Thank you, twe12th.

What a huge part of my life, coming to a close.  A letter to twe12th, my youth group:

Hi guys!

Just want to say thank you for your hilarious, beautiful, honest, and joy-filled submissions. I’ve had a sneak peak at most of them - about 30 in all - and am pretty blown away.

Thank you, most of all, for sharing your lives, hearts, dreams, failures, and joys with us.  Sarah and I have given ourselves to you, but we’ve received back a rich, diverse volley of gifts in return.

I want you to know that we are proud of you guys. Many of you have gone and, as the form called you to at the end, grown up. We are glad that God has pushed, pulled, and maybe even kicked you into new situations, forcing you to be stretched so that you might resemble a new creation in the midst of the old.

We are mindful that each of you are in a different place. That’s how we began, that’s how we end. That’s who we are.

Some of you are in a good place - you can look back and say that you’ve grown, that you’re grateful, and that you don’t quite know how it happened, but some strange grace has brought you into a spacious and centered wholeness. Some of you are in a rougher place - you feel a little lost, a little shrunken, a little unsure of who/where/what you are. The world is screaming at you to become something - but you don’t know what that something is, and all the somethings that you’re trying out seem a little futile, a little bit like chasing the wind…  God, or at least what you knew of him, seems like a distant reality.

Wherever you are, know this: God is with you. In your highs and lows, in every connection and every alienation, he is breath itself. Everyone finds him at different times; yours may have been years ago, or it may be years ahead. In any case, let the time that Sarah and I have spent with you remind you that all of life is littered with his footprints. Not in a glittery, blue-skies-in-the-clouds way, but in the Jesus way - sandals in soil, guffaws and heaving sorrows, pure pain and ecstatic pleasure. Jesus is always uncomfortably close. And that’s the Way that we’ve sought to introduce you to - a life, not a religion; a pure, honest, simple love; a full humanity. Every dinner, every pie, every immaterial moment and every bit of flesh and blood is God with us. Hopefully you’ve caught a glimpse of the One who overturns tables, welcomes the wrong crowd, and hangs on a cross: our Way, our Truth, and our Life.

And so, it is time for a final blessing. May God surprise you in your intimacies and in your alienations. May you find Bedrock and stand tall on it. May you give up your life that you may find it. May you surrender. May your lives be large and courageous. May you be blessed and dogged with discontentment. May you salt the earth with forgiveness and dance upon injustice. And may the peace of Christ make you whole and well, so that you can be a force for renewal throughout the whole world.

With real and unabashed love,

Sarah and Richie

Notes

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    twe12th, my youth
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