They Are My Students Too!

Maybe it is just me, but I feel like the students in our youth group are just as much mine as they are my husband's. Over the years, I have gotten to know many of the students and been involved in their lives. I love these kids and enjoy the time that I get to spend with them.

One of my gifts, or faults as it may be, is that I often see what people can't see in themselves. Maybe it's the mother in me or maybe it truly is a gift from God. Despite their immaturity and mistakes, it is easy for me to see what God can do with their lives. I don't mean this in a prophetic way or anything. When I see their struggles, I can just imagine the ways that God is shaping them to use that experience in the future.

Knowing what they can be makes it hard to see them fall. I know that I had to learn my lessons on my own and so do they, but that doesn't make it any easier to see them hurt. Recently a student whom we love dearly and are very close to, came to Bryan with some tough news. The student was broken and and honest. A bad decision had been made and the consequences were coming quickly. Unfortunately, the student wasn't alone in this decision or the consequences. Bryan cried with the student as they discussed the situation. When he came home and shared with me, I broke down. It broke my heart not that the student had made a bad decision, but knowing how the world would respond to this decision. I wasn't hurt or disappointed in the student, but hurting for him.

I want to shelter all of our students from the dangers of the world, but I can't. I want to guard their hearts for them, but I can't. I want to take their burdens for them, but I can't. What I can do, is love them through it and give them every chance possible to make wise decisions. I can also be an ear to listen and hands to hold as they face the consequences of their decisions.

Our challenge now is to learn how to support them and love them through these things , without down playing the seriousness of their decisions. We can't ignore their sins, but we can show them the same GRACE that our Father showed us. It is our job to be Christ to these kids and show them not how Christian's respond, but how Christ responds to their situations.

Please pray for our students. They face some huge things everyday. Our students have some heavy burdens. Pray that Christ would give us what we as a ministry team and church need to reach them and support them.