The last couple weeks as freshmen get ready to arrive on Saturday, I've been in pre-New Student Outreach stress-out mode. The University has changed so many policies that affect us in regard to space and noise and what we can and can't do on campus that it's making us re-invent (and making me stress out) over tons of details.
And so I wasn't really all that excited this past Saturday to go to an InterVarsity reunion of folks involved in IV between 1965-1975 at UNC, Duke, NC State, and UNC-Greensboro--the only places where IV was happening in North Carolina at the time. I especially didn't want to go (and this is even more indicative of my sin) after I found out that we wouldn't be allowed to do a fundraising pitch.
And then I got there. And I saw why God had me there. I needed to remember why I fight for picnic locations, toil over large group room reservations, and deal with t-shirt complications. I work to welcome 17 and 18-year-olds over the next month so that they might be 50-year-olds who delight in the glory of God and who remember their time in college as ridiculously formative and significant.
We love on young people so that they might become wise old people. We reach out to crazy and sometimes obnoxious kids so they might grow up to be beautiful and wise old folks. This is why we do what we do.
And Jesus wants it more than we do. He is at work in them now as they are preparing to come to us and he will be at work in them long after they leave our communities. We have a small part to play in a larger plan of salvation, a bigger story of redemption.
And so, back to the details of planning, preparing, and most importantly of all praying--but this time with a little bigger perspective on what this is all about.
4 comments:
Praise God for renewed perspective!! i cant count how many times that has happened to me this summer! Have fun with the new students!!
alex,
as one of those "obnoxious kids" i thank you. your friendship, love and guidance has more than once directed me to the grace of Christ. thank you for showing us how to love.
love you!!!
anna
yeah, but anna you were like 21 instead of 17--when you're that obnoxious and that old, there's not much I can really do for you...
thanks for your gracious post, i'm thankful for folks like you who continually bless me and remind me how lucky I am to do this.
VCU's leadership retreat is this weekend, and I'm stressing out a bit myself, we've got NSO and something we're calling "4 days of fun" which is next week. I was both excited and a little terrified when I saw the banners and such hanging along Main and Laurel outside the dorms. Thankfully I'll be out of town during freshman move in (and can thus avoid the traffic jams around the park) but school being so close is certainly making me anxious.
When I think about it, I realize if it weren't for you, I may not even be on leadership at VCU! God is so awesome and I will definatly be praying for you and UNC!
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