You Bless Me: Pt. 2

Point 2:Youth Retreat

Group picture woohoo~~!!

Wow. I didn't know I was going to go to this year's youth retreat until around three weeks ago, and I didn't even realize this really, and Dan ended up apologizing to me later, but I wasn't really trained on how to be a counselor.

The beginning of retreat was honestly really discouraging for me. I originally thought I was going to be leading with Enoch, and even though Enoch has had a good amount of experience leading and counseling, I felt like if I were to lead with Enoch, we'd kinda be on the same page, but when we got to the retreat grounds, I found out I was a counselor for the 7th/8th grade boys with Daniel Gilham, and actually, I was frightened, not because I'm scared of Dan, but because even growing up myself, he was the guy that people would have these super intense philosophical discussions with... and he would just get people to think critically and he would, more often than not, have very good answers to our questions. I was intimidated by how good of a teacher he is, and how I felt like I was kinda just being thrown into the fire without any guidance whatsoever.

And soon what had just been a fear became a reality.

I had heard that it was really, really, really difficult to get middle schoolers - especially middle school boys - to participate in a serious discussion for even like five minutes, but the first night Daniel led discussion... oh my goodness, these boys just got INTO it. I mean, the first 10 minutes were a little hectic, but afterward, they started asking questions like, "How do I know what God's will is?", "How do we hear God's voice?", etc. and I was like WHAT IS THIS?!?! I didn't really participate in the discussion, so I just kinda sat there and prayed - Holy Spirit, keep doing whatever you're doing, because these boys are just being BLESSED right now. And I shared that with Dan, and afterward he was like, "Oh yeah. Sorry - you get the next one."

And um, well that happened, and um... let's just say that there was a very, very lasting silence... and eventually Daniel rescued me, and lunch soon came around... mip.

I had planned to do 1-on-1's with Jason, William, and Jesse during lunch and after mandatory fun, but I was just so discouraged by the way I felt like I had fallen short during the discussion before lunch that I just didn't even try to find them during lunch. After mandatory fun, I tried to find the kids... but I went around the campground once, and couldn't find them at all. I looked around for another hour with no success, and that point, I just gave up. I went to the cabin and slept until dinner time.

The irony of this entire situation was that that very morning, the middle school speaker spoke about how God uses our shortcoming and our feelings of inadequacy to further His glory, but at that point, I couldn't see how God would use this supposed failure to change my heart.

Later, during worship, I don't know what it was, it might have been the giant hug Dan Mats gave me, maybe it was David's show of concern by asking to sing with me (although at the time, I told him I just wanted to be alone - I still really appreciated the gesture), maybe it was because "singing has been proven to lower levels of anxiety," or just the spirit moving through me, but God really opened my eyes there.

I came to see how self-centered and selfish I was being. I was just so concerned with how I would be able to speak truth into these kids' lives that I couldn't look past all the other amazing ways God was working at this past retreat. So I changed my perspective away from myself and towards the greater ways that God was working, and suddenly, it was so easy to feel at peace. Suddenly, it was okay that I was failing all over the place, and suddenly, it was so much easier to find the motivation to try again even after failing, because I was reminded that God's grace and love overflows beyond the brim of our cups. I began to see how I could be okay with letting “[my] heart [be] wrung and possibly broken.”

And so I tried again Sunday, and honestly, my 1-on-1’s weren’t the greatest. The discussion I led that night wasn’t the greatest, but somehow, I was able to be okay with that. I was there, because God provided a way for me to be there, and because he gave me a heart to serve these youth. So after all the sharings, and after hearing from Joyce, David, Emily, and everyone else how they saw God show up at this retreat, even amidst my failings, God showed me that He is good. And the 7^th/8^th grade boys still got a lot of “knowledge bombs” from Daniel Gilham, and that in of itself was a blessing.

If anything, this past retreat began to show me how to be okay with being vulnerable, to be okay with letting my heart be wrung, and to let God's love permeate over me. I still hecka suck at it, and I still get insecure, I can see how God is slowly doing a transformative work in me, and I'm excited to see where it goes.