“You’re a good father to me and a good father-figure to my friends.”

We have a group of High Schoolers that meet in our home on Sunday Nights from 8pm to 10pm each week.  It’s been years since I’ve been in a Life Group setting with teenagers…13 years to be exact--since I was a youth pastor.

Heidi and I have so enjoyed welcoming about 9 students into our home who are friends with Aly, but are also new in their relationship with God and hungry to seek truth.  They aren’t perfect, and don’t claim to be.  They are honest about their doubts and refreshingly tell it like it is.  I miss that about student ministry.

The last couple weeks we have been in the deep end of the pool in conversation.  Serious secrets and sins being exposed to the light; serious wounds being shared…burden bearing at its best!

This past Sunday Night one of those secrets was shared and tears were shed by the person sharing them as well as those of us who were hearing them.  It was a holy moment.  This kid’s peers stepped up and spoke love and truth into his heart with tears and tenderness.  Heidi and I simply asked questions to take them on the quest…they were the ones who decided to “go there”.  It’s infrequent that people ‘go there’ these days.

After all the students left, my daughter Aly gave me a hug before bed and whispered into my ear as I embraced her…

“You’re a good father to me and a good father-figure to my friends.”

I’m not sure I could have heard more powerful words from my Junior in High School.  I shake my head at what God is doing around me and I feel so humbled to be invited into these holy spaces where God’s Spirit is pulsating in palpable and tangible ways.

I’ll never forget these words from my second born.  They were life to my bones.