When Our Youth Set An Example For Us

You may remember (ok, probably not) that almost a year ago I wrote a blog post about how Trent and I can set an example by being ourselves in this youth ministry gig.   Just by the way we live, love, treat each other, etc, we can set a good example for our youth.  Well, yesterday I had that flipped around and one of our youth set an example for me.  Allow me to brag on one of our youth girls for a moment, if ya don't mind.  :-)

This is Carlie on the left and Steph on the right:

Bieber Fever! About to see the Biebs movie this spring

I grabbed Steph yesterday (after I left work at 11:30, not to return until Tuesday...yesss!) and we went to IHOP to have breakfast for lunch, then hit the mall for a little bit.  I needed to pick up some facewash and was itching to try on a sweater I had had my eye on at JC Penney's for weeks.   The sweater was not meant to be and Steph was sweet and honest enough to tell me it made me look...square.   It was true.  Alas, goodbye square sweater.  We then found another display of cute sweaters on sale for a good price.  As we were perusing colors, Steph found one that was super cute and very much her style.  We pondered for a moment and I commented that it was "so her."  She doesn't know this but her response made me super warm and fuzzy inside and I am so proud of her for it.  I'll probably butcher it but the gist of it was: "It is cute, but I don't have a ton of money and I'd feel bad spending it all on myself. I want to be able to spend it on other people."

Wow.

Kinda made me think about putting the sweater back that I had picked out...  I'm pretty sure Steph just has babysitting and birthday money as her income.   I'm sure there are bazillions of things out there that she would love to buy for herself.  And yet she thinks of others amidst all those possibilities and wants to make sure to leave room in her money stash to be able to buy for them too. 

During this Christmas season, it's so easy to just focus on what you want, what you might get, things you hope people will give to you.  Ask yourself, which do you focus on and enjoy more, the prospect of receiving gifts yourself, or the joy of giving to others?

After the aforementioned movie, recovering from our Bieber fever at Walmart.

As we traipsed across the mall for me to get my facewash from the ginormous Proactiv vending machine with the touch screen and robotic arm that retrieves your products, I was smiling inside about the example setting going both ways.  Trent and I are in a position of leadership and a lot of people think we have it all together (pssh, far from it) but there are lots of opportunities when we can learn from our kids too.   It's a two way street and I'm going to start looking for times when I can soak up examples that the youth set for us. 

Thanks Steph, for your eye opening words and giving heart.  :-)