Amy loved because He first loved her.
Hey friends,
First off: I need to apologize because I have SUCKED at maintaining this blog. Actually, "sucked" is an understatement. I have reached a new level of suck. But, I never claimed to be compliant... I don't even wear my retainer regularly. (Sorry mom!)
Anyways, now that I'm back in the blogging world I figured I'd come back with a bang. I want to tell you about my Young Life leader who is now just one of my very best friends and favorite people ever. Her name is Amy Ihde.
Amy is the type of person who can get the attention of entire room just with how attractive her personality is. Plus it helps that she's a smokin' hot mom to 3 kiddos under the age of 4. She's just really great and if you've even spent 2 minutes talking to her, you'd agree. What I find most special about Amy, however, is how faithful she has remained to The Lord over her lifetime. She also just happens to be one of the most knowledgable people theologically I've ever met. She knows A LOT. You can only imagine how helpful that is to the kids who have never heard about Jesus and have 782374827347234 questions. Like myself back in the day.
I met Amy my junior year of high school and my first year at Enumclaw. I'm pretty sure it was somewhere random but I distinctly remember my mom saying, "you should start going to young life, I think you would really like Amy. I've heard amazing things." At the time I'm sure I thought that sounded like a good day but it took months and months of convincing from Lacey Nininger to actually come. So in January, I decided to check it out.
What happened however, blew my mind and changed my life forever. When I walked in Amy said hi to me, BY NAME. Whoa. I'm not sure anyone understands how important that was to me after years of feeling invisible. She also called me up to play a super embarrassing game where I had to hold a tube of lipstick in my mouth and apply it to someone else. Anyways, I killed it. Also, it was horrificly awkward. But I was sold. I kept coming back and ended up going to Malibu Club with Amy that summer. It was there, sobbing over a garbage can on the deck by the dining hall, that I gave my life to Christ. My life has never been the same, because it was also there that Amy encouraged me to apply to become a Young Life student leader.
My senior year I spent all my free time with my best friends who were also Young Life leaders and being discipled by Amy. Which means mentored and taught how to make my life look like Jesus' in an effort to reach out to other people and show them who Jesus is. I learned more about ministry in that one year than I ever could've imagined. God was so intentional in placing Amy and me in each other's lives during that time specifically. It was that summer when I got to put into practice what I had learned at Wyldlife camp at Washington Family Ranch. I remember one day specifically calling Amy on the pay phones and saying, "what the heck am I doing!? Why did I think this was a good idea!? What do I do!?" And Amy listening to me rant and then saying,
"Brea, this isn't about YOU. You have the Holy Spirit. Let Him work through you, you just be an open vessel. Stop relying on your own knowledge and look to Jesus." Then she prayed those things over me. I remember that conversation like it was just yesterday and in reality it was about 3 years ago.
Now what's cool now, is how the way that Amy does her ministry has directly inspired the way I do things. She's been known to say, "maybe we took that discipleship thing a little too far?" I love a good study Bible (we have the same one), we drink chai together, we understand each other, she has inspired many a club talk of mine, I get so many themes and game ideas from her, the list goes on really. But what I think we would both argue is the most obviously inherited skill is something I put into place last spring: Friday morning breakfast Bible study! In high school, I never in a million years would've come to that. Ever. And now, I'm up Friday mornings at 6:30am cooking breakfast with Sydney and leading a Bible study. Like, what is that!? Total Amy Ihde move.
What I really want to make known about Amy through this post however, is how great she is and how awesome and important she has been in my life. I mean, if we're being honest she's probably the second biggest reason I'm on student staff today! The first being Jesus and the calling he has given me, obviously. But I want to emphasize that the reason Amy has been so important in my life is because she is connected to Jesus. She loves ME because He loves HER. The way that she is, is in 100% direct correlation to her relationship with Christ. She brings out the best in me, speaks truth to me, and has taught me so much because that's how Jesus wants to use her in my life. Amy is faithful. She abides. She is a rock star, and now I just want to take this time to tell her...
THANK YOU! Thank you for loving Jesus so much so that you could love me well. Thank you for shining His light in my life and the lives of anyone you come into contact. Thank you for giving me the hard truths and molding me into a better servant of Christ. Just, thank you. Seriously.
Have a great rest of your week, readers!
Xoxo
Brea
First off: I need to apologize because I have SUCKED at maintaining this blog. Actually, "sucked" is an understatement. I have reached a new level of suck. But, I never claimed to be compliant... I don't even wear my retainer regularly. (Sorry mom!)
Anyways, now that I'm back in the blogging world I figured I'd come back with a bang. I want to tell you about my Young Life leader who is now just one of my very best friends and favorite people ever. Her name is Amy Ihde.
Amy is the type of person who can get the attention of entire room just with how attractive her personality is. Plus it helps that she's a smokin' hot mom to 3 kiddos under the age of 4. She's just really great and if you've even spent 2 minutes talking to her, you'd agree. What I find most special about Amy, however, is how faithful she has remained to The Lord over her lifetime. She also just happens to be one of the most knowledgable people theologically I've ever met. She knows A LOT. You can only imagine how helpful that is to the kids who have never heard about Jesus and have 782374827347234 questions. Like myself back in the day.
I met Amy my junior year of high school and my first year at Enumclaw. I'm pretty sure it was somewhere random but I distinctly remember my mom saying, "you should start going to young life, I think you would really like Amy. I've heard amazing things." At the time I'm sure I thought that sounded like a good day but it took months and months of convincing from Lacey Nininger to actually come. So in January, I decided to check it out.
What happened however, blew my mind and changed my life forever. When I walked in Amy said hi to me, BY NAME. Whoa. I'm not sure anyone understands how important that was to me after years of feeling invisible. She also called me up to play a super embarrassing game where I had to hold a tube of lipstick in my mouth and apply it to someone else. Anyways, I killed it. Also, it was horrificly awkward. But I was sold. I kept coming back and ended up going to Malibu Club with Amy that summer. It was there, sobbing over a garbage can on the deck by the dining hall, that I gave my life to Christ. My life has never been the same, because it was also there that Amy encouraged me to apply to become a Young Life student leader.
My senior year I spent all my free time with my best friends who were also Young Life leaders and being discipled by Amy. Which means mentored and taught how to make my life look like Jesus' in an effort to reach out to other people and show them who Jesus is. I learned more about ministry in that one year than I ever could've imagined. God was so intentional in placing Amy and me in each other's lives during that time specifically. It was that summer when I got to put into practice what I had learned at Wyldlife camp at Washington Family Ranch. I remember one day specifically calling Amy on the pay phones and saying, "what the heck am I doing!? Why did I think this was a good idea!? What do I do!?" And Amy listening to me rant and then saying,
"Brea, this isn't about YOU. You have the Holy Spirit. Let Him work through you, you just be an open vessel. Stop relying on your own knowledge and look to Jesus." Then she prayed those things over me. I remember that conversation like it was just yesterday and in reality it was about 3 years ago.
Now what's cool now, is how the way that Amy does her ministry has directly inspired the way I do things. She's been known to say, "maybe we took that discipleship thing a little too far?" I love a good study Bible (we have the same one), we drink chai together, we understand each other, she has inspired many a club talk of mine, I get so many themes and game ideas from her, the list goes on really. But what I think we would both argue is the most obviously inherited skill is something I put into place last spring: Friday morning breakfast Bible study! In high school, I never in a million years would've come to that. Ever. And now, I'm up Friday mornings at 6:30am cooking breakfast with Sydney and leading a Bible study. Like, what is that!? Total Amy Ihde move.
What I really want to make known about Amy through this post however, is how great she is and how awesome and important she has been in my life. I mean, if we're being honest she's probably the second biggest reason I'm on student staff today! The first being Jesus and the calling he has given me, obviously. But I want to emphasize that the reason Amy has been so important in my life is because she is connected to Jesus. She loves ME because He loves HER. The way that she is, is in 100% direct correlation to her relationship with Christ. She brings out the best in me, speaks truth to me, and has taught me so much because that's how Jesus wants to use her in my life. Amy is faithful. She abides. She is a rock star, and now I just want to take this time to tell her...
THANK YOU! Thank you for loving Jesus so much so that you could love me well. Thank you for shining His light in my life and the lives of anyone you come into contact. Thank you for giving me the hard truths and molding me into a better servant of Christ. Just, thank you. Seriously.
Have a great rest of your week, readers!
Xoxo
Brea
Comments
Post a Comment