Not Weird.

A couple of weeks ago, I remember thinking about how I haven't blogged all summer long. I figured at the end of this internship, I would just write one big post and reflect back. But as I am sitting here, in one of those big puffy chairs at the Starbucks in Papillion, Nebraska, I wonder how I ever thought I could come up with the words to describe it.
All spring I was talking about how I know God had a purpose for me in Nebraska this summer. I didn't know what it would be, but I had firgured that by now I would have known what it is, and this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror as I brushed my pearly whites and realized that I still wasn't sure what that incredible Purpose was. As my morning continued (morning was really midday today) I found myself browsing through recent news on facebook, and saw a random status post that made the bottom drop out of my stomach...
One particular day in not-so-long-ago mid-February of this year, I had to make an important and difficult decision about which of the two internships I had been offered would be the one that I would accept. Despite the pros and cons lists and the poll of suitemmates and parents, I went with the one at Southwest in Omaha, the one that I had felt like God was leading me to all along. My other choice was a church in San Antonio, Texas, that I am sure is a wonderful place with many God-loving people. It would have been easier, so I thought, but it almost seemed like I had just been offered the job because I knew the right guy, and someone just needed a spot filled. The post I saw on facebook was about the youth minister who had offered me the internship in San Antonio; apparently he was having surgery to remove a brain tumor. While this was not good news by any stretch of the mind, by that facebook post, God revealed to me part of the Purpose. What would I have done if I had found myself trying to help a youth group through a summer when they found out that their youth minister has a brain tumor? God knew what He needed to teach me this summer, and how to deal with that when so many other people are depending on you wasn't one of those things.
The adversary has been lying to me, well, ever since I understood enough to listen. But this summer, it's been BRUTAL. I have felt so inadequate. Like I had no skills, no good ideas, no confidence. I felt like the kids didn't like me, their folks didn't like, me, my coworkers didn't like me. I felt like I didn't know God, like he didn't have a place for me in ministry at all. Over the past, meh, week or so, God used all of those people to to disprove all of those lies. Franklin, our youth minister, gave me an "evaluation" I though I was gonna barf, but then he started talking about how he thought I did things well, how I did what they needed me to do. He told me the one thing he wished I done more was share more of my ideas. I had a couple of good conversations with my co-intern, Brent, a guy who is smarter and knows more about the Bible than everyone else I know combined. After that I realized that we really were friends. This summer God had taught me how to work with and befriend someone that I thought I could never ever work with, much less call a friend. Last night, I was taking two of my girls, Sierrah and Kylie back home after youth group, and was told "When I heard we were going to have a girl intern, I thought she would be really weird and we wouldn't want to be around her, but you're not weird." After feeling like I couldn't relate to kids six years younger than me, that was like as close to a "well done, good and faithful servant" as I will ever hear while alive on the earth. I realized that when they all say "Why can't you just go to college in Omaha?" and "Why can't you stay until Akastasia?" and "You're leaving so soon! Let's hang out every day until school starts!", they're not just saying it- they mean it!
I don't know what I did this summer. But I know I didn't fail. I don't know why God wanted me in Nebraska, but I know that's where he wanted me, and not another place. He knows what I can handle. He know what I need. He knows who needs me. What a good Father!