Happy Girl

FUNNY: Caleb just sent me a text message that said, and I quote: ":-) I am really pissed" LOL! I don't know why he is upset, but I just thought that the smiley face was super comical. =]

QUESTION: Why don't I have a title to my blog posts anymore? I've been messing with the layout and stuff, so I probably messed something up on accident. I'm not exactly an html expert. This bothers me and I need to eradicate it, so if you have any knowledge of why this happened, HELP! =]

CHEMISTRY UPDATE: I took the exam, and I'm not sure how good I did. Right now, I'm just praying that God has mercy on me and that I made extremely good guesses. I have to have a C for the course to take the sequence class, which I have already signed up for. I would be super sad if I made a D. It would screw up everything. My grades have been REALLY good this year. Like, ridiculously good. Chemistry is the only class that's got me worried so far. So prayers would be appreciated. =]

JOSEPH: He will be in Atlanta this weekend, so I can talk about him without him knowing it. Joseph is the youth minister at my church, the father to two of my favorite youngsters, the husband to one of my best friends (might as well be my big sister), and pretty much a big brother to me (that's why we punch each other so much and call each other "turd" or "jerk"). But as much as I love to aggravate him, he has a HUGE heart. He genuinely cares about the kids he ministers to and he wants them to experience God in the way he has. That being said, the kids in our youth group aren't exactly your conventional church kids. We have a wide array of teenagers, with a lot of different interests, styles, beliefs, and friends. This is AMAZING! Most churches our size can't boast such diversity. But with these differences, also comes problems. I'm sure going into this Joseph knew there would be drama between people or "he said"-"she said" stuff because I mean, their teenagers (Let me pause. I know I do this too sometimes, but I'm a teenager for 6 more months, so I'm just getting it out of my system.) Joseph has to deal with a lot of difficult challenges in his group and sometimes I just don't know how he does it. I would go nuts. Joseph is ministering to, not only drama and quarrels, but to homosexuality, depression, atheism, fornication, drug-use, alcohol-use, disrespect, little self respect, suicide attempts, etc. All in a group of 12-18 year olds! Every week new people are added to our number giving us more people to minister to. Joseph is such a great leader. He has been relentlessly pursuing God's heart and getting others to do the same for a few years now and I think this is probably the biggest job he has ever had. He is doing a GREAT job, but this isn't all his responsibility. We have been put in the paths of these kids for a purpose, and it's clearer to me now than it ever has been that they need us. We have what they are looking for. They are in a place where they are surrounded by people who possess it, but for whatever reason, don't give it to them. None of us are strangers to these problems. We may not have faced them quite as early, but we have all been confronted with them at one time or another. We all have so much wisdom and so much love that we are keeping to ourself when there are people around us every Wednesday night that are crying out for it. I think I lost track of the point of this section, but the point is to help Joseph out. Just because he is the leader doesn't mean he is the ONLY leader. =]

WEIRD: I just said a lot of nice things about Joseph. I better publish this post before I change my mind and erase all of it! =]