Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Coppertone Sunscreen = Gentle Reminders


What is it that helps you remember things? I dont mean like just general knowledge 2+2=4 kinda stuff, I mean like what is it that helps you remember events or moments in your life?

For me, I find that music is one of the biggest memory generators, followed closely by smell.......
Yes Smell......I know thats gotta be weird, but I swear every single time I smell coppertone sunscreen, it takes me back to like the summer after my 8th grade year. I was with my youth group in our church van, on the way back from a retreat in Destin. Man what were they(youth leadership) thinking?

Destin on the beach...........Really?

Anyway, It's like that is a moment that is etched in my brain like forever. Everyone was basically baked and nicely slathered in coppertone sunscreen. Couped up in in van driving back from Destin, FL. For some strange reason, I had a whole row of seats to my self. THis allowed me to really just rest and reflect on the time I had spent that week, growing closer to a at that time new youth group, and growing closer to God. I think this is when God first told me that he wanted to use me in youth ministry. Of course at that time I was too young and too unsure what that even meant. I knew that I had seen and felt God move in our Youth Group, and I thought it was an awesome responsibility that our leaders had to motivate us to get up early every morning and spend time alone with God. How Awesome that was to experience sunrise on the beach, and to experience God's creation as it was waking up. 

I spent the next 4 years shadowing my youth pastors, learning everything I could. It was about somewhere in my Senior year that "life" started getting in the way of what God wanted me to do. I had to have a job, had to get seious about school, had to into get into college, had to have a girlfriend, etc..... I still found time to hang out with my friends from church, but it seems like after I graduated and made a public profession that I wanted to go into full time ministry that life went into overdrive, and it was hard to fit God into that equation. Funny how that happens huh?
Well, it's only taken me a little less than 20 years to know that my goal has not changed, my goal is to still be in full time youth ministry. 
I feel like God still wants me their.
Strange what a whiff of Coppertone will do for you !?!