Drawing a line in the sand

Junior High Students are going through so many changes and discoveries in life.  Because of this they also need guidance in more areas than just how to study the Bible, or when to say NO!

We have to take a variety of questions from our students.  Who should I date?  How much time should I spend working on homework?  My parents are deep in sin, so what should I do?  I am overweight, should I just quit trying?  Why does nobody like me?  Students are full of questions that stretch way beyond just our biggest concerns of being followers of Jesus.

Parents also come at us with some of the same questions.  Parents and students think we should have all the answers because “You are the Pastor!”  So what do we do.  Do we deal with each and every one of these issues, or do we need to draw a line in the sand and say I am not going to worry about that.

A few years ago I was faced with an issue of an obese student that knew there was a problem and she just couldn’t bring herself to do anything about it.  I truly cared about this student and knew that her obesity was causing more problems than just the physical ones.  As a Junior High Minister I knew this was only going to get worse when she moved on to High School, so I felt I had to do something.  I knew that her self image and confidence were terrible.  She felt that nobody liked her for who she was, so she want to try and be somebody else.  The problem was she wanted to be somebody that would be called easy in today’s world.  She knew she had a way to get boys to like her.

This scared me as friends from her school would talk about the way she acted and talked when she wasn’t at church.  I was faced with the decision of how to handle this situation.

In my situation I knew I had to address the root of the situation.  It didn’t do any good to talk about the way she talked and acted with out getting to the root of the problem.  I got a female sponsor to work with me and speak to this girl to get to the problem itself.

I wish I could tell you that this girls life changed and everything is great now, but I think we all know this isn’t always how it works.

The point is we have to make choices about what issues to deal with.  I can tell you that if an overweight student walks into our room I don’t even think twice about their weight as I know our student’s bodies change at a rapid rate at this age.  When we see a bigger more detrimental issue coming from an issue like this we have to make a move.  Don’t be scared to safely cross the line when God calls you too.