Hey look! A post with no photos!

If I had been in NI this weekend I would have been away with my YF to Castlewellan Castle. I’ve been going to that YF since 1992 when I was in 1st year and to be honest it’s probably the reason I’m a Christian. Church wasn’t that exciting for us and I think had it not been for YF we would have strayed! But anyway, I have been to every YF weekend bar one. That one weekend I missed (arguably) has changed my life! Instead I went to Autumn Soul 1999, the year Mike Yaconelli spoke. I had never been before and wasn’t in the Methodist youth scene at all. I sometimes wonder what direction my (albeit) short life would have taken had Kari not pressed me for a decision on which I was going to do if the two weekend were the same dates. The conversation went something like this:

Kari: What are you going to do if Autumn Soul and the YF weekend are on the same weekend?

Tina: I don’t know, but I don’t think they’ll the same weekend.

Kari: Yeah but what if they are?

Tina: But they won’t be.

Kari: Yeah but just say they are, what are you going to do?

Tina: Hmm…well I suppose I’ll go to Autumn Soul since I said I’d go to that first.

So when it transpired that the two events were the same weekend I had no option but to go to Autumn Soul, I had already declared that was what I would do. So instead of going on the weekend I went to Autumn Soul with Kari and Carrick Methodist, from that I did Autumn Soul Tour, from that I did TOM, from that I decided to do teaching and from being known on TOM I worked in DYCW. All those experiences have led me to working for the World Methodist Council and me being in Lake Junaluska instead of being in Castlewellan this weekend when another YF weekend is in progress.

The whole thing of predestination messes with my head too much. I don’t know if I would have ended up here without making that first decision. Would I have ended up doing Methodist youth things and doing TOM? Would I have gone to Brazil this summer? I really don’t know but I guess you just need to have faith that your life is in God’s hands and that he will offer you the choices and you need to do what you feel is right. I made the decision on what I felt I should do and what I felt God wanted me to do. I could never have known the opportunities that have come my way when I decided that I would go to the '99 Autumn Soul, no way. Neither do I have any way of knowing what I could be doing now had I gone to the '99 YF weekend. No idea. But I don’t need to. All I need to do is trust in God and let him guide me.