It takes just one phone call to drop you to your knees… or in my case, a text, a call, and an investigation. At the youth group where I lead, we decided it would be cool and a really fun experience to have a "Girls Night" where we would get as many of the 6TH through 8TH grade ladies to come to the building, play crazy games, soak up Jesus, and stay up ALL NIGHT! The night went completely amazing. There were no problems, injuries, drama. Just pure and righteous fun. We had a worship session, question and answer, skits, games. It turned out to be perfect. Until the next morning, that is… The girls all left the building by 8AM. Little did I know what I'd be learning at 2 o'clock that afternoon. I had just woken up from my 5 hour nap when I got a phone call from one of the leaders who was helping out at the Girls Night. A father of one of the students had called and informed the pastor that his daughter never came home. A few minutes later I got another call from the pastor asking me for any info on the girl. I told him what I could and then went back to what I was doing… getting ready for the rest of the day. I received another call about an hour later telling me that it was now a "missing persons" case and the police would be calling me to get any information on the night and the girl. Long story short, she was on the news that night at 10 o'clock and was safely returned home around 11PM. It turned out to be a misunderstanding of where she was going… She had called her father that morning asking if she could go to a friend's house, and he said yes. Unfortunately it was in the morning and by the time he called the pastor, he had forgotten where she said she was going and that she had even called.
The next day, I was coaching a human video for Fine Arts. One of the students walked out with the other coach and when he came back in, was crying. I immediately knew that something was very wrong. I had talked to this student's sister the night before about the girl who was misplaced, and she had told me that her aunt wasn't doing the greatest and she had basically said her last goodbye's before they had left. I went to my phone and realized that I had a text from the other leader. Her aunt had passed away that day, and her brother had just found out. — Before I go too much farther, I should probably tell you that I am the sort of person who's heart breaks when other's are troubled.– I proceeded to get a knot in my throat and my heart dropped to my ankles for this family. I ran to Wal-Mart to grab some flowers and a card that I would be able to drop on their doorstep that night. When I pulled up, her father was on the step waiting… Sort of ruined my plans, but I was able to personally hand him the flowers and the card and express my sorrow. My co-leader came out, and when I saw how torn she was, I had to fight back my tears. Little did she know that I could hardly see on my way home because I was crying so hard. My heart was broken for the loss of her aunt.
As I was on my way home that night, I realized that I didn't know when I worked the next day, so I ran to where I work to look at the schedule. When I got there, I noticed that I was working 7 hours that week… I had gone from working 25-30 hours to working 7. With the World Race coming up in less than 9 months, I am already super overwhelmed with funds and all, but this just completely crushed me. I have been working 2 jobs for a little over half a year hoping to get enough money for the Race, along with fundraising. I believe God will provide, but with everything that had already happened in that 48 hours, I was pretty torn up.
The last two things that have started to press down on my life just happened today. I worked at a summer camp last summer and decided that I would not return, until yesterday. I prayed about what I was to do in the summer and was told by God that I should work at summer camp once again. Initially I had applied to a different camp, but seemed to keep getting pulled back to my original one. I had emailed the Executive Director last night and his reply was that it was not a good idea to return being that I had already applied elsewhere. It was a hard answer to take in. The last thing came as a text to me this morning. My best friend has been going through a rough patch as well, and this morning informed me that his family was breaking apart because of some not so great decisions of some members. As you can imagine, it has torn me to bits and my heart aches for him and his family.
As I have been typing this today, a load has been taken off of my back… I have been holding in so much emotion for so long that it is relieving to take the time to talk about what has happened. God is so good to me, and I sometimes forget to remember his love. I wanted to take this time to encourage you, that even in the times of dark, the light will come. The light always finds a way. God bless.
