Summer Ministry

Well, it is summer! Is your husband gone yet? Will he be back only to leave again? Do you go with him or stay home? Do you take your kids along or ship them off to grandma’s? Maybe you don’t even have that option. Maybe you have to stay home and work, because you have a job and bills to pay. Maybe there isn’t a grandma (biological or honorary) who is available to watch your children.

Summer ministry usually means lots of going…mission trips, camps, conferences, etc. (Hooray for Christ in Youth!) And, depending on your personality and that of your husband and on your circumstances, that can be a blessing or a curse. Some of us love to get out and travel, enjoy the special events and quality time with our youth group. Some of us are homebodies. I think this calls for lots of extra prayer – prayer to do what we must with extra grace. It is so easy to be frustrated with the circumstances – you want to go but you have to stay, or you want to stay but you have to go, or your husband has to go and he’d rather stay – that we can easily miss the blessings and growth God has for us. Then there are the prayers we must offer regarding the actual trips – that God’s purposes will be accomplished, which may require some bumps along the way! It took me quite a while to realize that the trip never goes as you planned, but those very “diversions” are often the ones that God uses to pull us and our youth to a higher level.

And remember, there are seasons to life. If you and your family decide this is the season for you to stay home when you’d rather go, or vice versa, remember Ecclesiastes:

"There's an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth: A right time for birth and another for death, A right time to plant and another to reap, A right time to kill and another to heal, A right time to destroy and another to construct, A right time to cry and another to laugh, A right time to lament and another to cheer, A right time to make love and another to abstain, A right time to embrace and another to part, A right time to search and another to count your losses, A right time to hold on and another to let go, A right time to rip out and another to mend, A right time to shut up and another to speak up, A right time to love and another to hate, A right time to wage war and another to make peace."

So whether you stay, go, or some of each, enjoy the journey with Jesus!