30/30: One of My Best Days

That's Erin, top right-
 with a bunch of cousins!  1987

Today's 30/30 Vision Blog Challenge prompt asked me to write about one of my best days. There were many to choose from. It would have been easy to pick my wedding day, or the day Will was born, or the day my probation ended. But here's the one that I am remembering today.

Sometime back in the early 2000s Marilyn and I flew to NC to be at the wedding of one of former students from Springfield Friends Meeting. Erin Moran was one of our favorite people and her parents were some of our dearest friends, and we were excited to go. Since many of the youth from those days were in some way related to to Erin, we also knew we would see lots of people we loved at the the event. I had last worked at Springfield in 1994, and so many of the people we had shared life with when they were "youth" were now married with families of their own. It was a wonderful day, and we did indeed get to see a lot of people we loved. After the wedding we all headed downstairs to the Rees Fellowship Hall for the reception, which to us felt a great deal like a homecoming. So many old friends to see and catch up with. Seeing them all was such a wonderful reminder of the 8 great years we had spent in ministry at Springfield as a part of their families and the family of God.

That's Jill in the middle!

But none of that is what made this a day worthy of being called a "best day." That moment was provided by Jill Glbreth, Mandy Beggs and some of the rest of the cousins of the bride. You need to to know that down the hall and around the corner from the Fellowship Hall at Springfield is the dungeon we called a youth room, a place that held so many memories of so many great moments together. Jill and the gang, all dressed for the wedding, many of them with their own small children in tow, came to me with a request. They were joking (sort of) but at the same time it was heart felt. They wanted to know if we could go around to the youth room and play our favorite game, Sardines. And then they wanted to know if I had my guitar. In the middle of a wedding reception, these young adults wanted to go relieve their youth group days. They wanted to play. They wanted to sing. They wanted to worship together as we had so many times almost a decade earlier. We knew we couldn't really go do it (and although it may surprise some of you, I don't actually carry my guitar EVERYWHERE I go!) but the sentiment moved me deeply. It was one of those crystal clear moments when I KNEW that God had indeed used me to make a difference in the lives of the students I had served. And when youth ministry has been your life, that is indeed a great day.

Because of Jesus,