Well the last couple months have been a roller-coaster ride for a whole lot of reasons and it's about time that things changed. This whole journey of wanting to start Young Life in Slave Lake has been a real stretch for me and I'm so glad. I just thank God for plucking away the things that I lean on and depend on and I hope He continues as hard as it is because it is in the desperation of those places that I really actually seek Him.
Amazing things have happened with Young Life - don't get me wrong. People have been interested, four kids came to Rockridge, and left with a renewed excitement for Jesus and what Young Life could look like in Slave Lake. But somewhere along the way I got caught up in all that I had to "do" and put so much pressure on myself to "give, give give" that I burned off all my energy until I had none. I came to a place where I realized I had put "doing stuff for Young Life" before spending real time with God, before spending real time with my husband and that realization came to me in a big way.
I showed up in Ontario for a week feeling burned out and spent emotionally. I had no desire to think, talk or pray about Young Life. I felt frustrated at the lack of physical support. I had prayer support, and financial support but no one physically coming forward to say - "Let's do this together." But it wasn't really that. It was me. I was trying to make something out of nothing. I was convinced that people wouldn't get involved and so I was putting so much pressure on myself to provide the resources here in Slave Lake. But the thing is - there are a whole bundle of resources out there. People who are trained in Young Life, providing conferences, camps, events, the works and all I have to do is show up with people. There's resources online, videos, you name it. And yet I felt like I needed to provide my own - to get people onboard and excited and doing things.
Now I see how naiive I was coming into this. Starting a ministry is a slow process. It requires hours and hours of prayer and relationship building and stepping out and stepping back and waiting and those are things that I have NEVER been good at. I want things to happen quickly, NOW, for people just JUMP on board and for things to just come together. I don't want to sit and pray - I want answers. And yet these are integral things for a ministry to stay on track, to develop in total tune with God's desires and heart and intention. The moment I make it about me and my intentions and my timing - I am digging a huge burnt out hole.
And I see that now. And God I thank you for letting me fall into that hole. What a dangerous place to be. Thank God that I actually didn't have a team of volunteers and people working alongside me. Those people would have fallen in with me and a lot of what makes Young Life such a beautiful testimony of Jesus would have been overshadowed by the stress of it all.
I need to start from a place where I am moving when God moves, and going where God goes and speaking when He speaks. And I need a team of adults around me to be praying through this process and encouraging each other and reminding each other of these things. So God I just lay all of that chaos at your feet. Forgive me for running ahead with my own agenda. Forgive me for putting tasks ahead of time with You. Help me to pray for the right things. Bring like-minded people into this - not people that I am playing tug-o-war with - but people that really have a heart for a ministry like this.
Give us opportunities for people to actually taste of Young Life's ministry. I don't expect anyone to commit to something they have not experienced for themselves. I wouldn't have. It is through my personal experience of meeting Jesus time and time again through the ministry of Young Life that has me so sold out for starting it here. Nothing more. Not the amazing camp or the crazy fun games - although those things lend a beautiful credibility to it as a ministry. More so the relationships I have developed through it - with God, with other leaders, and with the kids that I have such compassion for.
God I just praise You for how You are orchestrating our lives right now. Jay was restless at church so we visited another one this past Sunday. A woman spoke up about her bible study group and how it's all about 'doing life together' and it just caught ahold of me because that is where my heart is. I asked her to meet and we went for a long walk today. I shared about Young Life and my heart and she shared her heart and the things she said and the desires she has for her family, her kids, her community just so resonate with where I'm at and with Young Life mentality. God You are gonna do amazing things in Jay and my life as we step out of what we are comfortable with (i.e a regular church, and whatever else you call us out of) and I'm so excited to be pulled and prodded and to see how Your design comes together so perfectly in the different moments that You bring about in Your perfect timing.
So thank you, thank you, thank you. It's LONG overdue!!!!
Amazing things have happened with Young Life - don't get me wrong. People have been interested, four kids came to Rockridge, and left with a renewed excitement for Jesus and what Young Life could look like in Slave Lake. But somewhere along the way I got caught up in all that I had to "do" and put so much pressure on myself to "give, give give" that I burned off all my energy until I had none. I came to a place where I realized I had put "doing stuff for Young Life" before spending real time with God, before spending real time with my husband and that realization came to me in a big way.
I showed up in Ontario for a week feeling burned out and spent emotionally. I had no desire to think, talk or pray about Young Life. I felt frustrated at the lack of physical support. I had prayer support, and financial support but no one physically coming forward to say - "Let's do this together." But it wasn't really that. It was me. I was trying to make something out of nothing. I was convinced that people wouldn't get involved and so I was putting so much pressure on myself to provide the resources here in Slave Lake. But the thing is - there are a whole bundle of resources out there. People who are trained in Young Life, providing conferences, camps, events, the works and all I have to do is show up with people. There's resources online, videos, you name it. And yet I felt like I needed to provide my own - to get people onboard and excited and doing things.
Now I see how naiive I was coming into this. Starting a ministry is a slow process. It requires hours and hours of prayer and relationship building and stepping out and stepping back and waiting and those are things that I have NEVER been good at. I want things to happen quickly, NOW, for people just JUMP on board and for things to just come together. I don't want to sit and pray - I want answers. And yet these are integral things for a ministry to stay on track, to develop in total tune with God's desires and heart and intention. The moment I make it about me and my intentions and my timing - I am digging a huge burnt out hole.
And I see that now. And God I thank you for letting me fall into that hole. What a dangerous place to be. Thank God that I actually didn't have a team of volunteers and people working alongside me. Those people would have fallen in with me and a lot of what makes Young Life such a beautiful testimony of Jesus would have been overshadowed by the stress of it all.
I need to start from a place where I am moving when God moves, and going where God goes and speaking when He speaks. And I need a team of adults around me to be praying through this process and encouraging each other and reminding each other of these things. So God I just lay all of that chaos at your feet. Forgive me for running ahead with my own agenda. Forgive me for putting tasks ahead of time with You. Help me to pray for the right things. Bring like-minded people into this - not people that I am playing tug-o-war with - but people that really have a heart for a ministry like this.
Give us opportunities for people to actually taste of Young Life's ministry. I don't expect anyone to commit to something they have not experienced for themselves. I wouldn't have. It is through my personal experience of meeting Jesus time and time again through the ministry of Young Life that has me so sold out for starting it here. Nothing more. Not the amazing camp or the crazy fun games - although those things lend a beautiful credibility to it as a ministry. More so the relationships I have developed through it - with God, with other leaders, and with the kids that I have such compassion for.
God I just praise You for how You are orchestrating our lives right now. Jay was restless at church so we visited another one this past Sunday. A woman spoke up about her bible study group and how it's all about 'doing life together' and it just caught ahold of me because that is where my heart is. I asked her to meet and we went for a long walk today. I shared about Young Life and my heart and she shared her heart and the things she said and the desires she has for her family, her kids, her community just so resonate with where I'm at and with Young Life mentality. God You are gonna do amazing things in Jay and my life as we step out of what we are comfortable with (i.e a regular church, and whatever else you call us out of) and I'm so excited to be pulled and prodded and to see how Your design comes together so perfectly in the different moments that You bring about in Your perfect timing.
So thank you, thank you, thank you. It's LONG overdue!!!!
