Sharing my story

I had been having a horrible day, was down on myself and felt like I was doing a horrible job as a leader and just as a person. Someone had earlier prayer for me that, I would be used to show the youth I work with the one true love of Christ and yet I stood on the side lines of the gym feeling unable. I didn't feel like I was making a difference but didn't know how I could either. That’s when he walked up to me.

He’s one of the most at risk kids we have at camp, pushing the limits, tough and acting even tougher than he is. His home life is full of bad habits and bad influence. Yet over time things change and a lot of his walls have already started to come down.

“Is it true that you were mean last year?” is what he asked me. I was caught off guard and also wondered what he wanted to hear as my response. “Who told you that?” I asked.

“The other kids.” he said trying to shrug it off.

“Well, I guess you’re lucky you came this year,” I said jokingly, but then taking it more seriously I told him it was a long story. He looked at me curiously and so I continued to explain to him how I was when I first came to camp a year and a half ago. How I was new to the city, scared of the kids and really worried about not being perfect. I explained that I was intimidated by the kids and sucked a disciplining and wasn't very good at having fun or just enjoy being with the kids.

I shared with him how God changed my heart to stay longer than just a summer to stay a year and how He continued changing my heart and making me a better leader. I was surprised he was listening so intently and not changing the subject to some made up crazy fighting story where he made another kid bleed like he normally does. Instead he just stood there looking at me and listening. I continued about how I was supposed to leave in May but how God used people in my life to tell me that He wanted me to stay and that I did and that this year is entirely different. Not that I am suddenly perfect but that I am a different and better and “less of a mean” leader then I had been the year before.

From a night where I felt weak, useless and unable to really do anything to make a difference God took it and used this little boy to ask a simple question out of curiosity to give me an opportunity to share my story of what God has done in my life with him.