May 21, 2010
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Some...
Over the last couple of months, I've been asking God to open doors and close doors. God speaks to everyone differently, but I feel the times I hear Him best are when opportunities appear or dissipate after time spent in prayer. Granted, I know that you can't read God into every that falls through or everything that seems to work out, but I do have faith that God speaks often through those circumstances. In my quiet time on Wednesday, God reminded me of my prayer and asked me to think about doors that have opened and doors that have closed.
One idea I've heard multiple times over the last couple of weeks is the one that God sometimes puts terminal relationships in our lives to grow us, challenge us, or comfort us in specific times. That might be a hard pill to swallow sometimes because it might lead one to question any and every relationship they are currently a part of. However, for me, that idea is pretty obvious in regards to my relationship with Anna. She replied to the letter I wrote her a while back, and while I originally didn't want a response from her, I was definitely ok with getting it. I got some things off my chest, and it was only fair to allow her to do so as well. There's not much new information in the letter, but as I read her encouragement and challenge to me in the final paragraph, I felt a sense of closure. I was really very confused as to where to place Anna in my heart after we broke up. My whole experience with her was pretty crazy, and after seemingly hearing God so clearly, it's hard to just chalk up a relationship like that to a learning experience. But it was, and now it's in the past, both in my head and in my heart.
I also feel like my days as a youth minister are coming to a close. I met with Shelton and the Personnel Committee yesterday, and we officially discussed the time line of my resignation, the process of hiring a new youth minister, and how the youth group would be handled in the mean time. I've got a little over a week to work out how I'll address the youth group, and that will be a tough thing to do, but even as I discussed all the details last night, I felt like this was a move that God was prompting for my good, the youth's good, and the good of the church as a whole. There was a strange comfort in it, and I felt, in a sense, like I was rising above the situation, which helped me see a little further down the road.
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This past weekend in Georgia was... crazy. It was... insane. And, I don't mean that in the mental sense, but in the sense of extreme or intense, like watching a skilled skateboarder. A trick that is preformed might be called "insane" because of degree of complexity and sheer difficulty combined with the beauty and grace of its execution. It would take way too long to explain in any further detail than that at the moment. I'm glad I went. I'm still processing.
