After church this morning, I went to Old Chicago with my friend Mindy and two boys who have me wrapped around their pinkies (Ty and Cru). As I was pouring out the latest news of my life over a divine slice of pizza, a familiar face caught my eye. It was a boy I taught years ago at a childcare center. While working there, it took me months to realize that I knew the boys' parents from my hometown. My dad taught both of them, and the boys' grandma, Nancy, taught at my elementary school. I remember being amazed at how small the world seemed. All the gin joints daycares in all the towns in all the world...you get the idea.
Fast forward from 2008, when I last saw this family, to 2010. I was a year out of college with a degree in Early Childhood Education. I was trying to work out in my heart if I really wanted a career in the classroom. My student teaching experience was not a positive one (although I loved the children and the actual teaching part), and I felt lost. I didn't know where to go from there. I started a part-time job at another childcare center caring for infants and had to quit that after a car accident and surgery put me on the bench. It was a painful year in every sense of the word. Out of the blue one day, my mom tells me that she talked to Nancy at the high school football game; Nancy told her that her son's church was looking for a youth pastor, and he thought of me. Bear in mind I had not seen or talked to this family in over two years, yet my name came to his mind. I'd never even mentioned ministry to this man. His subsequent phone call to me was the beginning of this journey.
Even though I had dreamed of doing children's ministry years ago, I let ugly circumstances convince me that dealing with the inner workings of a church was not for me. I believed it to be entirely too dangerous. I told myself it wasn't worth the risk. That phone call, though, really stuck with me. The odds of all those things occurring together were pretty crazy. After praying, flipping out, talking to my mentors, asking God if He'd really thought this one through, and finally beginning to trust His grace would shine through my weaknesses, here I stand.
As I was talking to this sweet family at their table, trying to believe that the little boys I taught were now rounding the corner to middle school, I waited, with bated breath, for the question. The mom wasted no time in asking, "What are you doing now?" As I started to reply, I felt two hands on my...ahem...hiney. I turned around just as a man was walking past me. I didn't know whether to scream or slug him! After a moment, I realized the hands were still there and were very small. I looked down to find my Cru hanging on my hips and grinning up at me. After recovering composure, I proceeded to tell them that, largely thanks to their call that started it all, I was working full-time in children's ministry. Holding Cru in that moment made it perfect. Sometimes I get caught up in worrying over what the next six months will bring or how everything will work out, but in that moment, all I saw was how far I'd already come. I was seeing the call that came at a time when I thought I could never, ever be enough for the world of ministry while holding in my arms the very proof that God is enough. He is always enough.
Fast forward from 2008, when I last saw this family, to 2010. I was a year out of college with a degree in Early Childhood Education. I was trying to work out in my heart if I really wanted a career in the classroom. My student teaching experience was not a positive one (although I loved the children and the actual teaching part), and I felt lost. I didn't know where to go from there. I started a part-time job at another childcare center caring for infants and had to quit that after a car accident and surgery put me on the bench. It was a painful year in every sense of the word. Out of the blue one day, my mom tells me that she talked to Nancy at the high school football game; Nancy told her that her son's church was looking for a youth pastor, and he thought of me. Bear in mind I had not seen or talked to this family in over two years, yet my name came to his mind. I'd never even mentioned ministry to this man. His subsequent phone call to me was the beginning of this journey.
Even though I had dreamed of doing children's ministry years ago, I let ugly circumstances convince me that dealing with the inner workings of a church was not for me. I believed it to be entirely too dangerous. I told myself it wasn't worth the risk. That phone call, though, really stuck with me. The odds of all those things occurring together were pretty crazy. After praying, flipping out, talking to my mentors, asking God if He'd really thought this one through, and finally beginning to trust His grace would shine through my weaknesses, here I stand.
As I was talking to this sweet family at their table, trying to believe that the little boys I taught were now rounding the corner to middle school, I waited, with bated breath, for the question. The mom wasted no time in asking, "What are you doing now?" As I started to reply, I felt two hands on my...ahem...hiney. I turned around just as a man was walking past me. I didn't know whether to scream or slug him! After a moment, I realized the hands were still there and were very small. I looked down to find my Cru hanging on my hips and grinning up at me. After recovering composure, I proceeded to tell them that, largely thanks to their call that started it all, I was working full-time in children's ministry. Holding Cru in that moment made it perfect. Sometimes I get caught up in worrying over what the next six months will bring or how everything will work out, but in that moment, all I saw was how far I'd already come. I was seeing the call that came at a time when I thought I could never, ever be enough for the world of ministry while holding in my arms the very proof that God is enough. He is always enough.
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