After being married, living in California and living the youth pastor's wife life for almost a year, there are a few things I've learned that I never thought I would need to know. Also, there are a few things that I'm really glad I learned, but that I also wish someone maybe would have clued me in on prior to this whole new life. But who knows, maybe tons of people actually did tell me these things and this is just more proof that I am actually an embarrassingly terrible listener.
1. You don't have to be with students 24/7.
When we first moved here, I felt like if we weren't constantly surrounded by children ages 11-18, we must have been doing something wrong. But then we realized that they don't love us any less and we don't love them any less if we don't see them every day. In fact, we probably love them more because we aren't witness to every ridiculously teenage thing they insist on doing.
2. There is quite an awkward, sad, lonely and just generally unpleasant stage that falls in-between the adventure of moving somewhere far away, and the point where it really feels like home.
These are the stages of moving somewhere new: 1. HURRAY EVERYTHING IS AWESOME AND ADVENTUROUS AND YAYYYYY. 2. This place is actually nothing like where I moved from and spent the first 20+ years of my life. Weird. 3. Wow, I really miss the place that I spent the first 20+ years of my life and all the people that I love. 4. This place is the worst, I want to go home. 5. Okay, I guess this place isn't soooo bad. 6. I could probably live here and not hate it. 7. I actually really like it here and now remember why we moved here in the first place. 8. This is home.
3. You don't always have to be the boss. In fact, you definitely shouldn't always be the boss.
I have learned a lot about submission and taking the backseat to someone else and their passions/talents this past year. It's really not always fun, but especially for me, a lot of growth has come from it, even if I didn't always love it.
4. Church family is the best.
Just come over to our house and look at every piece of furniture that someone in the church has given us...it would be every piece of furniture we own, minus a bookshelf and coffee table that I found at a yard sale. Also, I can't count the amount of times that someone has cooked us food, sent us a well timed encouragement card, or just generally made us feel like moving to the other side of the country was actually a good idea.
5. As you become a better fighter, so does your spouse.
And here I thought that for the rest of my life, I was just going to win every single fight, purely on my arguing skill level...
6. Students can hurt your feelings, and you may not always like them, but you must try your hardest to love them like Jesus does.
Honestly, this has been a super hard one for me to learn. Most of my previous experience working with teenagers was summer camp, where they come for a week, think you're the coolest human being on earth just because you're their counselor, and then they leave and you're still forever immortalized in their mind. A pretty sweet deal, but nothing like what actual youth ministry is like. In long-term youth ministry, not only do you see their faults and weaknesses more intensely, but they see yours, and they also may not know anything about Jesus and so are much less forgiving than kids who grew up in the church. Sometimes, you didn't even do anything wrong, and they're just mad at you because they're fourteen and fourteen-year-olds are famous for their irrationality. So while I've had my feelings hurt plenty of times by rude teenage girls, or a student who refuses to come back to youth group for a few weeks because you wouldn't let them talk to their friends the whole time Adam was speaking, the minute I want to give up on one of them, Jesus reminds me that he hasn't given up on any of our kids and so we shouldn't either. No matter how far they seem to be from Him, we still pray and hope that they find their way back to Jesus, even if we never get to see it.
7. No one in California actually knows anything about the rest of the world.
Okay, that's not entirely true, because I have met a few well-informed west coasters, but on the whole, when I tell people I grew up in Pennsylvania, I have serious doubts they could even really find that on a map.
8. No matter where you move, most of your best friends will end up coming from the Midwest.
Seriously though, even 2000 miles away from the Midwest, many of our closest friends here grew up in Michigan, Indiana, and all those other incredibly flat states. Of course we have many great friends who have always lived here in California too, but it's nice to have people around who understand things that are wonderfully familiar to you.
9. Marriage is hard sometimes, but on the whole, one of God's best ideas.
I love being married, and I would recommend it to anyone.
10. You never realize how important it is to have people around you who truly understand your heart, until you're very far from all the people who do.
As much as it sucks to be away from most of the people who know how to understand me, love me, and call me out better than anyone else, it makes our time so much sweeter when we are together. It has also taught me how important it is for me to seek out those people around me here in California. Luckily, God has given me some of those people here, and I couldn't be more thankful for them.
11. California is a great place to live.
We love our community, church, friends and life out here. God has been so faithful to us, and we know that won't change.
xoxo
hannah
