Don't Worry, God's Got This

I’m a control freak. Let’s get that out there. Go figure, I got into youth ministry, which is the poster child of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants jobs. Seriously, I have anxiety when I don’t know the schedule or when no one emails me back within 24 hours. I know; I need to relax.

I spend a lot of time praying and telling God that I’m going to trust Him. Then I sweat it out. Then I ask forgiveness and pray for help in trusting Him. Then I start sending emails and making notes of notes. It’s like one-person tennis match, except I keep running to the other side to get the ball back. It’s not pretty.

Recently, I was asked to do a witness talk for a Confirmation Retreat at another parish. I said yes, absolutely, but then I had such a hard time figuring out my perfect witness talk. One night, a dream laid out the story I should tell. Excited, I wrote down everything in detail. Days went by and I started to worry. Is this the right story? Is a 14 or 15 year old going to even relate? I sweat it out a few days, then I rehearsed, and worried… Mind you, public speaking comes easily for me, but I’m my own worst critic on the sidelines. Finally I remembered the scripture, “the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say." (Luke 12:12) I began to relax and trust that God would lead me.

On the day of the retreat, I began to realize that we each had our own story which proclaimed the works of the Holy Spirit. No talk was perfect but witness did their job of pointing out God’s work in their lives. I’m glad I let go of the worry, because with God’s help, it went great. On my own, who knows? It was a side joke that I was going to go over the allotted time, but I ended exactly at ten minutes. As usual, God wins.

The following week, our parish ran a 30 Hour Famine. Our DRE ran the program; I was just helping. Still, I felt vague about the details and wanted to know more about the schedule, who was playing music at one point, and what games we needed to have planned. I got a playlist of Christian music together and put together a Reflection and Prayer booklet. I still worried over things like, “Why is she doing this before that,” and “Shouldn’t this be more time and that be less?” Things slowly fell into place and, like before, I realized I was worrying too much again.

After the teens’ service work it was team-building games, then a guest music minister to lead in worship (something many of them had never truly experienced), guest speaker Fr. Matt Williams, then two more musicians, my prayer and reflection piece, and finally a movie. Full day? Yes! Did it go as planned - no.

The games didn’t go as planned - they worked out better. The music minister, my new friend Kyle Erickson, could tell these teens weren’t ‘into’ what he was presenting. He did great working with them and gaining their attention. Fr. Matt? He read them in a minute and spent two hours explaining the basics of Christianity and Catholicism, God is Love and He loves all of us, while holding their attention with personal stories and truths of the Church they never knew. The two young girls that played after ended up winding down the night. There wasn’t time for my section, but that was okay because Fr. Matt took care of it with a meditative prayerful piece accompanied by Kyle’s music. I certainly couldn’t have planned that. Then a movie, okay, that part went as planned.

We had a few teens asking questions and getting answers about the Catholic faith that really helped them understand that it’s not all prim and proper pomp and circumstance. It really is about God’s love for us.

We make these plans and God keeps trying to lead us according to His much better plan. He tends to win, basically always. I’m really glad He does.