YClosing Time
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
It was so bittersweet, leaving the office today. It was just Betty--Karen and Elaine had said goodbye to me on Monday and Wednesday respectively because they wouldn't be seeing me on Friday--and she loathed to let go of me. I loathed to step out of that office as well, and leave the first place where I experienced true service to the kingdom of God and true love, uncluttered and free, of one another. As I walked to KAP to meet my friends for lunch, I realised all those times that Dad and Mum told me this is not what working life really is like, they were wrong. This really is what working life was meant to be. This is what God created it to be. Uncorrupted from ambition, selfless in service, generous in love. Along the way it is human nature which corrupted it and changed it to what it is now. This whole experience has set the tone for me. The example of Karen, Betty and Elaine have shown me how I should act when I start working (or maybe even now). A high ideal to live up to, but that is what ideals are for.
2004 has been a year of beginnings and ends for me. It's been so eventful. God has blessed me abundantly with material gifts as well as gifts of opportunity and experience and I have grown so much and learnt so much more about myself and about Him. It feels like I have done so much over the year--waited, rejoiced, wept, shared and loved. I don't regret a single experience I had. He has provided, spoken, disciplined and taught, and all this is a testament to His allsurpassing love.
I found a quote from C.S. Lewis while sorting through Pastor Gordon's files:
'To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entablements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all dangers and perturbations of all love is hell.'
So, on the last day of the year, I have this urge to say a phrase that will not make much sense to anyone except the class of 4a4 2004.
Closing time, time for you to go out to the places you will be from.
Goodbye, year. It's been great knowing you :)
jac was here with you
12/31/2004 09:14:00 pm
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