My Clay is Still on the Wheel

There is something great about writing- it means I can look back and read about what I've learned, thought about, struggled through, and where I came out. It's beautiful; it's therapeutic.
It seems my ideas and goals are almost always in a slow but steady evolution. I like to read, discuss, analyze. And to tell the truth, I am almost never satisfied with the finished product- on those few occasions that I am, I quickly shift from satisfaction to looking for the next thing I can tweak.

One thing that has (slowly!) happened is that I am not afraid to fail. This is in large part due to my husband who encourages me to try anything I deem worthy of pursuing: writing, teaching, organizing a running club, event planning, organizing a group of service-oriented people. I often have big ideas- I had big dreams for the running club, and I wanted my service-project group to be "big," as well. But I think that it is possible that people weren't ready for it. And by that, I mean that hearts and minds weren't ready. Perhaps the timing was off.

It seems to me that any big undertaking that I attempt to install into the youth group on my own excitement, passion and power, will most likely fail. Legacy Student Ministry is not for me; it is for my kids. I am convinced that anything big and powerful that happens within the confines of student ministry will be most successful if it comes from the students, because that means internal change and movement, as opposed to the external that comes from me.

Summer will, of course, be full of retreats, service projects, youth group outings, and quite possibly, running on Sundays. But those are only activities (and good activities at that!). What I want and what I pray for my kids is hearts that burst with love, and the desire for the action which follows it, which is service.

It is easy for me to fixate on the choices I've made that could have been better, but the truth is, there is no benefit in that. I can choose to take life moment by moment and make the best choices I know how to make within each timeslot. Those choices will be imperfect, which I will learn with hindsight, but my hope is that I will keep moving forward, despite obstacles, confusion, and frustration.

It is hard for me to live without knowing what the "perfect" decisions are, but I do know that I am not a finished work and that God will be faithful to complete the work that he started in me. Truth be told, I am an impatient person, and I want that work to be completed NOW. I want to have arrived. I want to know all the answers in black and white.
But I'll continue to make the best choices I know how to make, and then I'll revise them as I go.