feeling pretty in my dress

Today I came home and got dressed up and went to church to cater food at the youth group semi-formal. I remember when I was their age, and it was such a big thing to get all dressed up. I would spend hours on it- planning what I'd wear, how my hair would be, doing my nails... Today I came home from Rutgers and spent an hour doing Missy's hair. I spent about 15 minutes on myself. I did that last year too, with Brittany and Diana. I've gotten pretty good at managing my hair (its long enough) so now I can do stuff for all my little sisters. It was fun making this night special for them, and taking tons of pictures as they danced, not to mention the awesome DJ! Next year, however, we definitely need someone with a videocamera. Still shots sometimes don't explain enough. Like Billy doing a very good impression of N'sinc, despite the fact that they are a group, and he was dancing alone and doing just as good a job. Or Dan, "blessing" people with his scepter... I've always thought he'd make a good successor to "Bishop Adam." If anyone understood that last comment which smacked of inside-joke-ishness, post a comment, we'll reminisce.

Anyway, I had a sort of epiphany right before we started cleaning up. For anyone that reads this who doesn't know, the church youth group has been through hell and back again. Or at least, I think they are working their way back. Its been a long, tough road. So, I've grown accustomed to sudden announcements such as "So-and-so is now your new youth pastor." Or worse, "So-and-so is moving to somewhere out of state..." People have been coming and going for so long that I feel my heart is stretched all over North America. And actually, one of the former youth interns is now in Iraq, so that's beyond North America.

Anyway, after much rambling, my epiphany was this: there's a young couple in the church that sometimes helps out with the youth group, and I have a feeling that, whether anyone knows it yet or not, they have a big potential for youth pastoring. They are getting their feet wet now; they'd better be careful. Sometimes working with the youth group is like that scene from the Matrix where Neo sticks his finger in the liquid mirror and it won't let go, but slowly works its way up his arm. Sometimes there's no getting out of the rabbit hole. Anyway, they are awesome and if our church were a democracy, I'd vote for them for youth pastors. But, its more of an oligarchy, and they may not be ready just yet anyway. Still, sometimes my epiphanies are correct. The future will tell. Ooh another Matrix analogy- the scene where Tank tells Neo "if you are the one, WOW, we've got exciting times ahead." Well, ok he doesn't say "wow" he says something else. I don't know why I keep thinking about the Matrix. I didn't particularly care for it. Although, it was 500x's better than "Matrix Rebooted" and "Matrix Regurgitated."

Anyway, thats my blog for the night. Mostly, I wanted to write about my epiphany, because youth pastors are something I've been asking God to bring to those kids for so long now. They need someone to be there for them.