Advent is over and Christmas is here

The presents have all been opened, we enjoyed our stockings, and Christmas dinner was delicious. Now we can all relax right? Nothing more to do right? Nothing except enjoying in the wondrous thing of Jesus's birth! For whatever reason we seem to lose that in all of this. We get so focused on other things that after all the gifts have been opened, stockings delighted in, we seem to sit back and sigh as if it is all over now. Isn't this really the time we should be celebrating? Now that Jesus has been born? (albeit many years ago but we are celebrating it now anyway) I think it is party time myself! Now is the time to bring out the egg nog and light up the lights. For without our saviors birth and his ultimate sacrifice (that is a story for another time) he gave us we would not have the joy we have today.

Blessings

Just when you are not sure of things God always seems to provide you with many blessings. Sometimes it comes in ways that are not what you would expect either. Before I took my current job as a youth director I had some serious debate on if I could do this. Would I be good at it? Would I be able to do all the stuff I had not been doing as a volunteer? Is this really where I was being called? Then one night on a mission trip a really good friend of mine stayed up chatting with me. She told me that God was not asking me to jump off a cliff but to step off a curb. I took those words to heart and stepped off the curb. It was after thinking on those words that I decided that I would become the next youth leader at my church if they chose to hire me. Fortunately they did.

When you are in the throws of your job there are times that you question what you are doing. Am I making a difference in their lives? Am I reaching anyone? Are those looks of boredom or are they just tired? Are they whining out of love? That and so much more will go rambling through my head. And sometimes it feels like no matter how hard you pray you still feel like you are walking alone. That is when God smacks ya with the blessings that have been right under your nose the whole time. Sometimes I think he has to smack ya in order to get your attention. He has to kind make you realize that yes indeed he has been walking with you the whole time. That you should always keep your faith. And that those looks of boredom really are looks of boredom but that they still love you. Youth can be way more forgiving than we sometimes give them credit for. Good golly I have a great job and to top it off I have a great God who loves and cares for us all!

Shocking

A funny thing about me is I tend to be full of static electricity. And it especially seems worse in the winter time. So every day I sit in my office unknowingly building up static charge. Then when I least expect it I will touch something metal and wowzer! I get quite a shock. It is especially bad when I turn off my lights. I have seen a blue spark fly when I do that. If anyone out there knows of a way to stop this from happening I would be eternally grateful. But until then I hope that I do not shock myself to hard.

Games, games, and more games....

Some days I feel like I have the coolest job in the world. Where else can you play with the most random things and have everyone leave with a smile. Today I gave teams of youth random objects and told them they had to create a game for everyone. One group I gave plastic hockey sticks, a couple of nerf footballs, and they could use any folding chairs in the gym. When all was said and done they had chairs stacked two high, hockey sticks stretched across them to make hurdles, and we played a very interesting version of hockey. You have not lived until you try to make a nerf football work like a hockey puck. The youth played that game for quite a while. I should let them make up their own games every week. One less thing for me to plan ; )

Little did they know...

When my church hired me they had no idea what they were getting. I look like a mild mannered person but really deep down I am as accident prone as the best of them. Since being hired I have managed, with the help of the youth, to put three holes in the wall (4 if you count where I gouged the wall), broke two lights, and gave myself two possible broken toes that looked oh so lovely. All of which happened at work. And ohh I managed to put a cut in the linoleum. The crazy part is I have only been there for a year and a couple of months. The good news is they keep letting me come back. So at this moment I have been accident free for about 2 days, 22 hours : )

Ahhh the church kitchen

So anyone who has spent anytime in a church kitchen understands how strange and interesting it is. Don't deny it you know what I mean. What is even crazier is the church fridge. Where else can you find a giant tub of mayo along with about 10 other containers of mayo. Now if you are like me every time you open that fridge you go through a debate. Do you toss some of those old containers of mayo and risk making the ladies of the church mad or do you leave them in there even though no one is going to even come close to touching them because who knows how long they have been there? But in case you ever decide to chance one of those containers of mayo to make a sandwich, well you are in luck because there is just as many mustard containers to go with your mayo. Then there is the mysterious jars of jam, string cheese from who knows how long ago, and the one giant tub of butter that seems to be never ending.

Today I thought I would be brave and toss out the opened block of cheese that had been there for about a month. Unfortunately someone saw the cheese in the trash and questioned my tossing it out. I tried explaining how old it was, that it had been opened and not covered but it seem to fall on deaf ears. Oh well it is all part of being a church.

The bigger debate is how to wash the dishes. We have a sanitizer. Not a dishwasher. And while that might not seem like there is anything to debate but ohhh you have not lived until you have listened to people debate on how to clean dishes with a sanitizer. Do you wash it with soap first? Do you just have to get all of the food off? Do you add soap to the sanitizer? And if you run out of powdered dish detergent can you still run the dishes through the sanitizer and get the dishes clean? These are things that I think keeps some people awake at night. I know it has caused me a great deal of consternation at times ; )

While I may not understand the mysterious of the church kitchen I know that it will always provide me with endless hours of fascination.

They grow up so fast...

It is still hard for me to believe but my nephew is 12! 12 I tell you! I still remember him being 3 and doing things like eating dental floss (a story for another time). And not he is in middle school. 6th grade! eeek. If he lived here in town with me he would be in my youth group. That is a scary thought. Probably better that he does not live here because this way he can an experience without his Auntie Meg at youth group with him.

Unlike my brother who has always had his sis at youth group with him. He two has gotten older on me. 17 going on 18 and graduating. Ugh all of this also means that I am getting older. Guess that is part of life. The crazy thing is my brother is graduating from the same HS I did only 12 years later. Who would have thought that to happen? Not I that is for certain. But I love him and am proud of him.

There will be many graduating from youth group this year. I will miss them all but at the same time wish them all the blessings God has to offer them as the move forward in life.