The "Aha" Moment

Last night I had a conversation with a student of mine via text message, and before I proceed from here, I just want everyone to know that I refuse to use texting lingo or emoticons, no rofl's or winking smiley faces for this guy. Now that I have cleared my name from people lol-ing, I have realized that if you want to connect with teenagers, you have to do it on their terms a lot of times. Some of the most real moments that teens open up to me are when they have that "aha" moment. Its comes in that time when they are by themselves, they have some time to think about whats going on in their lives, when they have time to be honest with who they are. For a lot of them that is late at night.

I don't mind a text message at 11 at night, chances are I am watching Lost and about to pull my hair out because after last night I am convinced there is no way I am going to be happy with the explanation they are going to give us. Plus I am a night owl, my wife likes mornings, so she is sleeping, Cooper is sleeping, my dogs are sleeping (and consequently farting, I don't know why they pass gas so often in their sleep, what if I do and I don't know it?), so really a text at night isn't bad. Worse case scenario, I am asleep and I get back to them in the morning.

But I love that moment when everything clicks, and that happened last night for one of my students. It was a moment of optimism for the student, where they could see past circumstances that had surrounded them this past year. It was a moment where they said, "aha!" I actually doubt they said that, I don't think anyone says that unless they are on a bad cop show or on "The Suite Life with Zach and Cody." Even still, in all of our walks with God we have these moments where the funk we have been sitting in for so long suddenly melts away and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Maybe it is a sin you have been battling, maybe a relationship you were stuck in, maybe you were just the product of a bad environment, whatever it may be, the aha moment comes when we have hope, when we cling to the eternal and let the temporal fade away.