shadows of vines dance outside my window

Last year in July i started volunteering with Living Hope Ministries as a youth leader for a girls group. it started as a large group of girls. there's a big difference in age from about 12-16ish. not all of the girls know God and so some of the younger girls would hear some of the other girls talking about things they shouldn't have been. a mother of the younger girls didn't want them coming back because of that. it was reasonable so A, who is the director of L.H, thought that maybe we should split the girls up in two different groups. And so we did. i'm a leader for the younger girls so i help out with what i can. There are three of us leaders for this group and we try to discuss what we can do for a lesson, how to present it, memorizing bible verses, projects, outtings, and getting together to have meetings about this.

Last night 2/25 A and I were dropping the girls off from a Dare2Share conference. http://www.dare2share.org/ A and I finally get back to our place around 10:30. the night before we both didn't get much for sleep but we pushed through the day. i think everyone elses excitement made us forget about how sleepy we were. After we got back we were talking a lot about the weekend, the girls, our growth, what more we could do, how to raise support for the ministry to keep going to conferences and for the tutoring session going on.

As A and I were talking I realize just how tired i really am. the last two weeks have been horrible for getting sleep. So there i was realizing how tired i am but somehow i'm allowing myself to stay up and talk more about what we can do as leaders to grow and grow for our kids we teach. how to make disciples out of them, how to train them to disciple other people, how to grow spiritually, how we can grow as leaders spiritually,etc. as A was talking it hit me that i'm still up for them. for spritual growth. in the last 7 months slowly but surely i've started to think a little less about myself but more on the girls. i'm still selfish in ways but lately my mind has been on the girls and we do stay up for awhile sometimes talking about their growth and improvement. i just started mentoring a girl a few weeks ago and so now instead of using my time to do what i want, i'm using my time to write out notes for the next lesson, i'm praying for her and the other girls a little more than i used to.

now i don't want to make it seem like every minute of my day is focused on them but a little at a time i'm thinking more of them, their growth, my growth, praying, lessons, meetings, A and I discussing everything. It's great! I really want less of me and more God direction in my life. i am so excited that i noticed this last night. i am still selfish in other ways but hey, i'm a working process. God will work in me as He sees fit for the situation. i like seeing the change in me that He's doing. Also in other people. We may not see Him face to face but we see His work in eachother and that's where we can see Him. My change doesn't come from myself. honestly, i like my sleep and a few years ago i probably would've avoided staying up late to discuss what's going on and what we see growing. but now, now i enjoy seeing and talking about growth. that is not my own doing. i'm not forcing myself to change, if i could i'd speed up the process but i can't. until i'm where i want to be, i'm going to enjoy seeing me and others grow in a slow, step by step process and enjoy the awkwardness of growth because awkward is awesome ;)