An Open Letter to Graduating High School Seniors

Dear High School Class of 2013,
    I am not going to lie here, there is a piece of me that is sad to see you graduating. You haven been transformed over your years at school much like the classes before you and the classes that are following you. You have grown up a ton (thanks be to God). You are fine people (despite what the world wants to tell you). You will make a difference in the world, you aren't just the future of the world but rather you are the world now, your role is very important. While at times it may seem like we adults don't want to acknowledge your presence and often think less of you than we should, we know you are gift and talented and we expect you to use those gifts and talents.
    Do what you love. Love what you do. Serve the world. Serve others. Dare to dream and dare to think you could be wrong. Go on great adventures to far off places and come back home, to where ever that may be, share your story with the world, and learn from the world. YOU ARE IMPORTANT, YOU ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE.
   It has been an honor to watch you transform from just young kids into awkward middle schoolers (really who wasn't a strange middle schooler at some point), it has been quite the ride watching you go through breakups and athletic success, seeing you care for one another and your passions for the world. While your greatest concern once was what color crayon to use next, now you are on to conquer the world, you can do it. Your career may change once or twice or ten or twenty times, go where God calls you.
   Thank you for the ways in which you have taught me about the world, thank you for the ways in which you have reminded me of the joy in the simple things, and thank you for being you. Thank you for being bold enough to step out in faith to trust that God has made you wonderful.
     Welcome to the world of adulthood. Welcome to the world as crazy as it may seem. Welcome to life after high school. You will do awesome.
   A blessing for you, one that I hold dear, from the summer camp that helped to form me into who I am today:
          As you go on your way may Christ go with you, may he go:
                                                            before you to show you the way
                                                            behind you to encourage you
                                                            above you to watch over you
                                                            beside you to befriend you
                                                            and within you to give you peace.

Peace & Love-
   an adult who values you highly

9th grade retreat.

This past Saturday I got to spend with our 9th graders, they are fabulously strange, awkward, and wonderful. They are all on track to be confirmed this October and I have to admit that there is a piece of me that is sad that they are being confirmed because I have loved meeting with them on Wednesday nights, don't get me wrong I am excited for them that they get to move on to high school youth group, but I'll miss them. Yes, this is selfish, I know and I am admitting it.

While there are some who want absolutely nothing to do with junior high and high school kids I have grown to love those middle school aged kids as well as my high schoolers. In the town I serve the 9th graders are in a campus of their own, not quite high schoolers and no longer middle schoolers. Generally by the time they hit high school they are fairly rational and less awkward, strange, and wonderful and have matured a bit. But there really is something to that middle school/early high school age when the youth are trying to truly discover the world around them. It is that stage in which they are not certain which way is up or down most days and are experiencing all sorts of changes physically and emotionally. While yes, sometimes their emotions are over the top and irrational, it is reality for them. It is what they know and how they understand the world. 

I find it a honor to get to journey alongside these kids for a time, it is a honor to hear their story, remind them that they are loved just as they and that God loves them and created them exactly how they are. It is a honor to hear that things that drive them nuts and make them excited. It is a honor to walk alongside their families as they learn what to do with middle schoolers, who are striving for independence and yet at the same time clinging to responsible adults to lead and guide their paths.

Thanks be to God for middle schoolers/early high schoolers and their willingness to let me journey alongside them.

Thanks be to God for giving me the patience and the sense of humor to enjoy middle schoolers & their sometimes stinkiness.
Thanks be to God for the adults who loved me when I was in the strange middle school/high school stage.

Thanks be to God to a congregation who rallies to remind these youth that they are in fact amazing and loved.

Thanks be to God who loves all of us despite our awkward, strange, and wonderfulness.