The Gap

I spent the day with my junior high class today. It was funny when we planned today out and I told them I would make them lunch. Out of all of the food I could have made, they wanted Italian. But, hey, it was good!
They thought it was the most thrilling thing to take turns sitting in the back of the truck. I had to get onto them a few times for trying to "surf" back there. That made me pretty nervous, but luckily they didn't get hurt.
We picked out a movie at Blockbuster and they each wanted a pack of candy. Wow, talk about the sugar... I was pretty tired half way through the movie, but they were wide awake and insisted on playing a game of two-on-two basketball outside. That was pretty fun.
I think about it now and I really had a lot of fun. Even though I am their Sunday school teacher, there is no reason why I can't be their friend too. I want to start doing something like this at least once a year. It gives me the chance to see what these kids are like outside the four walls of church. They are all pretty amazing. I kept thinking how someday they will be the jr.'s and sr.'s in the youth group and wondering how much they would or would not change.
These past few years God has taught me a lot. Some experiances have been better than most, but God always got me through. I think about it and I wonder how it is that even in the worst times I was going through, I couldn't wait to be in front of that Sunday school class teaching. It's so amazing that when I sit there giving to them, I completely forget my circumstances or troubles. It's like I am so focused on seeing them advance forward that I forget to look at myself for an hour. I may have been crying my eyes out just an hour before class, but the moment I step in there, I feel great. I've spent hours on the floor in that Sunday school room during the week praying for each teenager that is in my class. Whatever passion there is within me to see them on fire for God must be God-driven, because I don't know where it came from. I don't know why it is that particular age always grips my heart. I just know that they represent a gap. I could be involved in this or that and volunteer for whatever, but ultimately in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about that gap.
Maybe it's my uncanny sense to always defend the underdogs. I can remember always being like that from the time I was little. Sticking up for the ones no one else would was a habit of mine that I never thought twice about. I feel like that age of 13-14 yr. olds is so overlooked. They are squished between the children and the youth group. They don't really feel like they fit in either of those places, so they join together and just try to make it through those couple of years. THAT is sad. It's during that age that most teens will make a decision to live for God or not. They are no longer kids and they have new decisions to make. Yet, very seldom are they helped through that period in their lives. They are too big to be kids anymore and then I have heard the 9-12th graders say mean things before about jr. high. That's so upsetting. It's like when you hit those years, you are walking through a hole that everyone just overlooks.
I don't overlook them. If nothing else, I want to continue to be there encouraging them that they are not just an overlooked gap, but they are just as important as the other age groups.
Start looking for the gaps in the age groups around you. If you find one, ask God how it can be filled.