Weekend

What a mad weekend!
I finished work on Friday at 3:30. Drove through to Holywell via a friends school to drop some things off, to pick Esther up. We left there around 4:30 and eventaully made it to Southport by 7pm for the youthwork conference we were attending, the journey should only have taken 1 and 1/2 hours!
The conference was great but I feel a little bombarded now. I feel as if I need another week away at a place on my own or with the other youth leaders to figure out how what we heard applies to us and our little group. It was great to feel that we weren't alone in our work. There were others who came across the same problems as us, felt the same disheartedness and sadness when it appeared our actions got us nowhere and great to hear that others just felt like they were wading through treacle at times....but also about the great things that are happening right across this country with the youth and how God seems to be rising a group that a raw and passionate about Him!
What was great was at the end, the guy said he was sick to death of hearing about the decline of the youth and the church. It can become disheartening when people are seeing only buildings being shut down, youths hanging around the street and intimidation being the youths main weapon. This is not the whole story and it is sad that at times that is all people especially the media focus on. There are some great kids about. Do we not think that the blame may lay with the generation before these kids, that the barriers have been lifted so much for freedom of speech etc. that they no longer have the boundaries that are needed to grow as adults. What was great to see so many young people there. These ones that society were righting off had a heart for their own generation and those younger than themselves. They'd seen the impact their youthworkers had had on them and wanted to impact the youth below them in the same way.
Another thing that it made me realise was that I had subconciously gone there looking for a man! I honestly hadn't realised this and it was not that I was there on the prowl, just that you do think "I won't date anyone but a Chrisitian, I am going to a Christian youthwork conference where there maybe some nice young, single Chrristian, men.....I wonder!" I came away a little deflated in that sense I suppose because there was of course no one there. The most depressing part was that Esther was still able to tick the 18 -24 age group box, I had to tick the 25-34 one! Many of the organisations that were advertising gap years were with the 18 - 25 age groups! It's a realisation now that I am in that age bracket where it is assumed you are in a stable job, stable relationship and that investigative / spontaneous / travelling stage of your life is over. So if the age is here, where is the man?!?! I know that God's plan does not work like man's plan and we cannot put him into tick boxes. It is only by resting, trusting and strengthening myself in Him by reading his word, praying and trusting that His plan is so much better than the one I could ever come up with by myself that I can know I have not been 'left on the shelf' and that whatever may come, He knows best. Does that make sense?
Anyway it was a great time. One of worship, learning and sharing and sadly far too much money was spent on books!!