Last night with the teens.....

As you all know from my Redeeming Love post, last night was my first night going to the teen/youth group. I'll be honest, instead of leaving pumped up, I instead was fighting discouragement.

I got there a little early, and as I walked in there was a girl sitting in there doing some homework. I went up to her and started talking to her. She introduced herself; her name was Julia, she's in 8th grade and was studying for her finals. She was adorable, happy, bubbly, so excited that I was there even though she had no idea WHY I was there. I loved it. Then her sister came out, and she introduced me to her. They are PKs (Pastors kids), of one of the three Pastors that are there.

Then Matt and Joe (Jason wasn't there) got there. There were about fifteen kids there and four of us adults. For the first half hour, the boys were outside skateboarding and playing basketball and the girls were inside looking at all of their yearbooks. I stayed outside with the boys and the leaders watching the boys skateboard. Then everyone gathered in the sanctuary and Matt brought up topics that he wanted everyone to pray about for fifteen minutes. He started off and then it was open mic for whoever wanted to come up and pray. Wow, these kids can pray. Then there was some praise and worship. The songs were awesome, Hillsong, Jason Upton, and others. Then Matt finished up with a brief message on faith from the book of Hebrews.

So why was I discouraged? I think twelve out of the fifteen kids there were all Pastor's kids. I felt like I should be the one sitting down, and having them teach ME about the Bible, how to pray, etc. I was HUGELY intimidated. They all have grown up in church, all are believers, go to private Christian schools, PK's, and just well....seem to have it all put together. I honestly have no idea what I have to offer them???

I too, accepted Christ as my savior at the very early age of 5 or 6. I was brought up in Sunday school and church. Then, not too long after that, I sort of went my own way. Once I was a teen, I only went to church because I was forced to go. I hated my parents for it, I wanted to sleep on Sundays. Youth group?? PLEASE! I had nothing to do with that. I went twice that I can remember. During both times, I started trouble with the girls because I hated girls, and flirted with all the boys. I had a thing for finding the rebellious boy in the group and going after him. (I'm not proud of this, just telling how it was) So now I'm here in this youth group last night trying to figure out what the heck am I doing here? I sort of felt like a hypocrite.

In 6th grade I got caught up in the wrong crowd. My school started taking in troubled youths from NYC and those were the kids that I hung out with. My friends had guns, knives, brass knuckles, and weed in their lockers. Some of the kids were associated with some gangs I'll leave unnamed, from NYC. I was dating these boys, too. One of the boys I dated is now in jail for life for killing his girlfriend just a couple of years ago. The gang life THRILLED me. I loved it, something about that sense of belonging and family and toughness, I loved it.

Funny though, because even though I was always AROUND trouble, I was never IN trouble. I never really did anything bad. When I look back I see a million ways that even though I wasn't following Him, He was still protecting me. I remember one time my friend didn't want to get caught with weed, so he shoved it down my shirt and I was forced to walk around with it for a little while. I didn't know what the heck to do with it. I WAS ONLY 12!!!!!

There's one really disturbing incident that occurred, I'm NOT sharing on here, that made my parents take me out and put me in a private school, Catholic Central High School. I was so mad, I did NOT want to go to a CATHOLIC school. I was NOT Catholic. I started there in 7th grade.

First day of class, 7th grade at Catholic Central High School. Initial reaction? WHAT THE HECK IS THIS??? These people looked like they were 10 years old, and naive and all rich and spoiled and prim and proper and perfect and just dumb. People were scared of me, I was the tough girl, I guess I portrayed that image? Who did I befriend? The troubled girls who were there because they were kicked out of their schools and no one wanted them, so they were there as a last resort. Eventually they got kicked out of there too, leaving me there with pretty much no one.

Then I started hanging out with all of the boys in my neighborhood, and they were all my best friends. I basically went to school because I had to, and would leave. I wasn't involved in anything and didn't want to be. Believe it or not though, I consistently had overall averages of 92 and higher from grades 8-12. I was mad smart and always did my work. I have no idea what the heck happened to me, how I became so umm...not smart. LOL

Anyway, I'm leaving my story off here, maybe someday I'll talk about all of the in between stuff.
My point is, at age 12-14, I was running with gangs, smoking cigarettes, doing things with boys that kids at that age should not even know about, cursing all the time, including around my parents, and playing the role of tough girl so no one would mess with me.

I'm actually afraid that this may be a little too raw to share on here. But I guess it's my life and my past. And while writing all of this, I had a huge revelation. God had protected me through SO much. As I had said, I was always around trouble, it always thrilled me. But yet, I always had a good head on my shoulders, I was not a bad kid. I never did anything bad, I was just around it. God still had me. I may not have been holding on to Him, but He had me the whole time.

I am not proud of any of this by any means. Actually, sometimes I'm ashamed of it and it makes me feel like I'm never going to find a Christian guy who will like me because of it. Like, what kind of good Christian guy that has been truly following Christ all of his years, would like me? But I need to shake that off because it's a lie that the enemy is trying to get me to believe. Recently a good Christian guy DID like me, regardless of my past, regardless of the fact that he was never entangled in the crap that I was. I actually have to thank him for never judging me, never making me feel like my past made up who I am today, and never condemning me. So, I guess there IS hope.
OK now I'm getting emotional and I need to stop.
(By the way, I'm still under the effects of the anesthesia from earlier this morning. I never ended up taking a nap like I was directed to. Has anyone ever seen me try to take a nap? Has anyone ever seen me try to sit still for more then 5 minutes? I'll just go to bed early.)

Back to the point of my story. I left last night battling discouragement and great intimidation. I guess I was expecting to be around troubled kids, kids with problems, kids who don't have it all put together, kids who are faced with the tough situations of inner city schools. These are the kids I can witness and minister to. I just got off the phone with a friend and was telling her this, and she said, maybe God has you there because He wants you to learn from this? Wow, how true, didn't think of that.

I'm going to keep up with it. I am going to establish relationships with these teens. Who knows, in time when I get comfortable there, I may be able to start suggesting an outreach program down into South Troy and start pulling up some of those kids who desperately need Jesus.

I've since shaken off the discouragement and I trust that if this is where He wants me, it will all work out. And if not, I'll find what else He wants me to do.

OK, I just downloaded the new Jason Upton CD so I'm about to put that on and relax......