This, my dear friends, is life.

My desire and God's design didn't match. It was approximately late February/early March when my summer was completely flipped upside down. I was planning on working and living with a friend in the city for the month of June, I was to be in China in July teaching English, and then for the rest of the time working in the city. That was going to be my summer. If, for whatever reason, China didn't work out, I was going to be working at a camp in Colorado. Whatever was to happen, I knew that I didn't want to live in Fort Scott for the summer. I was so excited for it! Within about a weeks time, my heart was absolutely broken then I received some affirmation that I wasn't exactly thrilled about. Within a week, China trip was canceled, and my Mom called me and said that my brother would be starting his internship at Harley Davidson in May, and since he's the primary caretaker of Great Gram, they would be needing someone else and would only be comfortable with family ta...

So I had the opportunity to speak to the congregation. That’s right. Not just a youth group with 50ish people. I’m talking like a congregation that averages around 325 or so weekly. Being 19 years old and only just completing my first year at college, I found this task to be incredibly intimidating. My fears of pastoral inadequacy quickly set in and I was like “Oh no. This can’t happen.” Not only were those fears happening, but I had also just began a job in social work that week, and I quickly learned that social work is incredibly difficult and will test you in every which way you can imagine. After week one, I was ready to quit. It wasn’t necessarily that the job was all that terrible, I was just so afraid that I wouldn’t be able to invest in my clients the ways that they needed, and to be quite frank, I was exhausted. However, I knew that I was in that job for a reason, so I stayed.   I had two weeks to prepare this sermon, and for about a week and a half of that two w...