All Nighter

People stay up all night for a lot of reasons. Homework. Work work. Partying. Just to say they did.

Last night 20 youth hung out at our church all night. Eight of them stayed up all night. They felt so proud of themselves.

I used to work third shift, so it was not new territory for me. Can't say I've done it lately. It really wasn't even hard...I think that was the Holy Spirit. I was plenty tired in the afternoon, so it sure wasn't my energy.

It was great to see teens having some positive fun things to do, different from what a lot of their peers would stay up all night doing.

I think my favorite part was how they interacted. Some of them are good friends, but if you put all of them together, they would not hang out at school. Yet all night they were kind to each other, no one was left out, even one kid from our church who didn't know the others.

We can do this, world. We can hang out with others different from us, even when we are teenagers, and be gracious and kind, and even have fun.

That was worth staying up all night to see.