Roamings and Ramblings
Guess I should update every once in a while…
I just got back from what seems like a whole month of traveling. A youth rally in Phoenix the first weekend in Phoenix, returning to Phoenix a week later for Christmas with the fam, back to Baton Rouge for less than a day, driving to Nashville, flying back Sunday. Anyway, I will probably need to get some work done some day.
The youth rally is one of the biggest parts of all of it still on my mind. I was back at Southwest Church of Christ for the first time in 9 years. I hadn’t hardly been there since we left when I was 17. I was speaking to top it off. Teens in the youth group were little babies when I left. A lot of people were new, but it had the same feel, and there were some familiar faces. It was like going back in time. I spoke 3 times, two on Saturday for the youth rally and once on Sunday morning for class. The first one was what I felt to be my best prepared lesson, but it seemed to fall flat. I just didn’t connect with the audience. Afterwards, they had some classes they went to, and I went to those and just watched them interact. I watched them and remembered what it was like to be a teenager in PHoenix. I can’t explain it. A lot of things have changed in youth culture, but there was a feel there that I recognized. After that, the even session went extrememly well, and got a good response. I had numerous teens come up and tell me they liked it, or that it kept them awake (what I take to be an extremely high compliment). Class went well, too.
What was weird about being there was the people that I knew, people I had been in youth group with. I was talking to Dave before leaving, and I was kind of upset. I was really worried about how it seemed like people we had grown up with hadn’t changed much at all. For some reason, it really overwhelmed me. I prayed about it for a while, knowing that there was something deeper. What God revealed to me was something I wasn’t prepared for: he showed me that I was the one who hadn’t changed as much as I thought I had. Oh, I know I have grown in a lot of ways. But, in some ways, I am still that insecure teenager who wants to fit inand be liked. It amazes me how much I can know about the power of God to work and change our hearts, to even preach and teach that, yet somehow I fail to completely surrender my own heart.
The visit for Christmas was great. I met my sister’s new boyfriend from Oregon, who I really liked. We all had a good time, and it gives my heart great joy to see my parents love on Hudson. Kate and I even got to relax a little bit. I got to do everything I wanted to do: visit my parents’ new church, spend time playing XBOX with Dave, watch a movie or two, meet up with Angel and Andy, and have some quality time with the folks. We even got bumped up to First Class on one of our flights.
The visit to Nashville was also good, even though I was there only a couple days. It was icy and snowy, so we had to spend the night on the way. But, we spent time with all of Kates family. It’s so hard when parents are split like Kate’s are. It is so tough on the kids. I witnessed firsthand again the difficulty in splitting Christmas Eve and Christmas Day between two parents. Tough stuff. But, overall it was a good visit. Hudson was loved on, and we got a ton of great gifts (I’ll even be able to play my XBOX on my own TV now… Bwahahahahahaahaaa…)
Anyway, since this has been long and deep, I’ll be sure to end with a quote from my mom that is also deep…
“The reason parents want grandchildren is so their own children know how much they are loved”
Later,
Blaine