My Young Life Leader

Warning: this will be so long but so worth it, I promise. I could write for hours

I just got off with one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. This i know will make her cry because thats how close we are. In fact I just sent her a text saying what I'm about to say will make you cry. For the sake of my blog and the fact that I dont want to put her last name out there we're just gonna use an initial for her last name. Before I tell you her actual name, let me tell you some things about her. She leads on staff with a nonprofit christian organization called Young Life. She is obsessed with anything related to whales, in relation to that she loves anything nautical: anchors, fish, nautical creatures, etc. She also loves animals in general and if you really knew her you would know that she loves dogs more than cats, it's just everyone gets confused because she has (well now she has) three cat calendars hanging in her office, two of which are the same cat calendar and one is from what 1991 or 1993 or something haha. If you havent figured it out yet which most of you have since you most of the people reading this are friends with us....

                             I'd like to introduce to you....... Katie H. (aka KH, khackattack, kate-ster, kit)

In Young Life, you always here club talks inviting high school students to hang out with their leaders and to not feel guilty about it. They always say that your leaders want to spend every second with you and just live life with you. I took full advantage of this with Katie. From the very beginning, I always wanted to hang out with Katie and go get starbucks and hang out and just have real conversations like the ones we had at Fall Weekend when I accepted Christ. Literally every moment after that, I would come over to her house and just hang out (before she had roommates). She introduced me to all the other leaders and helped me to grow in our Young Life community especially after just moving to Chesapeake  I was just looking to be loved and she showed me the best kind. Genuine Love through Christ. Before I know it, I'm always hanging out with her and we start to have inside jokes and we got to just live life together. Anytime I'd spend the night she'd trick me into spending time with God ( and when I say trick I secretly loved it and am thankful for it now) She would always write so much and she has shared with me recently that she would sometimes just pray for me as I sat in front of her. I always loved and desired (and still do) how much precious devoted time she spent with God. 

They always joke about how high school students want to be like their YL leaders because they think there so cool, and I was definitely one of those students. I wanted to be just like Katie and I wanted to be her best friend. One thing I specifically remember her saying is that she went to dinner at a committee members house with other leaders and one of the other leaders Mezz mentioned how Katie and I share the same mannerisms and that it was just so cool to see that because we'd obviously become that close. I see it wen I look at other students with their leaders that they have the same mannerisms and often time they will pray the same way and little things like that. It's so cool to see how Christ's love works in us to become so close with people that we just start talking and doing the same things. 

Katie has made such an impact on my life in more ways than she knows and she always tells me the same thing. It's funny because usually the typical story is that you meet your Young Life leader in the parking lot after school or at a football game....well i always give katie a hard time because i never officially 'met' her. My two best friends kendall and bridget would always say Hi to her but i was never introduced and she never introduced herself. I just thought that she was a really random ( i knew about YL but i didnt know anything specific) person who hung out at our schoool (typical right?). 

I'm so thankful for her in my life and even though I hated chesapeake because i was moving, I am so thankful that God brought me there it was obviously for a reason.... Him. I am thankful for his will and plans and no one elses. He also brought Katie into my life so that we could just encourage and support each other in different ways. Katie is no longer my Young Life leader (officially, ill explain) she is my Best friend, and now that i'm no longer in high school she can truly be my best friend but in my heart she will always hold that special place of being my Young Life leader that so many of us have. I'm currently trying to stop calling her my YL leader and just call her my best friend. She now gets to help me through college and can actually give me advice about being a leader (hopefully....ill explain in a different blog) and about how to just love people in the real world. We still talk everyday even if it's just a random thought or hashtag or even a Snapchat or funny picture. I miss her alot but I am so excited to see her in about two months.... i know what youre thinking thats still like really far away stephanie but i haven't seen her in two months and the past two months have gone by fast so I'm thankful for that. 

Katie has such an amazing heart and is just an amazing example of what it looks like to follow God's will and just literally serving the Lord with all her heart mind and body to the point where she gets sick. I'm sad that i won't be there to love girls in chesapeake but i pray that she would just love girls everyday just like she loved me and even though she doesnt have as much free time as she use to, God will make that time with lost high school girls so much more precious and meaningful. I get jealous when I see girls hanging out with her but only because I wish I was there, I've been working on it though and I wouldn't want it any other way. I want her to be loving them as much as she loved me so that they can come to know Christ. I miss all the girls I got to love during my senior year and she told me today that they keep asking about me and that was just so encouraging because I miss those girls so much. I didn't really realize it until now, but I spent just about all of my senior year loving those girls and I couldn't have asked for a better year. They had me crying my eyes out at my last campaigners and my last club at Hickory. I'm even getting teary eyed as I type this.

Last but not least, Pray that I would be able to love people around me like Christ has loved me and how Katie has loved me through Christ. I miss loving those high school girls so much and I am really trying to figure out how to serve Christ here by genuinely loving those around me. Tonight, talking with katie and just writing this now has helped remind me of what I love to do and what God has given me a passion and heart for.