small steps

small steps

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

My joys.


I'm sitting in front of my computer working on a seminary paper and a text message pops up from one of my volunteer youth leaders. We talk a moment about the students they are pouring into and how proud we are of the way these students have grown. I am suddenly flooded with emotion as I remember the first moment I saw their sweet faces nearly five years ago. They were just middle school students and now in just a few months they will graduate high school. My joys.

The first group of 5th graders I ever led in "tween bible study" are now half way through their freshman year and have found their confidence and stride in the halls of their high school and when I look at the group on a particular programming day I can't tell who is a freshman and who is a senior because they are all meshed together in one big card game or crammed in our window seat booth eating breakfast. My sweet joys.

The fifth graders who just six months ago were hesistant and shy in coming over to the student ministry building now run into programming on Friday nights yelling "I love it here!" They pull in their friends by the hand to meet us and show them around like they own the place. My amazing joys.

The throwback Thursdays of Instagram and the Facebook flash backs pop up pictures of these years that have passed in a blink. There are faces of students who weren't here when we first began as youth directors but are now so rooted in this ministry just because they were brought by a friend one single time and it stuck...it was their home. I do not even remember what ministry was like without them in it and I do not even want to remember it without them. My precious joys.

Every student. Each a joy. The introverts and the extroverts. The athletes, the musicians, the artists. The ones that love video games, legos building, reading and every interest in between. The ones I see every week, the ones who pop in every other month and the ones I have yet to meet. All a gift. Each and every one a joy.

Some nights, like tonight the tears stream down and my heart overflows because I cannot even put into words what their young lives mean to me. I cannot even begin to describe the honor and the gift it is to know them and know their sweet families. For all we have shared together, the memories, the mountain tops and the valleys too. What a gift. What a joy.

And then there are those days when the joy is hard to find because it's buried under paperwork or drama or politics. But God is faithful when we trust Him with the joy He has given us. He sends us reminders. He knows when we need those nudges in the forms of text messages and smiles. This full time ministry life is so different. Forever changing. Forever moving. But oh, the joy. My joy. Thanks be to God.