Have you ever felt like a sign is staring you in the face, but you don’t know it’s there?

A few weeks ago I met up with the Grady/Thomas County YoungLife area leader for lunch at the Bean. I wanted to discuss possibly bringing YoungLife to Bainbridge, or find a way for me to get involved in a town near here. For those of you who don’t know what YoungLife is, it’s a high school ministry, where they focus on building relationships with high schoolers and lead them to God through friendship. I was extremely involved in it when I was in high school, but during college I sort of fell off the bandwagon. I was scared to go to church by myself, and I didn’t want people to think I was “too” Christian, if there is such a thing. So, I took a break from church, from YoungLife and I guess one might say I even took a break from God.

When I moved to Bainbridge, I quickly realized the life of going to work and coming home to watch t.v. on the couch was not going to cut it. I needed friends that would be like family. I thought back to the best points in my life when I was surrounded by people who truly loved me and looked at was doing during that time, thinking I could try doing that again. That’s when I looked and saw that YoungLife was such a high point for me. It truly made me a better, more caring person. I wanted to bring that to someone just like me.

After meeting with the area leader, he told me to pray about it and when I came to a decision to let him know. It was the first time I had heard pray about it in forever. Days passed, days turned into weeks and still nothing. I couldn’t make a decision. What if I wasn’t enough for these highschoolers? Why hadn’t God pushed me one direction or another? I felt like since there wasn’t really a “sign” it was a no, or a not right now. That’s when I pulled out my devotional that was still bookmarked from April. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it said something along the lines of “you can’t be angry where you are and for what you’ve been through, when you empty yourself of that, new doors can open.” I started crying. That was it; that was my sign.

I had been angry for too long about previous things in my life that made me feel like I might not be enough, but I had to empty myself of that feeling, so that I can communicate and I can tell someone that they can come back from anything just like I did. Don’t ever mistake the silence for a “no,” just take it as you haven’t looked everywhere for the sign.