the end

The end is always hard.

The last day of the Holiday Club is no exception. Great fun, the children all as high as kites and the team exhausted but thrilled.

I've been in and out of the Club today. The week's flown by and five days on from where it all began you wonder where the time has actually gone. Good times like this just fly.

Each day the Club begins and ends with a simple time of worship. Singing, a talk and some games. Each day another memory verse. Each day some different children out to lead the prayers. Each day the amazing puppet show relating what the story of the day will be.

It's humbling, moving, amusing, exciting, engrossing.

And so soon it comes to an end. We ended up with the song 'Power and might'. A fitting climax. Its last line is a resounding affirmation - 'He is the mighty King!' Climactic enough in itself it's sung three times, each time increasing in volume.

The last time round today it nearly took the roof off. What a wonderful way to end.

And then the goodbyes. That's always hard. And the team have lunch. And then it's on to the clearing up. And it all goes rather flat.

They're tired, of course. Exhausted, more like. But the buzz and the fun keeps them going from day to day. Until it ends.

And then it's the sadness that creeps across the spirit as this further little foretaste of the beauty of that other world, for which we're one day headed, is over for a while.

How short it all seems. The fun and the laughter, the games and the goodies, the warmth and the love, the friendships, the music, surprises, suspense and that sense of the presence of God.

How short it all seems.

Like life itself.

I was down later on at the Hospice again. Seeing a lovely lady there. As far removed from the children at the Holiday Club as you could get. Ninety years old and more.

And reaching the end. How short it all seems. Life. This earthly life.

The fun and the games and the friendships and love and the things that we've done and the places we've been and the people we've met and the hopes and the dreams that we've cherished and followed and sometimes have even fulfilled.

All over and past so quick.

Another bit of sadness on my soul this afternoon.

But it was good to be there with her as well this afternoon. I think she found some comfort in my being there.

For we need the reassurance that the end is .. well, not the end.

The real thing's still to come.

These good times here are just the barest foretaste of the best that's still to come and which will not ever end.

Which is really the message of Easter, I guess. And part of the reason we hold this Easter Holiday Club.