From the Mouths of Middle Schoolers

Me: "I worry mostly about girls and the future."

Youth 1: "Get married."

Youth 2: "God will provide."

Youth 1: Airsoft! Youth 3: Paintball! Y2: XBox!

Those two things are what church elders always tell me. Only they use many more words.

Angels and Strangers

Strangers sometimes make the best friends.

Painters in coffee shops, students at conferences, the person beside you on the bus.

The girl who comes up and plays worship music on the piano when you talk about needing to make worship a regular part of your day to day.

Dust

I feel fine, just hollow. A friend is gone. He feels closer now, I was walking on the beach, and I thought I heard God say I would walk with my friend again someday.

I remember last year he got up in front of like 400 people and offered to pray for strangers. And strangers were changed. The last thing we did was pray over each other. Travel well.

Plans

I think God messes up my plans a lot because he knows it makes me pray, and stretches me to be patient.

Ashes

"Rend your heart and not your garments." I was going to chop off my hair, I always want a physical sign of repentance, to make myself pay. Ashes on my forehead, sober, dust to dust. Awaiting the cross.

Generosity

Children are often the coolest people I meet. Generosity is sharing your sled, and your afternoon, with a stranger.

Love

I spend tons of time worrying about whether I love God, because mostly I don't I just think about Him abstractly, and when I do talk to Him, I'm often spastic.

I asked my two seventh-grade guys if they loved God. They only wrote one word on their paper, filling half the page: YES.

Kentucky

A silly desire, a prayer, a dream, to cross Kentucky off my list of states. Sometimes to give you what you want, God has you kicked off a bus, unjust, and you have to face tears first.

Zach

Passed two homeless people on the street. Saw myself in the white one, the second one, the young one. Did what I could. Passed the black one, the old one, by. Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.