The Yellow Convertible in My Life

Joy was six years older than me. As a teenager that felt like a big age difference. When we started hanging out, her parents had just bought her a yellow convertible to celebrate her college graduation. When she would pick me up and we'd drive off together with the top down, I felt pretty cool.

Joy came from a family of 12 kids, all strong leaders. A good proportion of them were scattered throughout our metropolitan area, working with youth groups at various churches. During the summer these youth groups would come together on Tuesday nights for a big bash at a barn out in the country. The hour bus ride there was itself a ton of fun, to be sure, but when we arrived, there were even more good times. Over 1000 kids spilled off buses and gathered to play wild games, watch funny skits, sing our hearts out to the rafters of the big ol' barn, and then listen to a "hold-your-attention" talk about faith in God. Many came to a personal relationship with God during those warm summer nights, and for myself, it was a time of intense spiritual growth.

I could never really understand Joy's interest in me. I was a "preacher's kid" (PK) and had had a pretty ideal, "Leave it to Beaver" kind of upbringing. I didn't have any big challenges in life that I needed her counsel about. Yet she, as one of my church youth leaders, chose to spend time with me. We would study the Bible together, and at other times Joy would just take me along for whatever she was doing, talking as we went. Sometimes we'd go to special shops, or to her parents' lake house to canoe ... we would just "do life" together. I guess you could say she had a "ministry of hanging out" with me. Back then it was known as "discipling;" today it is likely to be called "mentoring."

During those years (and it continued into college for I attended the college that Joy taught at), I grew a good deal in my walk with Christ. But I also learned, by her example, to disciple others. I was taught that everyone should mentor someone younger in the faith, and at the same time, be encouraged or mentored by someone older than them. And so I went about my life in this way, naively assuming others knew the concept and were doing the same thing. After all, Christ gave us the example.

When I am doing this actively, I find it stretches me and I grow more as a result. I think this is how God intends it to be. Stretch ... and you grow. And I also realize how much a gift this was in my life, for I know now that not many have had such a privilege as they came along in their faith. And not so many grasp or practice the concept. How God richly blessed me.

I don't see many yellow convertibles any more, but I don't need a glimpse of such a vehicle to take me back to those years of being discipled. I remember them often and will always be incredibly grateful to Joy, a young woman who cared enough to "hang out" with me and bring me along in the faith.