Since I might be missing the "get to know the core" life night, I thought I would share a bit about my personal experience with my faith journey and my history with Life Teen at this time.
A VERY brief history of my faith up through college goes something like this: I went to mass my whole life because it was just something I did, because it's what I had always done. I didn't go because I had a special relationship with God, or because I was afraid I'd go to hell if I didn't go, or because I was looking for a deeper meaning to life. I just went because well, that's just what I did on Sunday mornings (however, in college I could go to mass just about anytime, 7am-9pm on a Sunday....oh, and if I went to the 9pm mass at the student union on Sunday nights, I could look to see what cute guys were there and wonder if maybe my future husband was sitting in that room...looking at me......oh, but I see I'm getting off topic :-).
After graduating from college I went back to live with my parents and got a job as a speech therapist. The youth minister in my town heard that I was around and called to see if I would like to help with their new Life Teen program. Well sure, I thought!!! I absolutely hated high school (that is a whole other topic for a whole other post), and I thought that maybe I could help teens make it through h.s. just a little bit easier than I did. I also felt that I was still young and could relate to them, and that I would be a great female role model. What I didn't expect (and here's the irony), is that I would not only find God, but develop a relationship with God, in my new ministry.
The saying that God works in mysterious ways is so true, because little did I know that my life would change forever while chaperoning at a Steubenville East conference/retreat. On the Saturday night of that retreat I experienced adoration with around 2,500 teens and chaperones, and the beauty of it blew me away. However, I wouldn't fully understand how much it had changed me until the Monday after it ended. Before going to work, my parents asked how the weekend was (I hadn't had a chance to talk to them yet), and as soon as I started describing the weekend, and adoration in particular, I knew that the words coming out of my mouth were not my own, and it was at that moment that I understood how the Holy Spirit can work through people. When I finished describing adoration and the love that God has for each and every one of us, my mom AND my dad were both crying. When I got to work I was telling a few co-workers about the weekend, and they too began crying at the beauty of what I was telling them. From that day on I "got" the Holy Spirit, and the real every day presence of both Jesus and Mary started becoming more and more clear. I continued working with the teens for a few years, doing life nights, chaperoning retreats, running a few confirmation retreats, teaching CCD, having teens over to my apartment once I moved out of my parent's house (yippee!!), and ministering to others and being ministered to in return. My faith could move mountains and I knew that NOTHING was ever going to break it!
As we fast forward to the present much has changed, and much has stayed the same. I have been away from youth ministry for about 9 years, I got married and I had three children. My faith, that I swore would "NEVER be shaken", has been shaken...many times. I've screamed, "I'm not praying!!!" to my husband, I've had some MAJOR flip-outs (swearing included) directed towards God, Jesus, Mary (and anyone else in heaven that seemed to be totally ignoring me), and I've gone through some pretty major depressions (swearing that God wasn't listening to my prayers, or that if He was, the answer always seemed to be, NO!). Again, much of this is a different post for a different time, but let's just say that having 3 very young children in the span of 5 years does A LOT to a person :-). I don't want to make it sound as though it's all been bad, but it's been very REAL and my faith has had to mature.
So here I am, here's what you've got. I'm enter into a new phase of Life Teen ministry a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a lot more humble, a lot more compassionate towards the struggles of others having been through many of my own, a lot more patient, and a lot more open to picking up my cross daily and following Christ. I'm chock full of stories that I can't wait to share (some will have you LYBO...laughing your butt off, and some may have you CYEO...crying your eyes out).
I look forward to learning from each and every one of you and I hope that maybe some of you can learn something from me as well.
May God drench each and every one of you with His grace and blessings.
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