I found this picture this morning while I was on my phone avoiding productivity, and it made me stop the mindless scrolling for a minute. At first I was going to post it on instagram with a dumb joke about being lost and confused but the more I looked at it the more it melted my heart. To anyone else this looks like an unimportant, kind of silly, moment but to me this picture brought me back a feeling that I have lost for a while now. In this picture is 4 girls the summer before they start 8th grade and me, their almost 21 year old camp counselor. It was taken during the second rotation of a giant field game played to break the ice on the first night of a week long camp.
Middle school girls have permanently claimed a very special place in my heart. They are best kind of friends but at the same time some of the most intimidating girls to interact with. I’ll be honest I was scared of middle school girls when I was one, they can be so honest sometimes brutally and seemingly so exclusive. If you look at my face in this picture you’ll see a mix of awe and confusion because these girls, like most their age, basically have their own language, but despite the fact that I have been apart of middle school ministry for almost 3 years now and speak 2 languages I am nowhere near fluent in middle school girl. Once you chip a little bit of the wall though you will find sweet, kind, goofy, awkward, fiercely loyal young women who are the perfect image of the gospel and redeeming grace. If you don’t believe me go and be part of a middle schoolers life and you will be grateful just to have known them, even just for a week.
Lately I have been forgetting the reasons I love middle schoolers, because ministry is physically, emotionally, spiritually, exhausting and just plain hard sometimes. It’s hard to be on a ministry team who all have different ideas of what ministry should look like, it’s hard to keep putting yourself out there just to feel rejected, and for me especially it’s hard to remember that it’s not up to you to save them. As I start to transition leaving my ministry with middle schoolers and feeling as though I’m not finished here to the month to month ministry on the race, I am afraid that I will feel unfinished at the end of every month. There will always be one more group of girls I want to share the gospel with, one more relationship I want to continue to pursue, one more seed I have planted and watered that I want to see the fruit of and I will always feel as though it has to be me to bring them all to Christ. Here is the reality though that even if I suddenly decided to lock myself in my room for the rest of my life, God will still continue to pursue, love and cherish these people to the ends of the earth with or without me. It is all out of my hands, I am just His vessel, just the thing He chooses to use.
This is why I love this picture so much is because I’m not doing anything in this picture, I am just sitting there watching them figure out how to lead each other. It reminds me that I am not that special just an empty vessel ready to be used for His glory.
