"Woah, Young Life is like an hour of intentional conversation with people? That's so cool."

Best surprise of the day? Getting multiple videos of Court Graham and Oh la la Olivia singing and car dancing before school in the parking lot. With a start like this I don't think you could have a bad day.

 

I just finished writing a camp chapter about one on one conversations with my girls and how I think they're so important and special. Then after school I got to have one with Hannah Huston. We went to Kroger to pick up a welcome cake for Ryan (the woman was only a little confused about what we wanted her to write) and then to Orange Leaf. Our conversation was all the things I'd been writing about--honest and vulnerable and eye-opening and the perfect opportunity to hear Hannah's story. Easily one of the best parts of my day.

I was thrilled to see so many of my girls show up at Campaigners tonight. It's been inconsistent with Finals, Winter Break and heading back to school, but tonight I felt like almost all the regulars were back. It's kind of crazy to think that we have regulars... just a semester ago they were hearing about this for the first time and now it's such a normal part of our week. I can't imagine not having it now.

Tonight was special because it was the first week we officially had Ryan Ahlwardt with us. I loved his enthusiasm about the week he just spent at new leader training in Florida and his excitement for what God is doing here in Fishers. We sang a song with Ryan leading instead of the iPod which is vast improvement before breaking up into groups.

I love that our YL group is still so mixed up that I have freshmen, sophomores and juniors in my group. I love that they've gotten used to what we do in this time together and they love the routine of it all.

 

One of my girls brought her new neighbor along with her tonight. One girl came back after missing for a few months and told me she's so glad to be back here.

 

We got into a really conversation tonight about this idea that, "you shouldn't care what people think of you." We all agreed with that statement but then talked about, "should you care what some people think of you?" Does it matter what your parents, your siblings, your closest friends, your friends' parents think of you? Does it matter what you think of yourself?

We talked about knowing when someone has your best interest at heart. Bob Goff writes about how you know you can usually trust someone's advice when they don't have anything to gain. If your friends or boyfriend want you to do something to make them feel like you're on their side or help them not feel guilty or help them fit in then it's maybe not a great decision. Instead we should be looking for when people are leading us to what's best for us.

One of my girl's said, "So glad I got to go to Young Life tonight! Goooood start to my week." She's right. Spending time talking with girls like Carly, Sabrina, Mariah and Hayley is exactly how I want to start my week.

I challenged the girls to memorize one of the last verses from our sheet this week. We don't normally do this, but I think there is something so powerful about writing God's words on our heart. By the time I got home I already has a text from one of my girls that had written out the verse and put it on her mirror so she could see it everyday.

And as I was scrolling through Instagram one more time before I fell asleep I found these images that I thought were so great. The first is from a Senior YL girl at Carmel and what they must have talked about in their group tonight, the second is from one of the greatest and most wise YL staff guys I know. Both are great things to think about.