Tonight was an event that I was actually dreading.
The "Just Because We Can! Party".
The point was to have fun just because and be quite random. Originally I was super excited about it. But as plans progressed (or tried to progress) more and more people said they wouldn’t be able to come because of conflicting schedules, I was out of town for a week and a half and couldn’t work on planning anything and when I asked for volunteers at youth group there was little response. The closer today came the more excited others got and the less excited I got.
I wanted it to be a big event, an outreach event, a fun event but was not prepared mentally, with stuff or even spiritually. This afternoon I was like "okay God, I’m free falling. I’m just going to enjoy whatever happens today and let You take the reins." Really, it wasn’t that spiritual. No major release of pressure. But it did help to do that and to just sit and sip coffee for 20 minutes before jumping into activity.
But really, I should back up a bit. God had shown me He was good to me earlier this week. I was stressing about food. What kind of snacks to get. It was just another detail. That totally got taken care of by someone. Someone else took responsibility for some of the games, including getting the supplies for them. May sound like small things but those were huge burden removers for me.
And now that the event is done I must say, God is good and has been good to me. We had about 30 kids. Lots of enthusiasm but also listened well when I talked about God creating us "just because He could" and loving us "just because He can." Clean up was done quickly and with lots of help. In fact, the car (that we smashed….bye bye Bernice) was taken care of by my dear roommate and friends while we were playing games at the gym. That’s a huge blessing to me!
So, as I sit here (fresh out of the shower because I got egged…) I’m thankful for some great kids who love to laugh, people who are willing to serve and a God who is much better than me at handling the reins.
*Update: There are now pictures of the party in my photo albums.
the.happenings 