Over the past month, God has been stirring up a lot of things inside of me. For about a week in March I was going through a bout of emotional ups and downs as I often do (I’ve got my mother’s emotions—don’t tell anyone else that!) Just as I started questioning where all of this was coming from, my wife and I were blessed with a five day vacation at the end of the month. We spent our time in a place between Nashville and Knoxville called Fairfield Glade. The overcast, rainy whether which accompanied us most of the week only helped me to relax and start to unpack some of the stuff I was dealing with.As the week progressed, and I gradually slowed down and got my heart quieter, I began to realize what was happening. I’m investing my life into kids who are gonna leave. It’s one thing that I wasn’t really prepared for when diving into youth ministry. I maybe experienced some of that last year, but the relationships which God has forged between myself and many of our Seniors this year have been on a deeper level. I’m simply really gonna miss them when they leave for college in the Fall! These kids aren’t just students of mine, but they’re brothers and sisters in Christ, partners in ministry, friends.
It’s been so exciting to watch these kids wrestle with their faith. Together we’ve questioned what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We’ve carried each others burdens, shared in each others joys, and have laughed ourselves silly in the process. Together we’ve come to the end of ourselves and have been met by the arms of our Savior who bids us come unto Himself for rest from the busyness we’re all so guilty of. I have been blessed to be a part of our Father’s nurturing as He continues to grow these kids into wide-eyed, radical lovers of God.
As I sit back and take all of this in, I can feel the gentle affirming voice of my Father reassuring me that this is what the Church should be about. This is what following Jesus is about. It’s about people. It’s about lives being shared and turned upside down and inside out as we learn to abandon ourselves and awkwardly seek fellowship with the same Jesus who has been all the while chasing us down and recklessly loving us into His arms.I feel oddly like a parent—coming to terms with the fact that I’ve got to let go of my kids and entrust them into the hands of the One who brought them into my life in the first place. I love these kids, but it thrills me even more to know that the same Jesus who meets me in the broken places of my life is even more in love with them than I could ever imagine.
