I haven't written on here in awhile. And I certainly haven't written as much as I should.
The move to Chicago was big and scary. I wrote some post on here then, and wrote a ton for my own journal. Then I adjusted and there didn't seem to be much to write about. Then my school load became real and there didn't seem time to write.
Yet so much has happened, and is happening, but I don't know that I have the words.
To encapsulate, to sum up, to get to a point--these all seem like the goal, and they all seem impossible.
New ideas form, new experiences form.
Building on each other, influencing each other, contradicting one another.
I wake up each morning and look at myself in the mirror. Each morning I see someone new. Sometimes there is confidence behind the eyes, sometimes there is fear.
Other days my reflection echos back a man full of doubt.
Then of course there are the days when it is clear I simply need to go back to bed for ten minutes.
I look at my schoolwork
The grades. The tests. The effort.
Somedays the work isn't so hard and I know that I belong in this world.
Other times I feel like a slacker and fool.
Then there are the days where I don't care about the theory and simply want to tell the story.
The story of God. Of his care, of his Love of his Son.
I want to tell my story. My story about God. His care for me, his love for me, his love for his son.
I want to tell this story to children. I want them to know and not to doubt. I want them to know that God is with them today and tomorrow.
I want them to know that God is with them when they grow old like me.
When they look in the mirror and see fear staring back.
To know that he is there on the days they feel like a fool.
and I wonder....
I wonder do I want to teach these things so that they will believe?
or so that I will believe?
I know God is there. But do I trust that God is here?
I know that God loves me, but do I live as though I am forgiven?
Now this isn't a crisis of faith or even of calling. Deep down in my bones
in my marrow
in my soul
I KNOW that I am called, that I am made to teach Children the story of God. There is nothing I would rather do, there is nothing that I am better at.
But I know that some piece is for me. Some sliver of my efforts, some sliver of my desire and motivation is to make me feel better.
And I wonder.
I wonder if it is to make me feel better now
or make me feel better about what happened in my past.
My father died when I was 12. Most of you already know this.
When I was 13 everyone at my school (the school I had been at since Kindergarten, the school where my mother taught) knew who I was and what happened the year before. I was Jesse, whose father just died. This new title that I now wore was often said in hushed tones, least I overheard. As if I didn't know, as if I had forgotten, as if I could forget.
I moved to high school but stayed in the same private school. The distance of time and the expectation of who I was becoming (an adult) caused the title to slowly drift away. or rather behind. it was still there, it simply wasn't the first thing you knew about me. It wasn't my title, it was slowly becoming my past.
College-the time where you can reinvent yourself. The time where the past is the past and you are free to find who you want to be. I wanted to be just Jesse. I wanted to not be the kid whose father died. For one I was no longer a kid. For two I wanted people to see all the other things that I was.
Granted there are those who shared my life, shared the stories of my past and knew that my father had died. Certainly anyone who did ministry with me knew the story. The event had become a story.
No longer a title pinned to my chest, or rope drug behind me. It was now mine. I could take it out and put it away when I wanted to. It informed me of the pain of childhood and drove me to do what I could to make other children's stories better. There was only one way I knew how to do that then (there is only one way I know now).
Tell them THE story. The one of God and his love.
I graduated college and headed toward being a classroom teacher. Over 12 years, with a stop over at camp, God directed me to Children's Ministry. We'll pick up there next time.
--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau
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