A fun night at youth group (but I can't take ALL the credit!!)

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As I mentioned in my last blog it was my turn last night to organise the games for the youth group - I was meant to be doing it with someone else but they weren't there so I'd happily opted to do it alone - sometimes I prefer to work on my own. At the beginning of the week I was feeling pretty confident about it all and I figured this might be the perfect opportunity I'd been waiting for to show the group the 'real me' - the Katie that's confident, extrovert and able to lead, the Katie I've struggled to show them all before.

When Vincent messaged me to check everything was OK my response was 'Everything's fine,trust me!' I laughed to myself, thinking he probably didn't have much confidence in me to organise a fun night of games - after all, I probably don't come across as a very fun person sometimes - this was my chance to show him exactly the opposite.

But by the time Saturday arrived I was starting to feel quite nervous, wondering if they'd like the games I'd prepared and if it would all go Ok. I suddenly felt the weight of responsibility that I'd put on my shoulders and I knew that if it didn't go well it would look bad one me and that's what I was afraid of.

I prayed that it would all go well and that everyone would really enjoy the games. I had no idea how much God was really going to answer my prayers.

As I walked in to the meal part, half an hour late as usual, they all let out a cheer and clapped - I didn't feel as good about this as I had done the first time they'd done it - they do it for pretty much anyone. But despite my nerves about the evening to come I felt confident - I'd made an effort to dress well and do myself up and I reminded myself again and again of God's words to me - 'You're a beautiful woman'.

The first game that night was 'Chubby Bunnies' - a messy but fun game involving lots of marshemellows - I'd been worried that I wouldn't have bought enough for one round but as it happened we had enough for three crazily fun rounds.

After that it was a team game - standing on a row of chairs they had to get themselves into an order of height/date of birth within 2 minutes. This also proved to be a good laugh and I loved being in a position of leadersip for a change. For that night, their attention was on me.

Then it was the chocolate/hat/scarf/glove game - I'd even been really nice and brought along a big bar of Cadburys chocolate which I'd brought back with me - this proved to be another really successful and fun game - the atmosphere was buzzing - thank YOU Holy Spirit!

And it just kept getting better - we played two other games which everyone loved and found great - in the end Vincent even came up to me and said they were going to put off the 'spiritual' time for a bit longer because everyone was enjoying themselves so much! Seriously?! I just knew that was God's doing!

When we finally stopped the games two hours later, everyone gave me a huge round of applause and cheers. I haven't felt so good in ages but I know I mustn't take the whole credit for myself - it was as much the Holy Spirit's doing as it was mine - I tried to explain this to a few of the group when they came up to me afterwards and thanked me for organising such great games. Vincent told me I'd done a 'good job' - praise I won't forget for a VERY long time. Thank you God.

At the end of the night I felt my spirit do a huge high five with Jesus. We'd done it! And I learnt an important lesson that night - when God wants us to have victory in a certain situation He WILL give us victory. We just have to believe it.

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