True Confessions of a Youth Worker

I'll be honest - there are days when I don't want to be a youth worker.  Yesterday was one of those days.  What I've come to understand over my 9 years in youth ministry is that just because I get "those days" every once in a while doesn't mean that I'm not called.  It doesn't mean that I'm ready to give up.  It just means my heart is tired, or that I haven't been home at a normal hour in a while.  So, I've learned to get through those days by letting myself feel the negativity, really feel it so that I can deal with it and then move on.  Yesterday, I wrote myself this e-mail:

"There are days when I dream about moving to North Carolina, fixing up a little beach cottage and running a bed and breakfast while Hubs runs a charter fishing operation.  Today is one of those days.  Today, there are a million other things I'd rather be doing instead of youth ministry.  I don't want to deal with students who hold me to a ridiculously high standard.  I don't want to make slides for events that will never be appreciated.  I don't even want to have small group with my 6th graders and try to explain the person of Christ to them.  Today, I want a normal job that doesn't have eternal impact.  I want to be the bottom of the totem pole, without parents looking to me for answers.  I want to answer dull questions, not explain the imperfections of birth control to a 17 year old.  I want to fall apart, and not have it reflect poorly on a church that I love so dearly.  I want a job I can do from home, without interacting with the mass of emotionally crippled humanity that is high school students.  I want to be able to sleep in on Sundays and stay out late on Saturday nights.  I want this to be the job of someone else, someone who knows more, who prays more, who feels more called to this bumpy road than I do.  And if I do stay, I'd like to see some change.  Some student who is reaching out to their friends, some parent who gives a damn, some curriculum that isn't written by Mayor McCheese who has been living in the church basement for the last 20 years.

 Thank You God that not every day is like that.