Youth Sunday Sermon by Paige Newcomb

“For his anger is but for a moment, his favor is for a lifetime, weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” these are the words of Psalm 30 verse 5.

Now I had a hard time choosing my words for my sermon, then I kept reading, and reading, and reading this line again and realized two things: one, I now have this verse memorized, two, I can relate to this.

Let me tell you a little bit more about who I am. I haven’t had the greatest childhood, I was abused at a young age which kind of forced me to grow up faster than I should have. I’m okay with telling people about this now but only after about two years of counseling and being told “I need you to tell me how you feel,” and “If you want us to be able to help, you need to tell us what happened.” One of the first people I told after counselling, was my brother Robbie. Robbie and I had never been really close; mostly because we are 8 years apart. At the same time, I was unsure if I could talk to anyone else, so I told him, and after that day I realized something about that car ride. While I was telling Robbie, it felt like there was a greater power in the car with us listening to me as I talked and taking my worries and fears away. At the moment, I didn’t realize it but I’m fairly sure it was God, kind of just looking over and saying, “You’re all right, nothing is your fault, and you’re going to be okay.” I felt a calmness which meant that I would now have the support to get on with healing.

A little while later I started this jar where I’d put a note about a bad thing that happened that day or a bad thought I had during the day. At the end of each week, I would open the jar and just sit and talk to God for a minute. I’d never reopen the notes, but I’d throw them away after I sat and thought about why I wished to get rid of these thoughts. After doing this for some time the jar began to become more and more empty. Sure, there are little notes in there sometimes, but almost all the time there is none. I’d finally started to get back to my goofy, happy, and sometimes annoying and loud self. This only began to happen when I started to place my worries into God’s hands, into the one who’d help me to become me again. My Mom and my grandparents also kinda helped push me to be myself again. I mean that’s what a Mom and grandparents do, right?

When I was writing this, I was sitting in my bed at 11:30 p.m. on a Sunday/school night and then it hit me, I couldn’t be successful in this if I didn’t fully believe in myself. Everyone has struggles they face head-on and struggles they refuse to face. You can only begin to face those struggles and begin your healing process when you place your faith and trust in God. Everyone in this building, is going through some type of struggle whether they say it or not. It may be a struggle in friendship, relationships, school, or in sports. But some have come to realize that God is always with us every day while we struggle, helping us to find our way out of the struggle.

Thankfully no matter where we are in life, God is with us, walking along side, never leaving us alone. Again, Joy comes with the morning, I’ve found a joy within myself this morning and I sincerely hope that something this morning has brought you a new joy as well.