There are so many titles for what I do. Youth leader, youth minister, student coordinator, student pastor…my official title is, Youth Director.  It’s all the same to me because I get to minister to kids all the time so I think it’s the coolest job ever.

I’ve been intentionally ministering to students since I was a student. I think I started teaching bible studies at 16 or 17.  So much of my life is about pouring into other people. Pouring into students, pouring into volunteers, pouring into people I mentor.

It’s a beautiful thing when the people that I have poured into over the years turn around and do the same for me in the midst of my own tragedy.  I have one student who came through my seventh grade small group.  She’s a sophomore in college now.  She was at the hospital the night we lost my mom.  I have no idea what words she said to me, and honestly, it doesn’t even matter, but she was there, hugging me in the moments when I needed to feel God’s love the most.  This student, now and adult, that I had been teaching about God’s love for years, was giving me a physical representation of it right then and there.

I had another student texting me scripture.  Another sending me words of wisdom from her daily devotional. Others simply sending their love.

All things I’ve done for them over the years.  They returned that love in kind. In the midst of my sadness, I have never been more proud to be a minister of students.  I get to watch my students, minister.