Everybody's Changing

This summer has been jam packed with all sorts of activities and changes.

I mentioned quite a few of them in a recent post.

Two of the biggest changes happened in the same week: Josh's brother and his family moving out of state, and our last week of the college group.

One of my very first posts on this blog was about our first meeting with the college group. It's crazy to think of how far we've come, how much life has changed, and how many young people we've come into contact with in the past {almost} three years.

I get very nostalgic and like to look through old pictures or blog posts or Facebook statuses to remember the many things that have happened in my life. I used to religiously write in a diary or journal...but I've been very bad about keeping up with that since right before Josh and I started dating (which was over seven years ago). I love being able to look at things and remember back to what I was doing, who I was with, and the fun things we did.

Looking back on our time with the college group, we had some really great times, some occasional weird times, some times when our group was only 3 students, and other times when our group had over 20. We studied multiple books of the Bible, did a series on the doctrines of our faith (the covenants of God, creation, etc.), and had nights when we just shared about things that were going on in our lives. We had nights where things were a struggle, and nights where things were a breeze. We did girls only events and guys only events, we went to a baseball game together, went to the park a few times, watched students come to know Christ and get baptized, watched some choose a different road to travel, and watched some start/end relationships.

(Pics from our bowling night with the college group. Girl pic!)

All in all, I look back on our time with these students and I smile. Josh and I had never led a group like this before. Neither had our partners in crime, D and E (whose relationship we got to watch blossom. They went from dating to engaged to married while working with our group, and are now to moving away to start Bible school). All of us had either never taught before or hadn't done it very much. We were all able to grow in amazing ways and were able to learn so much from each other and from the students. We didn't know when we started out how this thing was going to go or how long it would last, but we knew God was calling all of us to work with this age group...and I'm so glad He did.

It was time to take a break to re-evaluate and see if God has something different in store for us. While we still don't know what the fall is going to look like, we are all excited for the future.

(Guy pic!)

The college group was not always an easy thing to lead. It was hard always having Thursdays blocked out, plus whatever events we had on top of that...because it meant we had to say no to anything else that would come up that would interfere with that. Other than a couple of vacations and some emergency situations, we met consistently every Thursday night for those three years. And while other people might not have understood why we couldn't just cancel it sometimes or why we had to always be there, we knew why. God had called us to this, we made a commitment to it, and we stuck with it.

I have a very committed personality. I don't change plans I've already made very often if something else comes up. Once I make a commitment to someone to be somewhere, I'm there unless an emergency or something crazy comes up. Because of this, I've had to let some people down in life...because I already had something I was committed to. Being someone who hates to let people down, it's been a tough road to walk...but having this strong commitment to the college group, since we were responsible for leading and hosting most of the time it was going, really showed me that it's really ok if I can't do everything for everyone. Keeping my word and doing what God has called me to are much more important.

 (The whole gang - minus the ones that couldn't make it, of course)

So while a lot has changed in life these past three years, I am very grateful for everything they brought, good and bad. I know I wouldn't be the person I am today without walking down the roads that I've walked down since we said yes to leading the college group. I am so thankful for all that God did in me, for the ways the students helped me to grow, for the opportunities I had to pour into them, and for the amazing relationships that either started, grew, or transformed during that time. What an amazing journey it was.