So this past Fall I started working at a local church in downtown Rome. I was absolutely terrified because I didn’t feel qualified to teach these kids about God. I mean, c’mon. Me? No way. Never in my life would I have thought I would work in a church. But that’s changed a little now. Now as I think back, not only did I never think I’d work in a church, I sure never thought I would LOVE working in a church.
I have never been a part of a youth group until now. The one church I really went to growing up didn’t have a youth group. And the times I went to a different church, I didn’t like the youth group or didn’t feel comfortable with them, or I just wasn’t going to church at all. So being a part of this youth group is a whole new thing for me, a new thing that has severely impacted my life in the most wonderful way. All that being said, I sure have not ever been on a youth trip or retreat.
I’ve been thinking about and anticipating this past weekend for a couple months now. I was nervous. I didn’t know what camp was like, I definitely didn’t know what Jesus camp was like, I’ve only ever been to soccer camp. I didn’t know what my role was going to be or how many kids I’d be in charge of or if it would be fun for me or my youth.
That being said, let’s have a story time. I was in a cabin with my one middle school female youth and we were in a cabin with a couple other youth groups and one adult per other youth group. So I walk into the cabin Saturday night to one adult asleep, one adult at the hospital with one of her girls, one girl screaming she’s a space cadet, one girl crying because she forgot to pack her concealer, one girl singing a random song on Justin Bieber My World 2.0, and one girl asleep on the porch. All after a day of Ecogrounds coffee.
Anyways, so I got in the van with the few of my youth, my boss, and the other youth intern and headed to camp Glisson on Friday afternoon, my heart completely unprepared.
I’ll go ahead and give away that camp was absolutely amazing. The theme of the retreat was seasons, that being seasons of our faith. When I found that part out, I was kind of in awe, and as the weekend went on I felt God’s hand on my shoulder more than I have in a long time. Last week, I wrote a post about being in a season of confusion. AKA WINTER. Hello Hannah!! Here’s God to tell you that you literally wrote an article about the season you’re in and feeling so distant from God but HAHA you’re actually going to camp with your youth to learn all about the vicious winter you’ve been in!!
Winter. I’m not a fan. In any type of way actually. I don’t like being cold and it makes me extra lazy because I don’t want to go out because I don’t want to be cold. I don’t like layering because as soon as you get inside somewhere you’ve got all these articles of clothing to carry around with you. I don’t like feeling distant from God or questioning Him because I don’t feel Him. I don’t like the struggles that lead me to those feelings. But as our amazing speaker preached this weekend, there are three things we must learn about the seasons of our faith:
- We must know what season we are in
- We must learn how to be effective in that season
- We must learn how to be okay in that season
The night that our speaker spoke about the season of Winter, she invited anyone in the audience who was going through a winter, or a rough time in their lives, to come forward to pray with her. Before she finished her sentence, one of our youth was already out of the row, tears streaming out of his poor eyes. The even more amazing part.. it wasn’t me, my boss, or the other youth intern that followed him, it was every other youth that went with him, putting their hands on him, crying with him, praying with him, and just being with him.
Later that night when we got to spend time with just our youth groups, that little boy opened up and told us about his winter. Told us of his pain and his hurt and his confusion and doubt. My heart absolutely broke for him, but boy was I happy I could sit there and tell him he’s not alone. It was so good to see our youth come together for him, being vulnerable and open and reminding us all that we’re going through winter with a whole group of people who love us if we allow them.
I realized this weekend, maybe I’m the cause of my own winter. I think it’s really easy to put our own plans and desires above those of God’s for us because His can be scary and unknown and can be something completely different than what we’ve been planning and pursuing. You see, since the 7th grade I’ve had a plan for my life. And I’ve done really well with that plan. So what do I do when I don’t know if that’s what I want to do anymore. What do I do when I’m almost a senior in college, when I’ve spent years making my resume the best it could be, when I’ve ENJOYED the opportunities I’ve taken advantage of, but now I’m not so sure that’s what I’m passionate about anymore.
Don’t get me wrong. I love working with my clients with personal training and nutrition. I love helping them choose a healthier lifestyle and I love seeing them get results and I love seeing them grow in who they are because they are proud of themselves. Maybe it’s because this semester has just been so hard. Maybe it’s because I’m not sure I want to go to grad school straight after college. Maybe it’s because I’ve done too much and now I’m burned out. But I’ve had this plan, a plan that I enjoy, a plan that I’m good at, and that plan is out the door because of the unknown. So I walk around every day feeling like I don’t have a purpose anymore. Though I know that’s not entirely true, but I feel like this goal that I’ve been working towards for so long and now it’s gone and now I spend my days asking, “What’s the point?”
But I couldn’t be so closed off anymore, I couldn’t wake up in the morning, grab my coffee, put on a smile, and get through my days, looking forward to it being over. If my youth could walk out the aisle, being of the youngest age group there, not knowing but 7 people in the whole place, and walk forward, being completely vulnerable and open, so could I.
The older I get, the more I realize that I’m pretty good at pushing people away, people who I care the most about, when they show that they care about me. So when someone who’s super awesome starts showing me that they care about me, and I feel so undeserving of their awesomeness, I push them away. But at the same time, I do my best to keep them close enough that they stay. Super messed up on my part. And the worst part is, I don’t know how to stop. I get so scared that I’m not enough. I get so scared that I’ll let them in and then they will realize I’m not as awesome as them and they’ll decide to leave. I get scared that I can’t give them everything that they deserve.
I got the pleasure of meeting my best friend’s best friend from home last Summer and I was star-struck. I mean this guy is incredible. The more I got to know him, the more I started to like him. The more I started to like him, the farther I pushed him away. The longer the break between my texts were. The more I denied to myself that I had any feelings for him at all. To be short and blunt: I put this boy through hell. He sat with my ex-boyfriend’s parents with me. He listened to me complain and cry and hurt over this boy who he knew had hurt me. He never once complained or called me out about never responding to his texts. Actually, he was always so happy when I did respond, he was so happy when I called him and we’d talk my whole drive to/from Birmingham, so happy to see me. The problem was, I was so happy and excited too, but never let myself act that way. He knew it was a bad breakup, he knew I had been hurt, and he let me hurt and let me just be and he waited.
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made is pushing away the person who stood there and waited for me.
I can’t blame him for giving up. When I was on all my pain medicine from jaw surgery back in December I brought up a time that he had told me he liked me, a time that I liked to act like didn’t happen so I didn’t feel guilty about it. And I told him I liked him back. I told him I wanted to be with him, I just needed a little more time to make sure I was ready. He had waited a long time. A long time of zero reciprocation from me. So I can’t blame him for going to someone else. But I think about it all. the. time. I think about it every. single. day. and it just eats me alive.
So yeah, i’m in a season of winter in my faith. I’m in a season of winter in my life. I know that I can use this season to grow closer to God, use this feeling of distance from Him to really push myself, to yell for Him, to pray to Him all the time, to be completely vulnerable with Him. I can use this season to relate to everyone around me who’s going through a winter, I can help shovel their snow. But the biggest thing for me is, I know I’m still okay and I’ve been through lots of seasons of winter in my life and I’m still here, and I know once I’m out of this winter and I’m in a new season, I’ll be better than right now.
It’s been a really hard, cold, shoulder deep of snow type of winter this semester. I have no idea where my life is going to go, or where I want it to go, or who’s going to be there with me. But I do know that no matter what it is, where it is, and who’s there, I’ll be okay and I bet I’ll be happy.
