As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in the quaint lobby of a… Christian camp hotel? I’m not exactly sure what it’s called. It’s a venue used for Christian camps, and it’s really cute. I drove an hour and a half here with my husband, through the first real blizzard of winter here in Michigan. My husband is on the worship team for our church’s youth group winter retreat, so I’m the tag along who gets a free writing retreat. The school bus full of younglings is delayed by the storm, and my husband is across the way at the worship venue, and the receptionist left early to try and avoid being locked in by snow. 

So I’m sitting alone in the lobby, taking full advantage of the Keurig and hot chocolate packets in the corner, and positively blasting “On the Nature of Daylight” on my phone. Darkness has mostly fallen outside, and everything is white, the snow still falling aggressively. I’m waiting for the rest of our church friends on the worship team to get here, and for my husband to get back from Subway with our dinner. There will be a worship session once the kids get here, and then maybe the worship team will hang out in one of our hotel rooms and play some board games. 

I’m oddly happy and feeling sappy on the inside. 

I never did anything remotely like youth retreats when I was younger. I always wanted to. It’s one of the things I’ve really grieved as I got older. In my friend circle, I’m surrounded by people who went to school, or church retreats, summer camps, etc., and made so many friends and have fond memories of those times in their lives. 

I have none of that. 

I had one friend growing up, and didn’t make many more friendships until I was an adult. I cherish the lifelong BFF that I have, and I don’t think I’d be alive without her, in a sense. 

But I still grieve that when conversations of summer camps and youth group things come up…I sit back and let everyone else talk, because I missed that whole part of life. I don’t have any memories of staying up too late in our camp t-shirts and shorts, or the sermons taught for my age group that helped me know God better. I never had nights packed into a dorm with my girlfriends like sardines in our sleeping bags, giggling on too much sugar and summer sun. 

The part of my life that could have been filled with that is instead filled with confusion, fear of God, and the never satisfied longing for more and deeper friendships. 

As we were getting packed up to come here this afternoon, I noticed that I was starting to feel oddly giddy. There was no reason to be excited about a one hour drive and the cheese I was packing for a road snack. There was nothing exceptional about my raggy old body pillow, or the immune supplements I was remembering to pack (children can be little germ factories, as we all know). I thought about it briefly before giving up getting to the root of my giddyness.  

And, as God often does, He gave me clarity in a moment when I had stopped thinking about it entirely. The answer to my excitement came in a rush, a rush that was also a still whisper, the certainty of it settling deep in my soul. 

I’m going to a youth group with my friends. 

My hands paused where they were, reaching for my packing list to check something off. A smile split my face and I laughed out loud. 

“I’m going to youth group with my friends!”  

The Lord did it again. In such an unexpected way, and almost two decades after I first started longing for experiences like this, he’s answering all my longings and unspoken prayers. I may be married, with white hair rapidly taking over my head and a longing for children of my own filling my bones. 

But tonight, I get to experience a youth group event, and be part of the experience for close to a hundred kids in whatever capacity God has for me. If I’m lucky, I might even get to see some of them choose to follow Christ this weekend. 

It may be a simple thing, yes, and it’s quite possible I’m over-romanticising it (I have a habit of doing that), but it made me smile and appreciate my Father a little more today, and I wanted to share it with you. 

He who is mighty has done a great thing. 

-M