I first experienced deep heartache in my teenage years as my parents engaged in a messy and traumatic divorce. I was blessed to have a wonderful youth pastor and his wife and my small group leader who walked through that with me. This was when I first felt the pull in my heart that I wanted to be for young people the person that I needed so badly in my youth. That feeling has never lessened; for years I have continued to feel that God has called me to work with youth in some capacity; being a safe place and a compass to point them to Jesus in these years that have such an impact on their future.
Suspecting that I should be a small group leader for teenage girls, I reached out to the youth pastor at my church and let him know I wanted to be involved. I went through the application process to be a leader, and a few different times had a prospective time frame of when I would start being involved with the teens. Unfortunately the timing always got derailed with my body waging war against different complications, or sudden progression in my disease.
This was discouraging to me, as I was anxious to jump in already and do what I had been yearning to do for years. Our youth pastor was kind and laid back, letting me know it was no big deal, and to come when I was ready. In the interim he had me share my story with the youth group, which was meaningful, but I still felt I was missing out on doing what God had called me to do.
Eventually I started having more bad days than good days physically, and youth group just had to take a backseat to my health. I didn’t understand why God would ask me to do something and then let me be prevented from doing it. I was certain he had been calling me to work with youth, so it led to much confusion.
Fast forward to the day I got the proverbial slap upside the face. Through various happenings it came together that I was meeting with a small group of teenage girls once a week at my house to lead them in a Bible study. The thought that washed over me this particular day had me feeling a little sheepish. The whole time that I had been trying to get God’s attention because I felt like he had forgotten about his prompting for me to work with teenagers, he had been orchestrating the actual plan right under my nose.
God has me exactly where he wants me; in my home, sitting down with a group of girls to teach them about him. It doesn’t look like the checkboxes I created. It looks perfectly as he planned it all along. I did not have to fill out an application, or drive across town, or have a certain size group; in his kindness God brought the opportunity right to the comfort of my own home, using the means I already have, in /his/ time.
Dear readers, don’t give in to discouragement when you know the Lord is leading you to something but it seems unattainable. Back up a little. Zoom out. Look for where his hand is working. Instead of putting him in the boxes you build, let him show you what he has in mind; it may be buckets full of goodness better than you had even imagined.
Choosing Hope 