Wishing them a life dripping with blessings

Published: December 6, 2009 / Updated: December 6, 2009 Crystal daily photo, humor, medium, Wow

My friend Diana is the kind of gal who loves steak, arranges her schedule on Ash Wednesday so she can go to noon Mass, and who follows the news so closely that when I get a breaking CNN text alert, she already heard about whatever happened 10 minutes ago.

And she’s become one of my closest friends since I met her about a year and a half ago.

Which is why I couldn’t possibly be more happy that yesterday she got married to the love of her life – Chuck.

I have never in my life seen a bride so genuinely happy.

Ever.

And her now-husband was beaming so much that I thought sunshine might start coming out of his teeth.

The setting was intimate, the vows were genuine and  polka dancing was fun to watch. And I learned a valuable lesson about the expiration date of the electric slide.

I don’t even mind that multiple members of the Mariachi band asked to take cell phone pictures with me. My Spanish is rusty, but I can only assume they either thought I was pretty or that I had toilet paper sticking out of my nylons and nobody wanted to tell me.

I wish both Diana and Chuck a home that’s dripping with blessings, a life filled with more happy times than bad and a love that really does make the two of you become one.

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– I know it’s grainy, but I was in the back because I got there a tad late (Sorry Diana). I LOVE how Chuck is smiling here though. He looked like that pretty much the whole day. True story.

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– Diana and I. And yes, that smile was on her face right down the end when the banquet hall staff were starting to clean up.

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youth group leader’s oath

October 4, 2009 Crystal god, humor, medium

I promise to:

never, ever take a student for granted.

always have a back-up plan and a back-up can of whip cream.

have every student’s phone number in my cell phone.

never judge a student by their appearance, age, or parents.

pray for every student, every night.

pray for me every night.

Facebook stalk all the youth with messages, pokes and wall postings.

order pizza at least once a month.

remember how awful it can be to be a teenager.

remember how awesome it can be to be a teenager.

always get to events at least 10 minutes early.

keep the parents informed, but not too informed.

try as hard as I can with every student, every time.

ask for help.

always put God first.

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My favorite kind of Sundays

Published: September 13, 2009 / Updated: September 13, 2009 Crystal Uncategorized

It took at least 20 hours of preparation, 4 large pizzas (most vegetarian) and a 12-pack of play-doh, but I’m going to go ahead and call today’s youth group a success.

My church pastor said it best- youth group leadership is very challenging, but very rewarding.

I get a bit of a high when things go well. A “this is what life is all about” kinda feeling. A “holy crap, I think I just inspired a kid to pray this week” feeling.

There’s not a lot of feelings that beat that.

My friend justin told me once that when he gets to heaven, he doesn’t want God to say “well. you did a nice job. glad you were on my side.”

he wants God to look at him in awe and say “Man. Now THAT was gangsta.”

Sometimes though, I think people (not just Christians, but anyone trying to be awesome) get ahead of themselves and want to go from lame to gangsta in 3 days flat.

But I know that’s now how anything works.

I’m taking it a week at a time. Hoping to just keep moving forward so that eventually I’ll be gangsta.

For right now, I know I’m a few steps further along than I was two weeks ago.

Thanks be to God.

For serious.

Now I just have to figure out what we’re going to do next week.

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