There was a big bag of trash on our back porch.  Don’t really worry about the details…. it has something to do with “running late” and “Annie is lazy”, but whatev.

And I went out last night to see that the bag of trash had been turned over.  And it sounded like someone was jogging in circles under the deck.

And by someone, I mean something.  I put clue #1 and clue #2 together and bingo.  It appears that we’ve got ourselves a little animal buddy.

Guessing at it’s species, let’s just say that I was WISHING it was a mouse.  Cause it was WAY BIGGER than a mouse.  Smaller than a burglar with a crow bar.  Thankfully.  But bigger than a GAP bag dancer.

Thinking that I am surely superior in brains than said “thing”, whom I’ve nicknamed Dumpster Diver, I tie the bag up real tight because he doesn’t have opposable thumbs to get it open.

Nothing gets by me.

Except that fact that Dumpster Diver has RAZOR SHARP TEETH.  So dude just ignored that pretty bow at the top and started chowing on the side.

[Obviously, as soon as I heard trash rumbling on the porch, I whisper-screamed for roomie Jamie, grabbed my camera, and headed for the back door.]

And there he was.  With his seriously thick tail.  Please notice that Dumpster Diver is ALMOST AS BIG AS A BAG OF TRASH.

Did you know that there is such a thing as fear-induced vomiting?  There is.

So we mustered up our courage, banged on the window, and yelled “Get outta here!  Go eat someone else’s left over pancakes!!”

While we were bossing him around, he turned and said,

And in that moment, it was crystal clear who really had the upper hand paw in this situation.  It wasn’t the humans.  Especially not the one with the camera.  I was puking in fear.

Jamie quickly replied, “No sir.”  And we backed away from the door.

Then he left his snack and headed back down the stairs to the yard.

Refusing to be intimidated by an animal with a cone shaped face, I grabbed a broom, and opened the door.  Slamming the broom on the porch [to keep him away of course], Jamie grabbed the bag of trash and brought it inside.

And after rebagging it, I set it right up against the inside of the door.  Where he could see it, but not touch it.  Or gnaw it.

Cause I find some sort of sick satisfaction in the idea that in the end, I outsmarted him.

And he finds some sort of sick satisfaction in eating my trash.

To each his own.

So on Friday I was talking on the phone with a friend, only a few years younger than myself, and she has made some decisions that break my heart.  Involving her boyfriend.  [I'm keeping it G rated, but you know what I mean.]  I love her, nothing changes that.  I’m just sad for her.  So I spent some time on Saturday praying for her.  And asking God how to help.

And as I prayed, I thought back to student ministry.  Because honestly, the best way to help a 26 year old choose purity is to teach a 12 year old to choose purity, and why. And I felt my heart soften.

[This conversation with God was part of Him prepping me to give away my email address to a youth director in a city where I swore I wouldn't do youth ministry. Just so you know.]

I went to a new church on Sunday morning.  It’s the first plant church out of Midtown (the church I’ve been going to) – called Mercy Hill.  It meets about a mile from my house.  In fact, it is the plant for my neighborhood.  And the more I learned about the plant church, the more my heart grew for it.  And for my neighborhood.  So I went.

All by myself.  To a church of 50 people.  Who are all friends.  Yikes is right.

The whole idea of being settled here was never far from my mind that morning.  Even as I teared up during church, completely due to nerves, I kept praying, “God, settle me.  God, settle me.”

During the service, the pastor had the new youth guy stand up.  Of course.  Even though he is the overall Midtown youth guy, he and his wife go to Mercy Hill.  So, men gathered around him and prayed for him as he begins this job as youth director. I thought, “Oh, that’s nice.  The youth dude.”

Ahem.

A few minutes later, during the meet and greet time, guess which husband and wife team made a beeline for me?

Yep.  You got it.  Youth dude [better known as "Chad"] and wife head straight for me.  After about 3 sentences of small talk, I knew what I wanted to say.  I was given, in that instant, a chance to respond to God’s invitation to settle in Nashville.

“Do you need volunteers?”, I asked.

And that brother had his iPhone pulled out quicker than one would think humanly possible.

I don’t know if he will email me.  I just know that I did my part.  I said to myself and to him and to God, “I’m willing to settle in Nashville.  I’m willing to invest here.”

For me personally, this is the deepest investment I can make, more than buying a house or getting a new driver’s license.  Am I still scared?  Yes.  Because I don’t want to add names to my list of left behinds.  But I am not in charge of my own future and I am not running my own timeline.  I think part of the reason my life was successful in Marietta (you know what I mean) was because I lived like I was never leaving.  I invested 100% with the understanding [laugh] that I was there to stay. I planted roots, then they got ripped up and shipped north.

So now it’s time to live in Nashville like I’m never leaving.  Though that breaks my heart a lot to even think, and God may move me right on outta here in no time flat, I’m going to invest in the people, the students, that God puts in my path and I’m gonna act like I’m here to stay.  I’ve been scuffing my shoes around this dirt long enough.  Time to put down some roots and love some people.

This is what it looks like when I settle.

I told myself, and anyone who would listen, that I was NOT doing student ministry (youth group) in Nashville.

Nope.  No way.  And I’ll go ahead and answer your questions-

No, I’m not burnt out.  No, I’m not too old. No, I’m not over it.

I’m scared.

Allow me to explain.

I’ve been doing student ministry for 9 1/2 years.  It started at East Cobb UMC.  Summers 1999 and 2000.  Then St. James UMC in Athens.  Fall 2000-Spring 2005.  Then RiverStone Church.  Summer 2005-Summer 2008.

I love it.  I always have.  I love the messy games, the retreats, the late night conversations, the crushes, the tears, all of it.  Middle school.  High school.  College.  Any of them.  I wrote a few years ago in my journal that I felt the most alive when I was in ministry to students.  And its true.  The best parts of my heart beat stronger when I’m hanging out with a bunch of high school girls, sharing about Jesus and recipes and earrings.

But not here.  Not in Nashville.  Because students are smart and they don’t want you spending time with them for a few months and then bailing.  They can smell a short-termer one hundred miles away.  Part of loving high school and middle school students is investing in them.  Committing to them through a time in their lives that is difficult and challenging…on a good day.

And strewn throughout the state of Georgia are teens that I have loved deeply.  Students that I have invested in for years…. and then left.  Not with the goal to hurt them, but just because I moved.  But students were hurt in the process.  I know.  They’ve told me.

Sometimes I feel like my exit is far more memorable than my investment.  Sometimes I feel like by leaving, I’ve hurt the students more than if I had never come along at all.

And the idea of doing it again scares me to death.  The guilt I feel for leaving the East Cobb kids and the St. James kids and the RiverStone kids plagues me.  Seriously.  Because the last, THE LAST, thing I EVER wanted to do was to hurt any of these students.  I adore them.  Then I hurt them when God asks me to move.  And I wonder, “Do they remember that I was there?  Or do they remember that I’m gone?”  I’m not afraid of being forgotten.  I’m afraid of being remembered for leaving.

I just don’t want to do it again.  ESPECIALLY in a place where I feel that I am a temporary resident.  I’m the LAST type of person that needs to hang out with the students here.  The type of person that isn’t committed to staying.

Ugh.  It’s making my throat tighten just writing this.

So……. why is my email address in the Midtown youth director’s iPhone?

To be continued tomorrow…..