It is difficult to know which path in life that God would like you to stay on. What is His plan? What talent do you possess that He may want you to work on so you can serve Him as you journey to Him. Some people you cross paths with seem to have found that path effortlessly. Pastor Jill is a youth pastor in Florida and our paths crossed through the blog I publish. I had the opportunity to meet her when she was in the Boston area on business and asked if we might meet in person.
Pastor Jill told me that as a young girl she always felt close to her church family. She told me when she was just fourteen she felt God was calling upon her to serve him. Well into her teen years she focused on her Christianity and the belief that it was in God's plan that she remained pure of body and soul. Pastor Jill felt it was His plan for her to set the example to others on how to serve God and spread his word to all those around her. So at the age of fourteen she started her journey on earth, with God walking next to her, spreading his word of love and joy and peace.
She shared many stories with me of spreading God's word from the age of fourteen to twenty three. It is not that she stopped spreading the word at the age of twenty three, it is at that time when she felt God was leading her down a new path in her life, where she would continue to share His word with others, but also add a loving relationship to her life by way of Mark, the man she would marry and start a family with. He would father her two children, Seylah who is eight, and Heaven who is four.
I have kept in touch with Pastor Jill on a regular basis and although miles separate our lives, we both believe God connected us by faith. We email often and she often uses my blogs to share with her youth group ministry. Pastor Jill and her family have become great friends to the Misfits and myself. She continuously tries to convince me that being a youth minister may be part of journey that God is leading me to. We email endlessly regarding this topic, as well as several other options I have in my life that I am trying to figure out. I often second guess my choices, asking myself does God want me in a different direction other then the one I am currently headed?
Today I sat in reflection of where I am on my journey. I am headed into my senior year of Mass Communications with an emphasis on Journalism. I will end my senior year with a Masters in Journalism, a BA in Spanish and continue on for two additional years to obtain a BA in Elementary Education. I find it very frustrating as I enter my fourth year of college wondering if I am going in the right direction in my life. Am I in tune enough with my spiritual side to recognize whether or not the path I am on is the path God has designed for me to be on?
As a young boy, back in Sioux City, IA, books were a huge part of my life. My mother read to me from as early as I can remember, pushing me in a stroller up Lemon Street, across Morningside Ave, following it down past the church, the bakery, the old corner fire station to the public library. We would spend all afternoon there where she would read a book she enjoyed while I played in the children's corner She would check out two books she would read to me that evening and we would make the same trip the next day to return them and check out two more books. When I was able to walk the length of the trip the number of books my mom would check out would increase and continue to do so for as long as we journeyed to the library.
I was home schooled by my mom, and a big part of our day was reading books. She read to me as she taught me to read until the day I could begin to read to her. Books fascinated me to say the least. Around the time I was ten or eleven in age I would visit our neighbors and bring home the magazines they were going to throw away. It was a past time for me in the evenings after my 'dad' got home from work. During the day my mom and myself got plenty of sunshine. Walking down to my aunt Shirley's house two block away. Riding my bike around the corner, down Bushnell, and back up again. Roller blading up Lemon Street to Morningside Ave and back down again until I reached our house. When 'dad' was home we were not allowed outside. We were not allowed to be noisy, play music, watch TV. We were to be quiet so he could enjoy his meal in peace and relax in silence after his long day at work. So you can imagine how reading became my favorite pastime, when all other activities were banned for this growing teenage boy. Long before I knew it was even an option, I had dreams of writing books. I fantasized often of walking to the library and running my finger along the thousands of books the shelves held and coming across a book with my name on it as the person who had written it. I imagined it was very worn with tattered pages due to the popularity of a book written by myself. Yes, from as far back as I can remember I wanted to write and publish books.
There was nothing I did not read, except the Bible. We had no religion inside our Bushnell home to call our own. The first time I was introduced to God's word was when Joey was being snuffed out by lung cancer, bed ridden, waiting for his last breath on earth to be taken. A good friend to my brother would come and sit with him and they would read passages from the Bible. It stirred up a lot of questions inside of me, with no one to ask. So I sat and wondered what God, his Word, and Faith was all about. It would be the summer after Joey died that I would find all this out in Boston MA. I found a family inside a small old church on the corner that was filled with little old ladies, gray hair, canes, walkers and a small mix of young families of all races. With-in a week of 'finding God' I was on my way to becoming a Christian, choosing the Catholic church as the house that would build me in faith and hope and love.
As I sit here today and think about the road that got me to where I am, I cannot help but wonder why God has brought me to this point in my life the way He did. Crossing paths with Pastor Jill, so far from where I live. She is a wonderful youth minister in her church and I enjoy hearing how big of a difference she has made in so many lives. I remember when I told her I had joined the ladies Guild at my church so I could be an active part of prayer chains and funeral meals their committee offered, she tried disparately to convince me to drop the Guild and help with my churches youth program. "You are a young man", she told me, "there is no room for you in the ladies club."
I enjoy the ladies Guild, and those old women teach me a lot about life. I attend one of the weekly meetings a month, but I call on them constantly to start a prayer chain for one person or another. I visit with them before mass each Sunday and on the rare occasion I am not at mass, one of them will contact me and let me know they missed me at mass. I have taken it upon myself to speak with the younger women in the church and invite them to be part of the ladies Guild with great results in building the ladies club up for the future when one day, those 60 to 80 year old women go to meet their maker.
Today I am not questioning my place or role in the Catholic church. I am not questioning all the classes and teachings I have gone through to receive the Sacraments of the church. I have received the Sacraments of Baptism, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Confirmation. I am an active member of my church and am called on to serve as an alter-person, a lecture, and to serve wine and administer communion. I take the Misfit 'littles' to church with me, to set an example for them of who God should be in their lives from the beginning to the end. I feel I am where I should be in my faith. I continue to work on my faith as to obtain the Grace of God and secure my space in eternity with God.
So why do I constantly question my faith? Why do I feel it is never enough, that I am not doing enough to please God and help others? Is it because the path I have set myself on is not the same path that God wants me on? Does Pastor Jill know something about the path I am to be on that I do not? Is God calling me to be a youth minister? Is this the reason death is such a huge part of my earth's journey? Are there more Adrians, Carlos's, Avery's out there that need me in there lives?
Is it possible that a guy like me that came from a back ground like mine, full of physical, mental and sexual abuse, could make a difference in the lives of kids in today's world? Is it possible that a guy like me, who mourns the death of his brother who died seven years ago, could bring comfort to others who have lost someone close to them? Is it possible that a guy like me could turn a cold lost soul into a warm soul with enough fire and passion to desire a life of eternity with God? Is it possible that the journey behind me was designed to lead me to others on earth that have yet to experience all I have in my past? Is it possible that I might be able to guide today's youth through a world of hate and despair into an eternity of peace and love?
I guess the answers to my questions on how I can best walk through life making the world better when I leave it then when I came into it are surrounded by my faith. If only I trusted myself with my future as much as I trust God with it, those questions would go away. If only I believed in myself as much as God believes in me, I would focus less on where I think God wants me, and more on where God has placed me.
"Ce'dric, I'm sorry I didn't see your pain. Mine is not a forgiveness you should have to ask for. However, yours is. Forgive me my friend, for not believing in God's plan for you, and failing to accept your passage to heaven. Make peace with your heart and in 100 years I will find you in eternity and our friendship there will be as deep as it was here. ~ Jett"
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ...
