Occasionally YouthWorks.

One of the things that makes YouthWorks crazy for the staff, is the situations you get put in. 

I wish I could be more detailed than that, but it's hard to put your finger on it. 

I mean have you ever delegated an entire meal to 10 middle schoolers, so they can make 30 pounds of taco meat for 80 people?

Have you ever been sleeping on your air mattress and someone comes up to you and says "Kayla, all 16 of the toilets aren't working?

Have you ever been concerned for the safety of 70 youth traveling in giant passenger vans in downtown New Orleans? 

I could name so many other moments when you just can't help but go "WHAT IS MY LIFE?!" but I would have to explain the situation to explain the situation I am talking about. You catchin what I'm sayin?

Youthworks puts you in this place, where you have to say "It's God or me." 

I choose me almost 80% of the time. 

It pushes you out of your comfort zone. 

It forces you to see all our insecurities and lays them out on the table for everyone to see. 

I am really lucky I have such honest people in my life because I realized something today, in the middle of filling out paper work in the late hours....

I am holding on to so much of my past still, because my broken past allows me to stay safe. 

It explains or excuses why I am not good at things. 

It protects me from having to do the hard things I don't want. 

It allows me to stay comfortable and "safe" because I can say "oh, I have ptsd from *insert trauma from my past here* there for I don't have to be as honest, and people who try to hurt me won't be able to. 

I am holding on to my self. 

Instead of letting go showing up and listening to the spirit, trusting that "he who has created a good work in me will finish out to completion.", 

I try to control things that don't matter. I find no joy in the small things, and I build up barriers. 

I shoot my self in the foot. I find every way I know how to not do the hard things, to not give God control. 

Man, I have blamed him for so much of my past. 

So much of who I am is blamed on what I can't control. 

Instead of just taking responsibility for the things I can control and moving Onward. 

I don't know why God has me back in Harrisburg or back with Youthworks, but I know he is not finished. 

It's my teams first week in programming, and a bunch of things have happened that are out of our control, and I keep needing to thank God for those things, because these things make me a better leader, a better human, and creates in me a more flexible and honest faith in who God is. 

But, I keep getting worked up and tired. 

I want to be the person that see's joy in all the little moments, that celebrates the little things, that see's joy and light in the darkest and deepest of caverns. 

We exist to point others at Jesus and tell them that is where our hope comes from. 

We can't point very well when our hands are too busy worried about something else. 

Jesus break me down. 

Remind me what it means to breathe in deep your rest. 

Show me how to love like you. 

Show me how to love myself like you love me. 

Show me how to love my team mates and the participants well. 

Let me be a good example of what it looks like to live like I am loved.