The Kids Are Alright

I have written many times in this space about my experiences with teenagers during the time I was involved in youth ministry at Grove Avenue. So many years have passed since those days there’s always the danger that I have romanticized the experience beyond recognition. We tend to do that with our memories. But yesterday I was reminded of why I loved working with teenagers so much. I received a long text from one of my favorite kids from those years. She is now a grown woman with a grown up job in another state. Before I share her words with you, a little background.

All teenagers might be created equal, but they don’t stay equal for long. Some of them, by the time I got them were disasters. Others were fragile flowers who I couldn’t imagine surviving in the real world as adults. Still others looked to me like sure things, confident, smart and engaging. In my ten years of youth ministry I met all kinds of kids, but I always seemed to have a soft spot for the ones with the rougher edges. These were the kids who asked the hardest questions, the ones who didn’t always say or do the right thing. They could be counted on to say just about anything, often inappropriate things. In other words, these were the kids who reminded me of exactly who I was at 17. This girl was one of those kids.

Each year, a group of kids would graduate out of the group and either go off to college or out into the workforce. Occasionally I would take one of them aside with a proposition that went like this:

“OK, kiddo. I want to make a deal with you. I want to give you something...but there are strings attached!!”

Then I would hand them a clean, crisp $100 bill. Their eyes would light up, but because these were unique kids, their eyes would narrow a bit...”Mister D, what are you up to??”

Then I would explain that this $100 bill was special. I wanted them to fold it neatly and hide it in their wallet and forget that it’s in there for a while. “One day,” I would say, “this $100 dollar bill is going to come in handy. There’s no telling what it might do. You might be presented with an investment opportunity, there might be an emergency that comes up where this forgotten 100 bucks will come to the rescue, the possibilities are endless. But there’s a catch....whatever you spend it on and no matter where you are when you do...you have to track me down and tell me the story.”

So, yesterday, I got this:

Hey Mister D! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about this when it happened!  I drove to the Atlanta airport and parked my car in long term parking to go home for Christmas and the whole ride on the shuttle bus, I just kept thinking I wanted to give the driver the $100 bill. I’d never had such an overwhelming feeling about it all the years I’ve had it. He was just this sweet older middle aged black man talking about barbeque and his family, nothing special or that gave an impression he was particularly in need. But I got off the shuttle, told him about how you’d given me something when I graduated and said if I ever felt compelled to give it to someone, I should. And that I’d had it for almost 7 years and never felt compelled but I did tonight, and handed him the bill. He got teary eyed and hugged me and told me I’d blessed him and we wished each other a merry Christmas and I left to get on my flight! I don’t know how it blessed him or to what extent, but I really felt the Holy Spirit compelling me for some reason I’ll probably never know. I had actually forgotten about it since moving to Georgia, and sitting on the bus all of a sudden I just thought, “you have that $100 bill in your wallet” and couldn’t stop feeling that I needed to give it to him.

When I read this note emotions started welling up in me from all over the place. I pictured this spunky kid embracing the stunned shuttle driver, two total strangers hugging in an airport parking lot, wishing each other a merry Christmas. He will tell the story of the crazy white girl who gave him a $100 dollar bill with a tear in his eye for the rest of his life. How much will that story, that memory, be worth to him?

Nowadays, in some circles, it has become fashionable to rag on Millennials. Well, I worked with two or three hundred of them more than a decade ago before anyone was throwing that word around as an epitaph. I publish this story in part because it was such a blessing to me, but also as a reminder of something I know for a fact...the kids are alright.