Living a Dream: Becoming a Youth Minister (or the Wife or One)

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Imagine spending your whole summer at different camps and scouting all kinds of locations. Imagine having a sleepover with your best friend every night of the week. Imagine being paid to play ultimate Frisbee and flag football. Imagine being famous without paparazzi. Imagine having a career based completely on having friends and caring for them. Imagine being the person everyone comes to when they need hope and comfort.
Soon, this will be my life. As a youth minister (or the wife of one), I will be living in my own dream. I will be spending countless weeks looking for good camp and mission trip locations. I will be spending many evenings, on and off the clock, playing all kinds of recreational games with the kids in the youth group. Most of the kids (mainly young junior high students and high school seniors who have finally come to their senses) will look up to me as a superstar, a role model of sorts. Luckily, I won’t have to worry about cameras catching me in my darkest hour or people I don’t even know calling me all sorts of nasty names over Facebook and twitter. As a youth minister, I will be an underpaid but abundantly joyful counselor. I will be the person that all the kids can trust with their deepest secrets and most embarrassing moments. In a way, I will also be a parent. I will be the mom for the teenagers lacking a stable motherly figure. I will promise to be the shoulder to cry on, the readily available hug, or the wise words of hope no matter the time, day or night.
As for having a sleepover with my best friend, well that’s quite simple. I will marry my best friend one day. No marriage is perfect or even easy for that matter. But if I am married to my best friend, we’ll get over our fights faster. I mean, what if I ha...

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...ring me stress, in the long run it will always benefit me. If I am outing forth my greatest effort on the small things, the big tasks will seem easy. Whether I am working my way into seminary or planning out the details for a youth event, I will give it my very best. If a teenager needs someone to vent to, I will be all ears. If a student needs advice about anything, I will give them my best answers. I will always be the top student, the best friend, the finest wife, and the most exceptional parent in my capacity because I know that I am fully capable of it. I never want to have potential. Potential is power that is being wasted and untouched. If I have power, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be using every ounce of it to be my very best in every situation. They say that with great power comes great responsibility. Lucky for me, I have both in equal doses.

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