Blown Away

While one part of me is dead tired and thinks I'm crazy for starting a blog at 11:15 pm on the night of my longest day of the week, the other part of me is energized and once again blown away by the way God works.  I help lead a Teen Moms group at our church, and tonight was one of our parenting classes.  For this one, we had two amazing ladies from our church, one who is very newlywed and one who has been married thirty years, come and answer questions about marriage.  It was a time for our girls to hear the stories of these two wonderful women, how God has worked in their lives, and their thoughts on marriage.  To have planned and worked hard putting this evening together and to see the girls connect with these two women was the first highlight of the night.  But what made the evening worth it was the conversations it allowed me to have with two of our girls afterwards.  To honor our rule that what's said in Teen Moms stays in Teen Moms, I can't give specifics.  But I can say that God gave me the privilege of hearing the stories and speaking truth into the lives of these two young women.  I wish I had more words to describe what happened tonight, but it's enough to say that God showed up and worked in the hearts of our amazing girls tonight.

In an email to our leaders preparing us for tonight, I made the comment that tonight was for all of us, not just our girls.  So what did I get out of the evening?  There was one comment in particular that stood out to me.  Our newlywed who spoke talked about how she had to work through trust issues and often wondered why her husband wanted to hear about parts of her life that she wanted to forget.  But she said that when she takes that risk and opens up to her husband, it seems to make him happy.  I had never thought about that before.  But as I think about tonight and the relationships I have with my students, there's nothing better than having those intimate conversations and realizing that they trusted me to tell their story to.  They trusted me to share their lives with.  How much more then does it make God smile when I go to Him and share my life, my story, with Him?  And what am I taking from the people in my life when I don't trust them with my story?  There are people who love me, but when they genuinely want to hear my story, it's like pulling teeth trying to get personal information from me.  My gut reaction is to put up a wall and shut down.  While I am very aware that I do this and with God's help am making a conscious effort to change, I still find myself keeping a safe distance, amazingly enough, from the people I trust the most.  How would my life change if I were willing to take the risk and open up?  What sort of blessing would the people in my life receive if I trusted them enough to let them in?  Am I brave enough to find out?