Bittersweet Ministry

As great as the summer has been going there are times where I feel as if this is not for me. Today would have been the birthday of a girl who passed away earlier this year and our church remembered her in daily mass. I went, saw her family, said hi but it was difficult for me because when this girl was sick, I wasn’t there. Now whether or not I needed to be isn’t so much the question, but how I approached the situation at the time could have been better. No one ever prepares you for situations like this one and it’s hard not to be resentlful. No one ever teaches you to be a pastor. As a communications major at Xavier I did learn interpersonal communications but never did I have the opportunity to deal with real life situations. I had a classmate (a few) pass away while I was in college, high school and middle school but none of them prepared me to do what I needed to do. I’m really hard on myself, I don’t think that’s a secret, but when the life of a child is affected in some way, it’s hard for me to not take responsibility, ownership of what the child is going through. When they feel joy, I feel joy, when they feel pain I feel pain. It’s when I remember this that I know that God wants to be a Youth Minister.
Tonight I was talking to my wife and she told me, “I’m glad you are a youth minister.” I asked her why she felt that way and she told me that I worry a lot about supporting her, our future, I worry about whether or not what I do is going to provide but she knows that this is what I love and she sees the joy I get from serving youth. I told her I needed that and I thank God because he knows that hearing that from her (the one you love) is the best compliment in the world. I’m glad that I’m a youth minister too.