Changing endings

One of the things that marks the start of the Christmas season for me is the vast array of high quality and big production adverts that are released by large companies, all trying to compete for the biggest chunk of the 16 billion pounds people in the UK will spend on Christmas presents this year. The Coca Cola advert is probably the most famous, and this year the John Lewis advert has impacted lots of people with a great message of how giving is better than receiving.

I know there are many more adverts to come, but there is one that has struck such a chord with me and has reminded me why I do what I do, and why the work of Youth for Christ in the city of Nottingham and beyond is so important. It is an advert for Barnardos:

In youth work, you hear lots of stories. Some stories are funny, inspiring and happy and others are just heartbreaking. The young people that we work with are all on a journey and they all have a different story. Some of the beginnings to their stories have not been good ones. Some people in the lives of those young people think they know what the ending to their story will be. Some people in the lives of those young people have even told them what their ending will be. Some of those endings are not good.

For us at Nottingham Youth for Christ, we believe in a God who specializes in changing the endings to people’s stories. Jesus set people free, healed and restored, turned the world upside down and changed the lives of thousands even millions of people and he is still doing it today.

By listening, loving, caring, creating, laughing, hoping and praying with young people we are here to empower them to change the ending to the story they are living. Sometimes this takes years, sometimes we may never know the ending would have been different without our involvement and sometimes it doesn’t work and the ending is just as heartbreaking as the beginning. But we know we make a difference, we know God is at work in the lives of young people in our city and we are privileged to be a part of it.

Jo Dolby