I was on Facebook the other day and I happened to see a post from a girl who was in my first youth group. She is a college Freshman this year and has chosen to attend one of the biggest party schools in the country. As I looked at her profile picture and then scrolled down to see her posts, I was saddened. Her picture showed her and two of her friends in very short dresses with lots of cleavage and high heels. Her posts bosted of getting a fake ID and going out to a dance club.
It wasn't so much her actions that saddened me, although they did leave me worried. What saddened me was that I had poured a lot of my time and energy into this girl when she was in Jr. High. We hung out together frequently, going to the mall or making dinner at her house. I knew her and her family well. I shared my faith with her and prayed for her. My last year at her church I remember watching her begin to change. She began to shift away from her family and towards the immense peer pressures at her school. These included the need to buy $100 jeans and shorts with "Juicy" on the back. I had no idea that five years later she would have fallen so far into this pressure that she would be getting fake ID's and dressing like a pop star.
I look at her Facebook and can't help but feel like I failed. Somehow, despite all the time I spent with this girl, and how much I pointed her to Jesus, she still chose to go the way of the world. I'm sure that Jesus felt this way too. One of his disciples, the ones he had spent most of his time with and shared the deep mysteries of his Father with, chose to deny him. Another betrayed him and gave him up to be killed.
I'm sure Jesus felt the way I feel now. Stunned, incredulous, and sad. It helps to know that Jesus experienced these same feelings and yet he was not discouraged. He had a plan and he knew that his message was bigger. When we feel like we failed and when students we have poured our lives into choose to walk away, we can remember that God's redemptive story is so much bigger. We can keep them in our prayers and trust that God still has something in mind for them.
