Moving On

For the past three years, I've taught youth Sunday school at church. This is my second time serving as a youth Sunday school teacher. My first calling (church job) was teaching youth Sunday school as an 18-year-old. In hindsight, I laugh because I was a youth teaching the youth! But I thought I was so grown up and cool (I even wrote about how cool I was in my Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul Journal. All legit adults have one of those, right?)

I loved teaching Sunday school then, and I loved it the second time around. It is, by far, my favorite calling, and the one I would hand-pick if I could.

Recently my time as a Sunday school teacher came to an end. It's been very emotional over the past few weeks as I've prepared to leave my class. I wasn't ready for the change. I cried every day for the first week after I heard the news. Then I cried every two days for the week after that.

The worst part of it was when I had to teach my class, knowing that I would be leaving them soon, but not being able to tell them yet. Of course that day, a girl said in the opening prayer, "We're thankful for Brittany."

Cue tears.

I had to suck them back in and get on with the lesson.

The thing about teenagers is...

They are hard. Frankly, I'm terrified of them.

But when I serve and teach them as individuals, they are everything to me!

(Sidenote: Remember how Scotty and I were Ma & Pa for Trek a couple of years ago? We loved our family of teenagers so much. The same week I found out I was being released from Sunday school, two of our Trek children got engaged... to each other!!! And one received his mission call. It was a big week for my teenagers. Again... they become everything to me!)

During my time teaching Sunday school, I faced plenty of challenges. I had kids walk out of my lessons. I had kids make me cry. Sometimes I felt defeated, lost, or overwhelmed. Sometimes my lessons were really, really bad.

But I loved it.

And I loved them. My teenagers.