Vision and Goals

I had my last teaching small group of this year with my high school girls last night! I have led high school small group for three years now and as each year (school year) has come to a close I have mixed emotions. There is usually a feeling of some relief - we made it through the year, it went fairly well, and now I have some time off. But, that feeling of relief is mixed with feelings of excitement, sadness, disappointment, and hope. Excitement because I know this awesome group of students that are going to head out into the world and do amazing things. Sadness because many of them are leaving. Disappointment because I wonder if I've done enough, left them with enough strength and knowledge to stay strong in their faith in a world that's tough. And hope because I know all of that is not up to me....God is watching over them...the foundation is there....they know the truth....and God is much bigger than any of us could ever imagine.

Last night we had dinner at Atlanta Bread and just hung out for a little while. The girls signed each others year books and chatted about graduation, colleges, the upcoming seniors, summer, movies and just about anything. I had prepared something to discuss but decided to keep it pretty informal. I spoke about 20 minutes - taking them back to a couple messages that were given at Seacoast over the past month or so. One from Steve Furlick and the other from Geoff Surratt. From Steve's message we discussed the need to have a vision for life and from that to have patience knowing that God's timing is perfect. From Geoff's message we discussed being loved, beautiful, valuable and safe and the need to derive our image of self from the Lord. Our group's foundation was based on Proverbs 31 which made this a perfect ending. We talked again about what makes up a Proverbs 31 woman....I'm very proud of my girls they covered just about all of the description from memory....and we talked about our growth in that direction.

Earlier this year I had planned to discuss life goals with them and share the goals that I had created for this year. I ended up at the last minute not doing that lesson because the Lord laid something else on my heart for the night. But, last night, it fit perfectly. We discussed vision, being Godly women with a Godly view of self, and putting a plan (life goals/vision/mission) in place in order to be successful.

My girls are amazing and I'm so proud of all of them. I know that they will stumble and make mistakes just like all of us as they grow but I also know that they will do great things in this world! They are very loved, beautiful, valuable and safe!!