My sophomore year of high school.
At an arts festival.
Well, arts competition.
A Christian arts competition.
For youth.
End of the weekend.
Time for too many people to crowd into an auditorium for awards.
My youth group is seated all together. We’ve all competed in different categories. Some as groups and some alone. I was there for a solo drama.
Announce a category, list the top three, call first place on stage.
My church competed every year but rarely left with awards.
One year we did leave with a new rule about how we weren’t allowed to complain about the one church who inevitably won everything because they always do and it’s not fair and I bet the judges—
My youth pastor made the rule. We needed it. If you had a dollar for every negative comment we had about that church, you could fund a missions trip. We were numb to our own resentment and needed to be snapped out of it. He was adamant about breaking the thought loop. It was like he put up a road sign at the entrance of our favorite trail of thought: Turn back. This way leads to death. He was trying to save us.
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2:8: So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.”
One way we can offer “our own selves” is by allowing ourselves to become a character in someone else’s story. The only reason I have a story to tell about that award ceremony is because of my youth pastor. I was ready for it fly unremarkably, but he stepped in.
Back in high school, I really didn’t like myself. Now I only kinda don’t like myself sometimes. That’s growth, people.
Back then I didn’t know it was a problem not to like myself. I thought I was being objective. I knew I was annoying, and the best place for me was out of sight and out of mind. That’s one of the reasons I liked performing on stage: for a brief moment people were fine paying attention to me doing all things I got in trouble for at school. Walking off stage meant returning to my disappearing act. I wanted to make myself as small and out of the way as possible. I got pretty good at it. To this day, I’ll still have people stand next to me and exclaim “you’re much taller than I realized.” Thanks. Years of practice.
The ceremony went on. Category after category. Small vocal ensemble. Percussion solo. Short sermon. Puppet sign language. Large vocal solo. Loudest Prayer. (Okay, some of those are fake).
First place in Small Ensemble Space Rebellion
They got to my category, Drama Solo (Han’s cousin).
I wasn’t nervous. I knew I wasn’t going to win. Just because I liked performing didn’t mean I was good at it. I wasn’t. That ONE CHURCH was probably going to—
Ok, somehow I was in the top 3.
Caught me off guard.
I tried to ignore anyone else from my church pretending to be excited for me. I knew better. In a second, we’d be clapping for someone else before moving on to more important categories everyone in the youth actually cared about.
Then they called my name. Like, my first and last.
I had won.
AND THEN I FINALLY FELT GOOD ABOUT MYSELF BECAUSE I BEAT OTHER PEOPLE AND PROVED I WAS ACTUALLY WORTH SOMETHING.
THE END.
ROLL CREDITS. BE INSPIRED. WIN YOUR WAY OUT OF DEPRESSION.
Not really.
Winning couldn’t change anything. I can easily talk myself out of caring. Awards go to the wrong people all the time. Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar. Mistakes are made. Don’t get too excited. It doesn’t change anything.
That’s exactly what I would have been thinking on my walk to the stage if something hadn’t completely derailed my normal train of thought.
When they called my name, before I could think any of my normal thoughts about myself, I heard my youth pastor.
My youth pastor was, and still is, a very passionate man. About everything. Jesus, sports, the right way to eat the free ice cream cone at Jason’s Deli.
But this moment nearly broke my brain.
They said my name and immediately a celebration shot out of him like fireworks. It knocked me back.
He didn’t have time to think or plan his reaction. It wasn’t like You know what would be good for Taylor? If I pretended to be excited for him and acted like this actually mattered. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth cheered.
It was all I could think about the whole walk up. There was no room left in my mind to discredit the judges or have any ill will toward the one church. My brain was fully engaged with something I couldn’t process. I had seen my youth pastor excited before, but for me? Why?
But the more the instant replay looped and the more the shout echoed in my ears, the more the message seeped into me.
Someone I look up to believes I’m worth celebrating even when I don’t believe it myself?
What a gift.
Isn’t that the message of the gospel? But my youth pastor wasn’t interested in just giving the message. He gave his own self. His cheer. He gave this moment, which might seem so small in my telling, but little moments can become giant memories. Those memories become stories. Those stories are how I understand myself and the world. And there have been times when I needed to Holy Spirit to tell me those stories again.
Someone is excited about you existing.
And the coolest part? If my old youth pastor reads this, he won’t remember the moment nearly as well as I do. Of course not. It was nothing special. Just him being him.
Him just living his life is what changed mine.
Again I say, what a gift.