After 20 years..

These are a fantastic group of young people and they have my heart.  I have been involved in leading youth ministry for the last 22 years.  I pretty much went from being a student in the youth program to helping to lead the youth program and while I always thought I had other plans in life - God ushered me into the world of youth.  He led me from one church to other churches where teenagers were my focus.  I thought I would fit better in any other role....  I simply wasn't cool enough, or loud enough or funny enough or heck - even tall enough!  (My youth pastor growing up was over 6 feet tall.. )  I had lots of reasons why I shouldn't have been leading youth.  Yet, God.  Yet, God saw it fit for me to build relationships with students and to give me a heart for wanting young people to know how much God loved them.  And although I was never a big crowd, number growing kind of youth pastor, I know that God used me in the lives of teenagers and he certainly used teenagers in my life.  I taught and I learned.  I laughed and I cried.  I prayed with countless students and prayed for even more.  I grieved alongside students over deaths of friends and family members.  I spent my lunches in middle school cafeterias, I played endless amounts of dodge ball.  I logged many miles on highways driving 15 passenger vans full of energized teens.  I served on roof tops, painting houses, building porches, clearing trash and branches, picking up nails, and much more.  I worshiped and read scripture and watched as students upon students over the last 20 years led worship as they professed their faith as confirmation students.  I have been frustrated and have been so very proud.  I have welcomed fresh 6th and 7th graders and have sent off to college my seniors.  I have watched students grow up and get married and start their own families.  I have joyfully witnessed students go into the mission field and attend seminary and become ministers of their own.  I have called and emailed and texted and snap chatted (!) many young people.  And my life has been full.  So very full.  The memories are so sweet.  From my time as an intern at Manoa Pres., to interning and leading at Media Pres, to my first full time position at New Castle Pres.  Deciding to start seminary full time and landing back at Media and then spending a year in Ballyclare Northern Ireland at a church working with kids and youth, to finishing seminary and working at Grace Pres.  My first post seminary job working with children and youth at Neshaminiy Warwick Pres. and finally a very God ordained opportunity to serve with the youth at West Grove UMC while also being able to raise my own little people..  God has had his hand in all of these moments of ministry!  It's been a journey for sure.

And now, after all these years of leading youth ministry, going from a single college student to a young adult to a married lady to a mother of 2 - as youth have grown in ministry under me, I too have grown up as I have led.  And it is time for me to step back from leading and to rest.  To be honest, I feel a bit of apprehension in that idea of resting from ministry.  Ministry is where my heart is.  To be in conversations and to be in prayer and to utter reminders of God's grace in the lives of others is almost instinctual to me.  It is who God has created me to be.  But, God also calls us to a time of stepping back from leading and programming and brainstorming and as nervous as I am to step away from all that I have known as an adult, I am also looking forward to being led and to resting in study and prayer and I'm excited to see where God is leading me next.  We all need moments where we are ministered too, where we have opportunity to grow  in faith, when we explore other gifts and passions and we allow God to awaken within us a new desire to serve him.  In the meantime, as I wait on God, I will serve my husband and children.  I will rest in Scripture and prayer.  I will take walks and meet with friends.  I will clean and organize my house!  I will read and I will write and I will trust in what God is doing, what He has already done and what He continues to do.

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 reminds me that to everything there is a season..
                  A time to be born, a time to die
                  A time to plant and a time to pull up plants
                  A time to cry and to laugh, to be sad and to dance
                  A time to hug and not to hug, to look for something and a time to stop looking for it
                 A time to keep things and a time to throw things away
                 A time to be silent and a time to speak......

And may I add...  a time to lead youth and a time to rest....  A time to teach and a time to learn...

Here is to a new season.