Saturday, November 17, 2012

"But you're SO young!"

This past Wednesday, I got a Facebook message from my aunt, Carla. She said something on the lines of this: 
"Hey Ash, just following up on a conversation we had back in September...I haven't said anything to anyone, but I'm curious how everything is going. Let me know!"

You can imagine my confusion when I read this cryptic message. I responded telling her I had no idea what she was talking about and she then asked me to call her. When I called her, she basically told me that she had received a call on her landline [who even has one of those anymore??!] back in September from someone who sounded just like and claimed to be me. And this person told her I was pregnant! She said she even asked how Casey felt about it and what my parents thought, to which they responded that Casey was thrilled but that I hadn't told my parents yet. 
So my poor aunt had been thinking for the past 2 months that I was pregnant and that she was keeping my dirty secret! She'd spent 2 whole months biting her tongue from asking my mom about it and waiting for my news to come out. 
HA!
After I consoled her and swore that I was definitely NOT pregnant and that it would literally be impossible for me to be so, we had a pretty good laugh. I'm not sure if she dreamt the whole situation or someone played a very cruel joke on her. Nonetheless, I think my aunt definitely deserves the #1 aunt award for keeping that secret so well! Even if it wasn't a real secret...

As funny of a conversation this was, I'm pretty sure this probably wasn't the only time someone questioned if I was pregnant when I got engaged in September at the age of only 20. Why on earth would anyone want to get married so young?! 

Casey and I met October 5th of last year and honestly, I could have never seen him again after that first night and I wouldn't have thought anything of it. At this point of my life, I was experiencing for the first time what it was like to be satisfied by my relationship with the Lord so much, that I had ZERO interest in having a boyfriend. So when Casey called me the night after we first met and asked me on a date, I was baffled when the word "Yes" escaped my lips. The conversation I was having with myself looked a little like this:
"jfkdls;afjdsoijpvdfsnafeaofjdsiopafjdkslafndsoaYESNOMAYBENOOKAYYESjdkls;afjkdlsjfklsa;fjdklsajfkjfkldsjafidjsklfndsklajfld;sjflkja"
I would give myself pep talks before every date about how I was going to let him take me on the next date, but that at the end of the date I was going to explain that we couldn't date anymore. I just wasn't interested in a relationship. I was too focused on other things. Turns out when a guy is pursuing you in a way that looks just like Jesus it's not very easy to turn down...We dated for about 4 weeks before he officially asked me to be his girlfriend and kissed me a few hours later...

Within 3 weeks after that, he dropped the L bomb and I said it too. I couldn't believe how quickly things were moving. For months after that, Casey would continue to pursue me so boldly and I would continue to go back and forth between whether he really was "the one" or not. I remember the sweat I broke out in when he first told me his plans of proposing around Christmas time 2012, and then marrying me the next summer. I almost wish we could have gotten that 
moment on tape. My face probably looked a little something like this:



 It sounded insane to me. I was NINETEEN, far from graduating college and had just watched my parents marriage of 24 years fall apart right before my eyes. Marriage wasn't even close to being within my 5 year plan.
But like I said before, when a guy is pursuing you in a way that looks like Jesus, it's not very easy to turn down. One day I woke up and I wasn't scared anymore. This, I knew, was the clarity I'd been praying for.  
So finally, in April, we began to seriously put some things on a timeline and think of what our future together would look like. He proposed in September and we will be married in June! 
I'll be 21 when we marry and Casey will be 23. 
And much like everything else in my life, getting married at 21 is absolutely nothing I ever thought I would want or would happen. If you would have told me a year ago that this is where we'd be, I would have laughed in your face. But also like everything else in my life, my future husband is way better than any dream guy I could have created in my imagination. He is the most honest, sacrificial, noble, sexy man I've ever met in my life and he pushes me towards Jesus every day. 
I can't really help when we met. Turns out God doesn't really ask our permission when he places your future spouse into your life. He just kinda does it!
So please, person with all sorts of thoughts and opinions, please, please, please stop telling me that I'm "SOOO young" to be getting married.

Oh, and because I just can't get over how awesome our engagement pictures turned out, here are a few of my favorites:










 

Friday, November 2, 2012

Be a tortoise.

Last night I had my Campaigners girls over (er...just one girl came this week, actually).


Campaigners is a time for Young Life kids to "dig deeper" into what they hear on Monday nights when we tell them about Jesus. It looks different at every school. In past years, Berkner has had Campaigners with all grades combined, but this year we decided to have them individually for each grade. This Thursday night event has become my favorite time of the week for more reasons than one. My group of 8 girls meet at my house at 7:30 for girl talk, Bible study, venting and the occasional treat. Last night, I made "turtles":





This is my third year leading now and I am a completely different leader than when I started.
Every year, I begin the year by realizing how crappy of a leader I was the year before
First off, I was eighteen when I first started and barely out of high school myself. I was leading at the school that I had graduated from just 3 months prior to that and had no idea how to talk to the freshmen girls. You'd think I would have been a pro at it since I myself had been one much more recently than any of the other leaders. But that was definitely not the case because I was so awkward!
Now, I definitely don't claim to be a super-star by any means. I know for a fact that there are plenty better leaders out there than I am because I have the privilege of leading alongside some of them every single week. I have, however, learned valuable lessons in my experience so far that I wish someone would have warned me of when I first started out. 
And so, I was inspired this morning to write a "top 9" {I know 9 is random. I tried to stick to 5, but this is what it turned into, and then I couldn't think of a 10th} of tips I wish I could write in a letter and send to myself 3 years ago, when I first became a Young Life leader. {Why yes, I did steal Brad Paisley's idea about the whole letter thing.} Here's what I've got:

1. Be present. Latch onto a leader that has been there longer and follow them around to all of the events they attend. I was lucky enough to have already had a great relationship with Kate Habicht {who just became Kate Quinn a few weeks ago!!!}, our Young Life staff person for Berkner, and she became that person for me. Just let them notice that you're there at their events and then reach out to them for coffee or dinner.

2. Learn the art of small talk. 

TalktothemaboutschoolTalktothemaboutboysTalktothemaboutgirlsTalktothemabouttheirfavoriteshowsTalktothemaboutsportsTalktothemabouttheweatherTalktothemaboutMondaynightclubTalktothemabouttheirfamilyTalktothemabouttheirfriendsTalktothemabouttheirenemiesTalktothemabouttheirhairTalktothemabouttheirhobbiesTalktothemabouttheirgoalsTalktothemabouttheirdreamsTellthemfunnyjokesTelltheminnapropriatejokesTellthemaboutyourjobTellthemaboutyourfamilyTellthemaboutyoursignificantotherTellthemaboutthethingsyou'reproudofTellthemaboutthethingsyou'renotproudofTalktothemabouttheirsuccessesTellthemaboutyoursucessesTalktothemabouttheirfailuresTellthemaboutyourfailures.

Just talk--even if it's about the most insignificant things. Sometimes the beginning stages of building relationships with teenagers feels a lot like dating. At first, conversations are very surface level and sometimes awkward. But after some time, you eventually get to the conversations that really matter. There is a proper order for everything, and conversations are no different.

3. Demand honesty. Both years that I've been to camp as a leader, I begin our first cabin time {Preface: At camp, they have club every day where they obnoxiously sing songs, play games and then a speaker stands up to share a part of the Gospel with them. After each talk, kids go back to their cabins to discuss what they just heard with their leaders. Hence, the name "cabin time".} by laying out a few ground rules. I make them all agree that everything that is said remains confidential and that we're not going to talk about anything that's said with anyone else once we leave the cabin. I tell them it's a place where they can ask any questions they want, even the dumb ones. And if I ask them a question, they are to respond with blunt honesty -- even if their response is to tell me they think I'm an idiot and they think I'm full of crap {or even the other word for crap}. I don't want them to put on a show for me, or to feed me answers they think I want to hear. I just want to know them: the real them, not the "them" they present to everyone else. I want to know the things they're proud of and the things they're not proud of. I want genuine relationships.

4. Avoid sarcasm. This one might sound strange, but hear me out. Teenagers are fragile. They will take anything and everything you say personally. A teensy tiny joke about how they're a pig because they had 4 helpings of mashed potatoes at dinner might be intended as a friendly tease, but what they're hearing is, "You're an ugly fat ass." Lack of self confidence isn't a struggle for girls alone. Boys deal with it too. And you, as their leader, need only to be building them up with compliments. You can never ever ever be too careful when using sarcasm, because they're going to believe that every joke you tell carries a little bit of truth.

5. Show them your confidence. Teenagers thrive off of confidence. Their souls salivate at today's celebrities and supermodels because of one thing -- their confidence. No teenager is going to believe you have anything to offer them if they think you're just as fearful and self conscious as they are. The cool thing is that you can let them know of your confidence in many ways. I was blessed with being a disgusting human being, so I fart and belch in front of the girls to deliver one message -- I don't give a crap! I rock it. And luckily I found a man who loves me despite my grossness. 
One of my best friends, Taylor Quesada, was sharing with me a couple weeks ago about her experience so far leading Young Life in College Station. She told me that when she sees a kid that she hasn't met before, she asks someone else what their name is, obnoxiously calls them out and follows it with a compliment or an invitation to be friends -- in the middle of a crowd, without fear. I've never seen her in action over there, but I know the kids love her because she is one of the most confident people I've ever met in my life. Our senior year, she danced around in a blow-up fat ballerina costume at a pep rally in front of our entire school. Who wouldn't want to be best friends with someone like that?!
So be loud and crazy, and dance like an idiot at club on Monday nights. Be over the top. Shove invisible microphones in their face and demand that they sing louder as you scream Miley Cyrus lyrics at them. They are going to think you're insane, but secretly they'll want to be you.

6. They won't let you in during the bad times, if you're not there for them in the good times. This is a life-changing realization I just came to last week. I used to believe that you earn the right to be heard with people through being there for them when they're in a rough spot, or going through a tragedy. It's exactly the opposite, though. No teenager is going to give a crap and want you there for them when their parents divorce, or when someone near to them dies, or some other tragedy happens if you aren't there to celebrate with them before that. You earn your right to be heard by people by genuinely celebrating with them -- which is a lot harder to do than you might think! Genuine happiness for someone looks like that psycho, overenthusiastic mom that's screaming at the top of their lungs as she cheers on her kid at their soccer game. It's that dad that loses his mind and charges the umpire when they make a bad call at his 4-year-old son's tee-ball game. It's knowing their sports schedules and showing up to every single one -- just to be a face in the audience. Genuine happiness for someone is so rare and valuable in gaining trust from teenagers. Show them that you have this, and you just might earn the right to be that person they call when they're in a crisis.

7. You can't achieve #6 if you don't have this one: Be consistent. In the words of my friend, Todd Tramonte: "Teenagers have enough inconsistent people walking in and out of their lives." It is impossible to earn their trust if you look like every other figure in their life. 

8. Forget about the numbers. We say this all the time when talking about attendance at club. It really is about quality, rather than quantity. When I first became a leader, I was more concerned with making sure I knew every single one of the kids in my assigned grade {which is an impossible feat at a school of nearly 3,000}, rather than latching on to the few girls that I first met, and growing those relationships. I was so consumed with the numbers, I can honestly say that I failed at truly discipling any kids until my third year. I wasted half of my kids high school years being overwhelmed with the numbers. In the words of Andy Stanley, "Do for one what you can't do for all." After all, Jesus called us to make disciples, not to know the name of every kid at _________ High school.

9. And with all of that comes the most important thing I've learned so far: Be a tortoise. Ever heard the tale about the tortoise and the hare? It begins with a hare challenging a ridiculously slow moving tortoise to a race. The hare quickly leaves the tortoise in the dust, and takes a nap in the middle of the race to show his superiority. When he awakens, he opens his eyes just in time to see his competitor slowly creeping across the finish line. 
Slow and steady wins the race.
Don't get discouraged if you don't immediately have kids reaching out to befriend you. Sometimes teenagers are like scared dogs {Please don't take offense to that, guys}. Approach them too strongly and they'll run away. Stand there and let them sniff your hand first, and they'll let you pet them.
Don't be discouraged if your relationships with kids comes about slowly. It takes time! The more damaged the kid is, the less likely they are going to be to open up to you and let you see what's inside that heart of theirs. You can't get to the guts though, without spending some time digging. You have four years. Start now.

I hope this is helpful, interesting, or at least slightly humorous to any new leaders out there reading this! Happy Friday.