This One's For You :)

Today has been one of those days for me. I'm carrying around a bit of sadness today. Thankfully I'm not the only one.
The youth pastor I grew up with is being called to a different ministry. He's staying through the Summer, but then is moving on to a different ministry in another state. So I'm a bit sad.
See, this guy has seen me in MiddleSchool, and he's been such an encouragement to watch. He serves God with all his heart, even when he thinks no one is watching. He fails sure, yeah. But his heart is in the right place, God always calls him back to His throne.
Now this shouldn't bother me too much, since I'm now in College, but it's a little hard to explain....
This guy's kinda been my second daddy. I've always known that he had my back. Especially with a few things that happened a few summers back.
I can remember when I was in middleschool and heard him speak for the first time. We'd just recently switched through a whole bunch of pastors. They announced they had some visitor from California... it was a Switch Sunday (when all the middleschoolers got to go to the Highschool service) and I always loved Switch Sunday. But I'm a little ADD and have always had to take notes to stay focused. So I sit down and they introduce this guy.

The first sermon I heard him preach was on Psalm 1. I cracked my notebook open and clicked the pen. But the second the dude opened his mouth I couldn't write anything. Something about him was different. He had a passion, a huge love for Christ. He talked about how someone who is in-tune with God is like a tree planted by water. .... I don't think I'll ever forget that---I can remember as a little sixth-grader attempting to compose and email to our new pastor (once he decided to stay) thanking him for his ministry, but never quite got the nerve.

Nor will I forget his "life-lessons"... Stories he would tell us from his middleschool and highschool years. Some overly-protective parents asked him to finally quit telling them. My friends and I still die laughing at the memories of them.

I remember going on a missions-trip on my birthday one year.... and the whole group decided to surprise me. Had me cooped up in a friends hotel room, then got told "There's an important team meeting we need to go to right now, downstairs. Let's go."
I thought to myself "I'M IN MY PJS!!!"
As I came down the elevator and the doors swung open, in the lobby of this hotel, there stood my Pastor and friends, with cupcakes and camera's, singing happy birthday... as I stood shocked in my PJ's.

I will never forget the day at Summer Camp he put my hands on my shoulders and completely embarrassed me in front of the whole youth group. I'm sitting in the back, attempting to be invisible (it's my job as a techie!) When he comes and stand directly behind me. Both the sound guy and I look at each other and share the same thought. "DON'T MOVE". See, if he's standing behind us and talking, then all the kids had to look past us to see him. If we moved the wrong way or pushed a button, we'd be super distracting.
When suddenly he puts his hands on my shoulders and begins to talk! I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself!!!! I still smile at what he said :)

So I'm sad he's going. He means a lot to me. But I also know that whatever group of kids gets to sit under him in the place he's going, will have stories like these to tell to their kids. I also know that someday, in heaven... I'll see him again.

In the book of Daniel it talks about the end times. Not right when we die, but the end. It says;

"But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever" (Daniel 12:1b-3)

I'm not sure how heaven will look, or even how it will look. But I know that my pastor is one of those whose "turned many to righteousness" and I've had the privilege to be one of them. God gets a lot of glory out of him, and I'm glad I've gotten to watch it. So goodbye for now. Maybe I'll see you before heaven, maybe I won't. But either way: