Where I have been??

Wow it's been a while. Today I flew back in from Nashville where I spent four days with my family. I must tell you that I am tired and not ready to start this week, but I did have a great time. We went down for a cousins graduation. We made this a big deal for many reasons, but most of all to share our faith. As I was spending time in the smokey mountains I was thinking about how thankful I am for my life. Even though life gives us some ups and downs it is amazing how many blessings God gives us. I fear that many of us miss out on so much of life because we run and run and forget our purpose in life. It is simple....love. This weekend even though it was for my cousin, it also became about my whole family and simple loving one another.

Time after Time

It was just yesterday I started to stress just a bit over my schedule this summer. It is filled with events, trips, and work. As I started to stress the more I understood how this life works and how grateful I was that I have learned to balance it but cut out what is bad. This was a struggle for years for many reasons. I only have one day to where it is a time off. I have learned to make that a holy day. There are times to where I have to do something on that day, but for the most part it is for me and others I deeply care about.

I have been amazed at the doors that God has opened this year. As I talk about even some other doors coming open, the one thing I have learned is that God's plan and his vision for life is what is important. This summer has I work with kids, camps, and trips my prayer is that God gets the glory.   

New Way of Thinking

Life happens in a blink and I must ask at times what have I done with it?? That's a tough question to ask yourself. I use to believe life was all about performing and what work I was doing. That is still a big part of my life, however I have been on a new journey that I find to be awesome and allot of healing. I started obeying by taking a day off and away from my daily life. This is a day I love and look forward to and I must admit through that time I have been able to see the mess I made with things in my life. It's amazing to me how people with cheer you along when you are doing nothing but working your life away, but not much is said when you are taking time away to really focus on what is important. Numbers use to be real important to me and I would brag. Now I care more about truly impacting those that God has giving me. Even this weekend I had a kid tell me that a local church had a cooler ministry then ours. My response was "well it doesn't take much to beat us 

• A second family. For whatever reason we are a very close group now. That has more to do with our leaders, we have found that knowing the kids name and what is going on is more important  then anything else. 
• We are honest. We had a time to where kids in our youth group to make up crazy stories for attention. It was cool I had a kid this weekend admit that he did that. Now we have set the tone for everyone to be honest where they are at. Most of my students come from single parent families and struggle. I have a few kids who refer to their dads as "sperm donor." It's sad but I believe it is important to make it a place to where it's okay to not be okay.
• Allowing God to open the door to salvation... Evangelism has always been one of my gifts, but never in a begging way. I am not sure why I never really got into that. I believe that all of our leaders are really gifted in opening the door for the gospel. 

My point with all of this is that their was a time I spent my time trying to be the best. I started to see that God was not calling me to be the best but his vessel in all that I do. Go has giving me gifts to use and he has giving other gifts to different people. i have been learning that we spend so much time trying to change the person that we forget that is not our job. I believe our job is to be patient and show mercy to those who need it. When I stop to think about it, we all need it.

So I believe more and more everyday that it is time to stop playing the games that we play in ministry and really dig deep into what God has called us to. I am now all about being a healthy youth minister then a popular one. I see more and more that God has called me into this role and I am loving every minute of it.