of this it strikes me that in the normal everyday run of life that we can just take loads of things for granted. It is not until we lose them, or know we are about to lose them, that we start to appreciate things in a different and deeper way. We can sometimes get complacent with the everyday stuff and not realise how much we value it until we realise we are going to lose it. We can easily miss the significance of the everyday stuff in our lives so much that it needs some ‘event’ to occur to often re-awaken us to the beauty of the everyday event.

 

I look back over the last 9 or so years at Gillingham YFC which have been great. There are some things I would do differently if I had my time again, particularly the everyday stuff, I would spend more time with people and less time with the PC and paper. More time listening to stories and less time telling stories. More time chilling with God, and less time proving myself.

 

It’s easy to take good things for granted and I hope that I don’t do this so much in my new role. My mum has a favourite saying ‘You’ll miss me when I’m gone!’. It’s taken totally out of context here, but the sentiment is the same – some things you really do not miss until they are gone. By then it could be too late.