Not My Own

I wrote this two years ago today and thought I would post it on my blog... I want to share with you an incredible experience I had today. Two years ago today, a friend and girl who lived two rooms down from me in my dorm passed away in a car accident. I was thinking about Melissa this morning and reflecting on memories and moments I got to share with her. Along with the good, I recalled the hardship of the day she passed. I remembered hearing the news and being in shock. Most of all, I remember thinking... How am I going to help her friends, this floor (2nd Rooks), the entire dorm and other lives she touched in the Calvin community. After all, I was the dorm's spiritual leader and had a duty to help people grieve... or so I thought. I didn't make much time to grieve myself. At one point I finally fell to my knees in my dorm room completely emotionally exhausted for attempting to carry others through. I prayed to God admitting I was completely lost and had no idea

I started planning for a youth lesson with the goal in mind for students to find their true identity in Christ.  How was I ever going to accomplish this? How do you get someone to understand who they are? One of the biggest questions teenagers ask is... "Who am I?" I thought endlessly about how I could answer this question for them. But then I realized I can't answer this. If they want to know who they are then they have to ask, "Who is God?".  So how do I get them to ask this and find the answer? I tried to look up the best bible verses and create some kind of incredible sermon I could preach to get them to understand. Nothing seemed good enough so I then turned to intense prayer. Haha not really... I went straight to google and typed  "finding your identity in Christ best youth lesson ever" in the search bar. Shockingly enough, google didn't seem good enough either. Somewhere in between prayer and google I came up with the idea that I can't