beautiful.

Several things have been roiling about my mind lately. Some deep, others just fun. So here they are...

Wednesday night at youth group my small group had such a fantastic discussion. I co-lead a group of jr. high (6th - 8th grades) girls, and you can imagine how chatty they can be! This is actually one of the things I love about jr. highers - and my list of loves about them is quite long! Anyhow, these girls were goin' to town, and it was really great.

The topic of the night was King Nebuchadnezzar and his pride, and where that took him. We got into this discussion about pride, what it can do if it reels out of control, and what healthy pride looks like. These girls were all over it.

One thing to note about folks when they're at the jr. high age: developmentally they are all over the map. In terms of cognition, they are transitioning from being primarily concrete thinkers to being able to think abstractly. That in and of itself is a truly wonder-full thing - I am in awe when I watch them straining and tugging at their own brains, reaching to comprehend something in a new and profound way. You can almost see the smoke coming out of their ears. :)

I loved hearing them share from the heart. One, who is quite a proficient writer, shared that her school (a prep academy) is in the midst of exams that are pretty hefty on the essay end of things. She is an 8th grader, and her sister (in 6th grade) goes to the same prep school. She talked about how her sister is presently taking a class from her (the girl in my group) favorite teacher - a teacher who is extremely challenging. This gal's sister got her score back from her exam and got 100% on her essays! While the gal in my small group was obviously over-the-top-proud of her kid sister, she honestly shared that she was struggling with feeling jealous - - because SHE is the writer in the family, and it is new to her that her sister would be such a good writer as well. I wish you could have been in the room to see her raw honesty in the moment. It was just beautiful. And it opened up additional raw-honest conversation [or as my friend Becker would say: v&0 sharing - vulnerable and open :) ].

This also opened the door to begin talking about whether or not it's okay to feel pride about something you do well.

My response? Wow, why not?

Of course it's okay to feel great about something you do well. In fact, I really believe a bigger issue today (esp. in Christianity) is the fear of feeling good about something you do well.

So, how do you temper that so the pendulum doesn't swing the opposite direction and cause you to become an arrogant wretch? And even more specifically (and more difficult, I think), in light of our conversation that night, how do temper your own "feel-good" so that you don't forget about God in the process?

Hmmmm... I'm tempted to share where we went with that, but I'd rather hear from anyone out there who has thoughts on the matter. So pipe in - tell me what you think. I'll wait a few days and see if there are any responses - then I'll let you know more of our discussion details. I'm looking forward to this!

On an utterly different note, and more on the light-hearted side, check this out. If you're a child of the 60's - or maybe your parents are - you'll appreciate this little ditty. It's less than 10-minutes long. Be sure you've got the volume turned up on your computer - gotta enjoy the music of the era!

ciao!