Flashback

So... time for a quick catchup. The Fun Day was awesome: no-one got lost, no-one fell off the climbing wall, and no-one (not even me) got stressed. Although there was one hairy moment during the line-dancing display, but frankly, I should have seen that coming.

London last weekend, was equally as much fun but for entirely different reasons. Whether it was the cloudless blue sky, the wind in the trees by the Embankment, or the delightful trip through Central London on an open-top bus, I don't know. What I do know is that I came home feeling tired, educated, happy, and sunburnt.

I like London. History seeps through the stones, landmarks appear round corners like familiar friends from childhood postcards, and everything fits together in a sort of melée of the ancient and the modern. I guess that sensation was summed up for me succinctly by floating up the Thames from Westminster. The London Eye, the Houses of Parliament, St Pauls, the Roman excavation site, Shakespeare's Globe, Tower Bridge glistening in the sunshine, and the Tower itself, all jostling together along the riverbank like characters from histories old and new. It was delightful.

-

"What are you up to these days?"asked Mike, supping a cool white wine. The sun caught his greying hair as he leaned back, just out of the shade of the large umbrella. I chuckled nervously.
"Well, it's been quite a time," I said, "but now I'm working as a technical writer in a software company."
"Ah,"he said contentedly, "documentation."

I felt like the only natural response was to smile knowingly, and agree. It wasn't without a little tear though. Mike's little boy ran around the garden, arms covered in sand from the sandpit. On the other side of the vast circular table, his wife chatted to friends and smiled happily. And I found myself drifting into a flashback of Mike, my friend from university, huddled into a cold corner of a student flat, crippled by depression, and me, perched on a beanbag, trying hard to tell him it wouldn't always be this way, praying for him and hoping beyond hope that God would do something. It had been so difficult to see, somehow. Funny how things change. The barbecue smoked gently in the corner, glasses chinked, wine glugged merrily, and the evening sun cast long summery shadows on the grass. Mike's friends laughed into the twilight in the garden of his lovely home.

I prayed about it on the drive home. I suppose I'm realising that we're all on different journeys, and we all go through different seasons. I moan a lot about things I haven't got. God knows this. I'm sure he chuckles at me from time-to-time. Other times he tells me off for coveting. And this time, it could have been easy for me to rocket down the motorway in floods of tears, shaking my fist at God and asking him where my future went to. But I didn't. I couldn't. I just found myself grateful that God had done something incredible for my friend, and that he was actually happy. And maybe one day, I thought. Maybe one day...