Braggin on the WIFE

I just have to brag on my wife for a minute. Neither of us ever thought we would ever be comfortable working with teens or speaking or anything. Yet God has made it very clear that is what He has called me to do. My wife has more than verified this as well as teens, family, friends, colleagues and church leaders. For this I am very grateful. I have been told that if I could be happy doing anything else, to go do that instead of youth ministry. I can’t think of anything else that would make me happy than youth ministry. Yes, even in the messy parts of it, when lives are hurt, wrecked, families are torn apart, etc. Because I know that God is always there and because of His strength I can come alongside a hurting teen or family and help them see God’s light and His hands when they are blinded by the fog and darkness surrounding them.
Now moving to my wife, SHE IS SIMPLY AWESOME. God has been doing so much work in her heart and mind over the last few years. I am not even going to talk about how great a wife she is because that would take you, reader, all day and night for the next 60 years to read. What I am going to talk about is the ways in which God is using her to impact others. Don’t worry sweetie, no details shared.

She has not always been sure that youth ministry was for her and at first I didn’t like that. that was my own immaturity. Over the last 2 years I have been taught well by youth ministry veterans. And as soon as I learned to let go of her not being as excited about youth ministry as I was, that is when I could see clearly how God was using her and how she was thinking, what a tremendous change that has brought to our marriage and our effectiveness as a couple to the teens we minister too.

For a while she was very insecure about her place/role in our youth ministry and basically felt forgotten about. Granted she had our baby with her and therefore her focus was on our child. DUH TIM!! Well I kept telling her to not underestimate her teaching the teen girls by example. While most of the time the teens would give her a hello and then ask, where’s Tim, she would feel like they didn’t care about her. In fact, they did. On nights when she wasn’t able to come, the first question I would get was, where’s Steph….even before a hello Tim. And over the last few months especially I have seen her realize more of a focused ministry in our teen ministry. Due to confidentiality I can’t go into it much more than this, but I can say one of our teens, felt like they had to ask another staff member to talk to my wife because the teen was afraid my wife would be upset with the teen. THAT IS A HUGE INDICATOR of her impact and relationship with our teens. I haven’t experienced anything like that and am ashamed to admit that I am sort of jealous in a way. It would be great to know that a teen you work with looks up to you that much, yet it’s equally as frustrating to us both because we care about these teens so much that it hurts us when we see them fall even though we, along with others, gave them so much warning.

Now this focus that my wife seems to becoming more involved in, is something that she would strongly rather not have to even think about. BUT despite our best efforts to teach teens that don’t come from Christian homes for the most part, we don’t have the biggest influence on their lives. THEIR PARENTS AND FAMILIES DO. But she is so passionate about this particular slice of ministry that it’s really taking root and in ways, it seems that word is getting out about what she is doing. It may become more than just my wife coming along side a hurting teen and helping where she can, it may have to grow to an actual set ministry of our church. We are praying it won’t get to that point given the nature of it. Most of our teens are “unchurched” teens and most of their families don’t come or go to any church. But she is doing what she can to help hurting teens. She even opened up our couch to a teen, after consulting me and giving it very careful thought. She is finally starting to see just some of the impact, the fruit, that she has had on the teens we have been around and I am so proud of her for keeping on and for praying for me, our family, our friends, and our teens. She is truly a shining example of a Godly child, sister, woman, wife, mother, youth worker.

AND SHE’S SO HOT AND COOKS AND BAKES SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOD TOO ! ! !

Love you Sweetie XOXOXOXOXO