ineke.co.uk

I help out at a kids club at church, and last week, the guy due to do games this week said to me that he was away this week and would I mind doing it.

I have real difficulty saying no here. If he’d said would I like to, I probably would have said no, but he asked if I minded. Big mistake.

So, this week came around, I had a couple of game ideas in my head, people at work had helped with some ideas and I thought I might just about manage it.

I got down to kids club, sat with them through the craft, then went to the kitchen while they had drinks. By this point I’d realised how scared I was getting. I was too scared to even talk to them. My game ideas were falling apart due to not being right for their age, not having the right number of kids, not having the right equipment, and generally, just having boring ideas.

Someone came up to me and asked if I was ok and what my plans were, and quite frankly, I fell apart.

I’m a wuss and I’m sorry.

They told me it wasn’t a problem, someone else could do it, and I spent the rest of the evening with the older group which actually went really well.

But. How much easier would it have been for everyone, (particularly the wonderful people who stood in for me) if I had said no the week before and maybe caused inconvenience for someone, but at least would have given them 7 days to prepare rather than 7 seconds.

Pathetic isn’t it? But I think I learnt a lesson tonight.