Teenagers.

Do you like teenagers? If you're like me, you can't live without em' and then after a bit of time with them, you feel like you want to move so far away and never share space with them again. It's like that all the time...in the truest sense of the word: a love/hate relationship. I work with teenagers in a private school in North Carolina. I wake up early and spend the day with kids who range from 14 to 18. I teach them, counsel them, and laugh with them.

To be quite honest with you--I absolutely love them.

They think they can change the world, they are inspired by authenticity, and they laugh at themselves, careful not to take life too seriously. We could take some lessons from them as far as I am concerned.

But don't get me wrong...I worry about them. They can't be still. They hate silence. They are owned by what other people think, they want more and settle for less all the time. So this is why I am called here--I am inspiring as much as I am inspired. And they love you back in a way that is not simple to describe....

So here's one story. My kids asked me if they could go around the room and each say something about every member in their class. They wanted to compliment each other, every student in the class. So we did it. And it took many days to get through it but it was worth it. They were able to cross lines of groups and social boundaries. It was right out of a movie, and I was left undone by the way they spoke to one another with such kindness.

We finished. And the next day they spoke up, "We want to all say something about you Miss Poulterer." I have to admit, though it was sweet, it was so uncomfortable. To sit in the front of the room and have each student speak to me things they saw in me, or loved about me, etc...I knew what would happen. I knew I would weep.

It started. And one student after another ...spoke words that changed me. I drifted back in my mind to times I have begged the Lord to show me that He is changing me, making me more like Him and most of all--redeeming me. By the end I was hardly able to speak. Their words drifted around the room and left me humbled, stilled, and speechless. I told them I didn't deserve those words. I told them that I didn't know what to do with them, or how to process them.

And then I knew who it was from. I began to see that the Lord Himself used these honest, loving kids to speak to me what He says about me and to share with me what HE sees in me...and there is nothing like that.

I will forever hold that moment in the forefront of my heart. I will never have an experience like that again, I am sure. It was supernatural and life-giving.

So when they get on my nerves, when they are too needy or too loud...when they do the wrong thing and are rude or ungrateful...I will think back to this time and be reminded that there is far more under the surface than what we can see when we see them in the halls. They are alive and they are worth investing in....