Teens

No matter where I go or what I do I end up being around teens. My husband and I were the Sunday school superintendents the teens at our church in Oregon and we had about 50 teens every Sunday. Because I get summer jobs every year I tend to work with teens who are also doing summer jobs. Since we moved here and our son-in-law is a youth pastor we spend time with teens. Every Wed. I drive a group of teen girls to go soul winning. I taught teens in school this year. I once again work with teens. And yes I hate to admit it but I love them. Every problem they have makes my heart hurt for them. The teens I work with very often have poor home lives. One girl who was 17 and not yet graduated from High school told me that she lived with her boy friend at her parents house for 2 years before he moved to Florida. A young man told me that he had been kicked out of high school and was going to an alternative school that lost its funding. He had just been accepted to a GED program at the local community college. He was living on his own (with his girl friend) and supporting himself on a part time job so he would be able to study. I don't know what lead to these circumstances and I don't know what kind of relationship these kids have with their parents. I don't know if they have pushed away the authorities in their lives and now have to deal with life on their own or if their authorities let them down. All I know is that these stories break my heart. I try to picture the kind of adults that will be produced by these lives. Then I realized...the lives aren't all that different than mine. Many of us had rough teen years. Many of our parents let us down or we let them down. We made mistakes. We messed up. We showed how immature and irresponsible we were. And guess what...we turned out OK. Sure we didn't have an easy go of it. We did learn from our mistakes and grew and eventually we made it. I just hope that I have an opportunity to share the gospel with these young people. I know my own life would have been easier if I would have found the Lord earlier so maybe I can help them that way. Please pray for me.