A few days ago I received my favorite Christmas card of the year. Was it a picture of a JCrew-esk model family at the beach wearing matching khaki shorts and while button-downs? No. Was it a 3 page letter describing someone’s epically interesting accomplishments of 2011? Nope. It was a simple holiday card in a simple white envelope from one of the students in our church. Scrawled in black ink in big block letters across the inside of the card were these words…
Dan, I hope you have a great Christmas. Tell Rachel and June “hi” for me. Thanks for being an awesome friend and youth pastor. I have a great time hanging out.
from,
_________
- If you know this guy, then you’d understand how much these 4 sentences mean. He and I have probably had breakfast at Bodo’s Bagels on Preston Avenue over 50 times in the past few years and I’ve been praying for Jesus to work in his life for much longer than that. Through it all, I have often wondered (and doubted) whether our time together was as important to him as it was to me. For those of you who work with teenagers, you know the feeling.
Lesson re-learned for the 371st time: God is working even when I don’t see it.
To all who are giving away your time because you love Jesus and his people – “thank yous” and “well dones” are few and far between, but God is constantly working!
And in case the author of that card is reading this – thanks again for the card buddy, it was super encouraging to me.
