"My friend Sarah is getting married this weekend and she was planning on changing her Instagram name to @sarmdavis after the big day. I am willing to Venmo you $5 for your Instagram name so my friend Sarah can have it. Let me know! And sorry this is so weird."

In the book the Power of Moments there is a section about how we tend to remember the best moments of an experience and how it ended. So even though I feel like my days are filled with decisions and planning and thinking about transitions right now, I'm thankful that I'll look back and just remember all of these moments when life is so, so good. 

Getting to go to Taco & Burrito Place with Smooney and Smelko on a regular Thursday night. 

Love Tanks at the Barn with YL kids and leaders who love one another so well AND we got to do it in the SUNSHINE and WARM WEATHER.

Getting to see Cassidy Ogan every single day and sometimes twice because of cadet and YL and WL.

Wyld Life Wednesdays with HS leaders who are some of my best friends and 7th grade girls who make us laugh and have grown so much in just one year.

Life is so good. I wonder what high points you'll remember about the season of life you're in right now.

"Yesterday I found a pair of my matching American Girl doll earrings and I put them in. I just realized I didn't take them out and I've been walking around the HS with dangling star earrings on all day!" Love Tanks

We have a handful of HSE Young Life traditions that we've cultivated over the years, but love tanks is one of my favorites. At the end of each semester, we spend our last night of Campaigners writing notes to kids and leaders about why they're important, valued, loved and appreciated. 

This simple act of love is something that kids are pumped about. They look forward to it for weeks, start writing their notes in advance and make sure that their friends come with them. 

Without fail, Love Tanks night is always the biggest crowd of the whole year. People want to be loved and embrace the opportunity to love others. Tonight as I walked down the row of bags and looked at the names, there were so many that I didn't recognize. Our YL family has grown to the point where I don't know every person AND where new people are showing up each and every week. There is something exciting happening in this space that these HS students want to be part of. 

Tonight I'm thankful for intentional time to build people up. I love these kids-- the Wyld Life leaders I work alongside, the YL leaders I get to partner with, and the girls who have become like little sisters and friends to me. So many of my favorite humans are in my life because of Young Life. Tonight I got to remind them of how their loved, that I believe in them and that God has great plans for their lives.

"You are my hero."

"Words are valuable, and everyone needs to know that they're loved, that someone's proud of them, that someone sees the magic that makes them them.  So this is my challenge for you: Use your words. Use them today. For someone you love, someone you're proud of, someone who needs to know they matter. Everyone needs to know they matter." -Shauna Niequist

Today was a whole day of using words well that began with a chapter from Shauna and this group of 8th grade girls. Already, they are so good at loving people well and using their words in a powerful way. I'm proud to know them. 

Tonight our Young Family showed up big time for our bi-annual tradition of Love Tanks. For some of these Seniors, this is their 8th time doing this with us and they look forward to it more every time. It feels like summer in Fishers so we sang together outside. I love when Ryan takes requests from the kids and we sing whatever they ask for and Isaiah sings the loudest of us all. 

Right here on these rocks, with these people has got to be one of my favorite places to sing worship songs. It's right up there with the olden wooden pews of Dimnent Chapel and the leafy canopy of the Green Cathedral. This is such a golden place to be.

Love Tanks starts with everyone writing their name on a brown paper bag. Those bags are alphabetized by first name and then taped up on the wall in one long line. 

For the next hour, you write notes to as many friends and leaders as possible. You write why you love them, what you think they're awesome at, what they need to be reminded of, reminders of the time when you shared something significant, a call to be the very best version of themselves.

We left the barn door open, turned on music and the kids spread out. They were grouped in pairs or small groups all across the basketball court, the front porch and the yard. Everywhere you look, kids were writing love tank notes.

Earlier today a YL girl asked me how many people come to YL on a weekly basis. I thought about it and guessed, "Maybe 50? Some weeks it's more and some weeks it's less. There are so many kids that I think are part of YL but they're never all there at the same time." Tonight never fails to be a time when everyone shows up. Kids make it a priority to be here for Love Tanks. No matter if they have to get someone to cover them at work, skip practice or procrastinate homework a little longer, this is where they want to be. That's all evidence that we all have this deep desire to both love and be loved.

At the end of the night the kids have this peace about them that wasn't there when they walked in. There is a joy that comes from loving others well. Then they take their own bag off the wall and head home to read the notes that they received. Both the giving and receiving of love is beautiful.

"I hope one day that my daughters will grow up to be like you." Love Tanks

Today the 8th grade girls met for the last time this semester. Thanks to finals, we had a much smaller group in attendance which always leads to more conversation. We read through the Christmas story together in Luke and talked about what role in the story we would love to play. 

Later in the day as I was writing Love Tank notes to HS girls I was reminiscing about when I used to see them every single day. The consistency of seeing my 7th and 8th grade girls is something I never want to take for granted-- it's such a small window that I want to take advantage of. Kids like Mari Grace, Maddie, Brooke, Mallory, Brynn and Claire are phenomenal and I love getting to play this role in their lives.

We had a bit of a spontaneous Wilderness Reunion this afternoon which was perfect because we got to send our guide Alaina a birthday video. She cried. We love her. Wilderness was the greatest.

And just like we finish every semester in HSE Young Life, we gathered at the barn to write Love Tank notes to our friends. If every person has a tank of love inside of them then we want to make sure we're filling it back up with encouragement, support and prayers. It's our privilege and our responsibility to do that for one another.

Anna Morgan had the brilliant idea to make a love tank bag for Young Life itself.

Young Life, 
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to grow in my faith and be surrounded by amazing people! You rock my socks off! Anna Morgan

YL, 
Thank you for this amazing experience with my community of brothers and sisters in Christ. 

Young Life,
Thank you for everything you do and for changing my life. -Taylor

Young Life,
Thank you for showing me who Christ is and how to love others like Christ loves me! -Caroline

YL,
Thx 4 making Monday's 10x better. -Emma

Young Life!!!
THANK YOU FOR BEING MY HAPPINESS!!! Olivia

Young Life,
This has changed my life. It inspires me to be a better person every day. I am so glad to have Young Life in my life. Every time I walk in on Monday nights everything goes away except my love for Jesus. This is my safe haven. -Payton

Young Life--
All I can say is this organization has made the biggest impact on me and my faith... thank you forever. Love, Brooke

Honorable Mention Blog Title:
"Ok, what are we going to do about this gals?" "Well, I'm going to pray!"
"I search at church."
"I had a dog date on Friday-- it went very well. He was super sweet and very strong."

"Wow, I guess people really want to feel loved." Love Tanks Spring 2016

This Storyline Post from my fav girl Shauna Niequist has stuck with me. She writes,  

"It doesn’t matter how you feel in your heart about your friends—what matters is showing those feelings through words and actions. Aaron had a college professor who said over and over, “It doesn’t matter how much you love your kids. What matters is communicating that love in a way that they can understand and feel that love.”

And the same is true for friendship. As it is true for marriages and all relationships. It’s so easy for me to feel warm, loving thoughts about friends or family members… and then go on about my day, never reaching out, sending a text, or setting a date to connect.

I think about them all the time, pray for them, and watch the details of their lives spool out over Facebook—first day of school photos, last moments of summer photos. I feel connected and warm, full of affection for these lovely people.
But how on earth would they know that?

I’ve been noticing all the times that I think loving thoughts about the people in my life… and then produce no corresponding action to show that love.

Now that I'm noticing it, I’ve sent more texts and emails, a couple old-fashioned letters. I’ve scheduled a walk and a coffee and a dinner. I’ve looked people in the eye and said, “I love you. I’m thankful for you.”

Because at the end of the day, Aaron’s professor is exactly right: It doesn’t matter how much you love someone. What matters is that they know it."

Once a semester at Young Life we gather together kids and leaders for Love Tanks. On this night we practice being intentional about making sure our people know we love them and are thankful for them. It's become a tradition that's anticipated like Christmas morning.

And people can't get enough of it. When we announce that it's Love Tank time the kids show up in packs. They might have been MIA the last few weeks or months, busy with sports or homework or a thousand other things, but on this night they wouldn't dream of missing Young Life.

They get their parents to let them skip practice. The Juniors and Seniors bring along underclassman. Suddenly the Barn is packed with more kids than we've seen in a very long time. Because we all have this desire in common don't way? The desire to be loved and to share that love. It's a rare opportunity and when it's being offered up like this you'd be crazy to turn it down.

A girl said to me tonight, "I just learned what Love Tanks is! No one can say anything mean to me-- that's awesome!" School isn't the safest place for her, but YL has become a community where she feels safe and loved. This may have been the first time that she would ever feel encouraged and supported like this.

Here's how it works:

Every person gets a brown paper bag that we call their Love Tank. You grab a stack of squares of paper and start writing your notes as fast as you can. You fill up the page with compliments, with memories, with hopes, with thank yous. You write until your hand cramps and scrawl your name at the end. Then you're on to the next note. There are so many people here and you want to write to as many as possible. 

Music blares through the gym as our piles of notes grow. "It's so stressful," a YL girl told her mom when she got back home. "You want to write to everyone and you just can't make your hand go faster." You know that you'll write to your best friends and to the leader that took you to camp last summer. But then you want to write to the girl who you want to become friends with, the person who is new to YL and may not know that many people, to the newest member of your volleyball team that you just started playing with.

When there are 5 minutes left, the room turns into a chaotic frenzy of note delivery. Everyone is buzzing around the room stuffing their stack of notes into the recipients' love tanks. Slowly the bags get full-- all of them-- no one gets left out. You might run back to write one last note so no one is forgotten.

Then we circle up, a giant hand-holding mob, to pray together before we head out. Love Tanks bags in hand, we head home, reminded of what it feels like to be intentional about loving others and being loved so well.