The day I almost quit the ministry and a young man stopped me

I remember sitting in my car outside the church office in Enugu three years ago. I had just finished a meeting where the elders told me my counseling ministry was 'too soft' on young people struggling with depression. They wanted me to tell them to pray harder and stop complaining. I sat there for 30 minutes, engine off, sweating in the harmattan heat, thinking about my old NGO job offer that I had turned down. I almost drove to the office to resign.

Then my phone buzzed. It was a text from a young man in my youth group, Chidiebere. He said, 'Pastor, if you leave this church, I don't know who I will talk to. You are the only one who listens without judging me.' I read that message maybe five times. Chineke. That boy had no idea what he was saying to me at that moment. I sat there and cried small. Not because I was sad, but because I realized that my staying was not about the elders or the money or the politics. It was about the ones who needed someone to see them fully.

I stayed. The counseling ministry is still running, though I had to learn to move gently so I would not break the china. But every time I think about leaving again, I remember Chidiebere's message. Sometimes God speaks through a phone notification. Have you ever had someone's simple word change your entire direction without them knowing?