Most of the time I’m behind the scenes of Real Teen Faith blog. Writing. Traveling. Researching. Working with cool teen writers. But today I wanted to sit and talk with you about how very cool God is.

I spoke this weekend at a youth event. It was fun and the teens were ready to worship, eat, swim, and hang out, and stay up until 4 a.m.

The first night I spoke and it was cool (not me, just the event). 

But the second night, when the crowd was tired and thinking about home, something special happened.

I was reminded of a story as I closed the message. Sometimes God does that, you know, changing directions as you speak because there’s something He wants to take place. This is the story that came to mind:

A long time ago a pastor asked me to come to the front of the church. I was shy and would rather stay in my seat, but I walked down the long aisle. He said that he wanted to pray for me. I wasn’t raised in church, and yet I wanted nothing more than to know him, love him, and yield to him. The pastor prayed for me and then did something strange.

He poured an entire bottle of oil over my head. It leaked down my neck, down my arms, into my shoes. My hair was an oil spill. I turned and walked back to my seat, my shoes making a kqwik, kqwick sound.

My pastor wasn’t a weird guy. He was sensitive and kind. He wasn’t one to do something different w/o a reason. He said he felt that this was something God had asked him to do.

When I looked up the scripture, I learned more about “anointing”. I found a story of a shepherd guy named David. Samuel, a prophet, was looking for someone to crown as king. David’s father had called all of his brothers to come stand at attention before the prophet. He left David in the pasture.

It’s tough when your own dad doesn’t see your potential.

But Samuel asked David’s dad to go get him, and when he saw him God whispered, “this is the one”. Samuel poured the oil over David’s head. I imagine it leaked down his neck, through his robe, and into his man sandals. And that he walked back to the pasture making a kqwick kqwick sound.

An ordinary boy became a king because God saw his heart, rather than his outward appearance or the opinion of others. His life wasn’t perfect, but he loved God, and he was known as a “man after God’s own heart”.

I’m not David, but the night I was anointed with oil was a defining moment for me as well. If you know my story, you know that I’m just an ordinary girl, now woman, that had a tough story. Yet God saw me differently than I saw myself.

My heart, a long time later, is still just to know God and to run after him. I want more than hanging in a pew.

That night, after I spoke to the girls, I felt God asking me to anoint them. All of them. It’s something I’ve never done, and yet when I asked them to consider what God had for them, they all lined up.

And one by one, as I gently put a small thumbprint of anointing oil on their forehead, I felt God speaking to the heart of each girl as we prayed together. There were teens there that weren’t sure they knew God, but felt him for the first time. There were girls there that knew all about church, but somehow understood that there was more to faith than church. There were girls that felt his love in the absence of a parent’s love. There were girls who felt a distinct sense of God’s call to follow him wherever that might lead.

I lost sense of time, but I didn’t lose sense of Him as the night went on.

It’s why I haven’t posted for a couple of days. I’ve been treasuring this weekend, stepping back to reflect, reminded all over again of why I am in full-time ministry as a writer, speaker, and through Real Teen Faith.

Thanks for listening,

Suzie