Where It All Started..

Everything that God is beginning to do in my life now all started at CIY this summer. CIY is a weeklong youth conference where all the highschoolers stay on a college campus and even stay in the dorms. We have worship twice a day as well as amazing speakers. This CIY was my last one since I was a senior. I thought about my past experiences at CIY. This being my fourth year, I decided it was not going to be about me. I just wanted to get to know the freshmen girls more and branch away from my friends to make some new ones. I loved spending that week getting to know the freshmen a lot better, it was awesome. On the second to last night I had this girl come up to me and ask if we could talk. Of course I said yes. It was one of the freshmen girls that I got to know during the week, but I didn’t really get a chance to invest as much time in her as I did with the other girls, so I was taken aback when she came to me. Her name is Hannah and I had only known her because we took a mother-daughter class together in the summer and I know her older sister. As Hannah and I sat down to talk, I found myself wondering what this would be about. We just did small talk at first. We talked about school and what Hannah thought about her first year at CIY. It finally got down to why she really asked to talk to me. Hannah looked at me and said, “Claire, will you be my mentor?” This question totally caught me off guard. I have never really talked to her that much and I realized that my actions made her really look up to me. At first the title “mentor” really scared me. It sounds so official and like something I could never be strong enough to be. But I took on this challenge and I was so excited to get to know Hannah better and really love on this beautiful girl. I knew this what God wanted me to do. On the last night at CIY everyone is given a small envelope. In that envelope is an unknown challenge. If you choose to open that card, it is a promise to God that you will fulfill that task. The last night everyone was waiting anxiously to open their card and see where God was leading them. As Justin sat in front of all of us, he told us that he wanted to wait until we were back home so we can open them in front of our whole youth group family. That Sunday we were having a special evening Awake to talk about our week at CIY and finally open our cards. I had all weekend to pray and think about if I was going to open my card or not. After talking to God, I realized He didn’t want me to open my card. I felt like right now being a mentor to Hannah was the challenge that God wanted me to focus on. What was really cool is Hannah went up to open her card. Her challenge was to find a mentor and be a mentor to someone else. It is really amazing how God works like that.  Since then Hannah and I have gotten closer and God has given me so much love for this amazing young girl. Every time we talk she inspires me so much. She is only a freshman and has such a strong faith. I know as a freshman, I was not as strong as she is now. You know the phase that God uses the weak to lead the strong, well this is totally true here.