SO GOD MADE THE Y

By David Foster, inspired by Paul Harvey's "So God Made a Farmer" 

And on the 8th day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker for the farmer’s boy that is leaving home and going in to the city looking for work.” So God made the Y.

God said, “I need somebody to develop some programs, start a Bible study, and somebody that can take a ball and a peach basket and make one of the greatest games ever created.” So God made the Y.

“I need somebody with strong morals and a strong work ethic. Strong enough to lift dumbbells, yet gentle enough to console a 5 year-old who is homesick at summer camp. Somebody to fold towels, visit with members in the lobby when they have a work deadline to meet, get them some coffee and tell them to come back real soon and mean it.” So God made the Y.

God said, “I need somebody that can line a soccer field, write a strategic plan, balance a budget, and clean poop out of the pool. And who at Partner’s time, will finish their forty-hour week by Tuesday noon”. So God made the Y.

God had to have somebody willing to drive the bus route every afternoon to get kids home safely from school and yet stop in mid-stream and race to help when he sees a member in the parking lot with a flat tire. So God made the Y.

It had to be somebody who’d live by the Mission and not cut corners. Somebody to mentor, model, console, help, strengthen, and listen. And coach and lead with a servant’s heart. Somebody to replenish another’s spirit and then finish a hard day’s work by taking their own kids to church. Somebody who’d help a family play together with the strong bonds of caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility, who’d laugh and sigh with smiling eyes when his child says he wants to spend this life ‘doing what mom or dad does’. So God made the Y.