Date My Youth Minister

I was blessed to share two meals with friends today.  Lunch was a wonderful delight with a girlfriend of mine with whom I find many commonalities with as well as some rich differences.  I enjoy her strong spirit and her rich individuality – traits I admire and respect.  It was a blessing to spend some time with her.  Then, tonight, dinner was shared with a dear friend of mine and we had a wonderful time of sharing about life and new experiences.  So, I count myself rather blessed with the communion that occurred today over meals.

I arrived home with three youth waiting on the sidewalk ready for c-groups. Had a great crew tonight.  However, they got a crazy idea in their heads.  Three of the girls decided it would be a great thing to make a “Date My Youth Minister” webpage.  I humored them for awhile hoping that they catch my sarcasm about it.  They said, “We could leave your last name off” to which I replied “Yes, that would be swell since female youth ministers, especially female youth ministers named Melissa, are so common that it will be difficult to narrow it down with me.” Ha!  Now of course it has got me thinking if such a page existed how I would describe myself or my interests.  Just what I needed – something of no value to process and think about. J

Time to wrap this up and get some sleep.  I have a morning of strategic planning ahead of me and an afternoon and evening of church work.

Signing off with this wonderful reminder from Thomas Merton:

"The eyes of the saint make all beauty holy and the hands of the saint consecrate everything they touch to the glory of God, and the saint is never offended by anything and judges no man’s sin because he does not know sin.  He knows the mercy of God.  He knows that his own mission on earth is to bring that mercy to all [humankind]."

It’s about mercy – not judgment.  Let us Christians keep repeating this to ourselves.