Little things make a difference. Several years ago, I was a youth chaplain for young adults that lived in a secured residence facility. My role was to care for the spiritual needs of the youth residents. I was tasked with visiting the teens in secured units, to offer small group gatherings and to provide emergency pastoral care. Because I wasn’t a full-time staff person, I was never given keys or exit codes to the secured facility. I was dependent upon the support staff to let me in and out of the secured units. In this arrangement, my safety was dependent upon my relationships with my co-workers - as well as my clients - to have way in and out of the secured units. On my first day, I entered the locked down unit to meet my first group of students. I remember saying out loud as the door was buzzed to let me in, “Ok God, here we go - you are coming with me and I have NO idea what we’re walking into!” In that season as a youth chaplain: I taught lessons on the parables -...
Life is tough, but hope is tougher.