Crumpled Notebook

This has been a hard week. I’ve been from one extreme to the other. I started the week feeling discouraged about a few things, things that made me want to just get far away from here for a while or longer. Then yesterday I got some bad news about something going on in the lives of two of the teens in my group who are brothers. It was news that just broke my heart for them and their family. I spent some time last night with them and their sisters and spent today working on some things for them. As I was getting ready for our Thursday teen group, I got some more bad news about a lady at church. While others were helping her deal with that, I was asked to keep an eye on her daughter. It worked well because our teen group wasn’t a typical night. We had some younger girls there (sisters of the two brothers), so it worked out well since this kid was their age.

When I walked into the room with this young girl, thinking about the sad news her mom was going to be sharing with her very soon and how she was still clueless, I looked around the room. I looked at this girl. I looked at the other family of siblings dealing with their family crisis. I looked at their friends who were hurting for them, and my heart just broke into pieces. I knew that there was so much pain and hurt going on in that room at that moment. It humbled me. It reminded me of how blessed and priviledged I am that I get to share in that with them. That, even though I know I can’t take away their hurt, they know I’m there and they look to me for answers.

It scared me actually for a few minutes until we sat down to eat. We sat down like a family. We prayed for each other, and then as we were eating, we started going around the room talking about our day. And you know what? Not one person had anything bad to say. They had fun at school. They won medals. They hung out with their grandma. They didn’t get any referrals at school (detention). Just simple little things in the midst of things that will ultimately be life changing for their families, at least for a while.

And I realized that they get it (the teenagers at least). They get that life is hard, but they have put their trust in Jesus. They are thankful for what didn’t happen. They are innocent and loving and completely faithful in knowing that God is a wonderful and powerful creator who can do anything. They are pretty amazing kids.

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