Jenga Blocks and Foundations of Faith

Jazmin Allen-Gregory, Baptismal Statement

March 6, 2022

A few weeks ago, our youth group played a giant game of Jenga. It was funny to watch as people tried to find the right block to wiggle loose. You had to be just as careful not to place the block on top in a way that might make the whole thing fall. We had a lot of fun with the game!

After we played a few round, we sat together to talk about how Jenga is kind of like life. 

For me, more than anything, Jenga reminds me of the importance of foundation.

I believe my foundation is within the community where I get to explore my faith. Foundation is like building blocks. My building blocks. The three blocks are experiences you go, through the way you cope with your experiences, and what you do as your outcome. Faith is the main building block of my experiences. I believe that the thingsI go through have a purpose. I don’t believe I go through them because I deserve it or I should have to go through it – but I do believe I can gain something from my experiences. I always try to pick out the good from the bad. When I can’t find the good, I look past the bad and find what the outcome can provide me. When things have deeper meaning and they are seem to build on each other, it gives me a sense of comfort and understanding, and it’s makes me feel safe and protected. 

I also feel like Jenga represents a foundation because you have pieces that are supported by one another, then as the game progresses those pieces start becoming easier to take out. 

For me, this represents that some pieces of your life are the sturdy blocks as some points of your life and can also be the unsteady pieces at other times. Even though you want the good to come immediately, sometimes the sturdy pieces of your life, are the good that you need to support you. It may not be what you thought it might be, I have found that the pieces around the foundation eventually fall into place as things go on and help me look for the why when I don’t understand. When one of those sturdy pieces is taken out at the wrong time everything falls apart. My faith in God is one of my main sturdy pieces, if the pieces around this start falling out of place, my foundation in God makes me allows me to wonder more about the meaning of life and what is happening.

I think life brings you good and it brings you bad. I was going through a rough period of time in October of 2020. I couldn’t bring the good out of the bad in any of it. But I learned to talk about how I felt and that it wasn’t such a bad thing. About a year ago in December of 2020, I started coming to youth group . I found this community that has always been there for me since I was little. It became my safe place, no matter what I was going through I felt at peace, I felt happy. For a second in my life everything made sense. I began to drift away once things got better, I eventually came back during the Hamilton series. I was going through a period of time that did not make sense . During those sermons we talked about grief, impact, and remembrance. All of these sermons gave me comfort. I never understood grief. I have gone through the grief of losing friendships or falling out of love with a sport I played. I thought grief didn’t have a strong meaning and source of what makes you you. 

Finding the good when you lose friendships, relationships, or people is hard. But there are good parts that were brought with their presence  Whether it is their impact or what they believed. Their impact makes difference in your own life even after that relationship ends. Understanding grief and how to deal with it helped me understand that events in life can have many purposes. 

In youth group we talk about who God is and what we believe about Jesus. I believe that Jesus came to spread his own love and God’s unconditional love. I believe that God is always with you in what you’re going through, and that God has a purpose for your life. I believe all the pieces fall into place eventually. Understanding what God means to me, and who God is to me, and what God represents has helped me understand life and understand the hurdles that come in my path. This has given me a closer relationship with God. 

On those nights I feel like it’s too much to handle, I talk to God and it brings me more comfort than anything else. 

By being baptized it will help me feel a deeper connection and makes me feel more close to God. Understanding God’s purpose and plan for my life has helped me in my hardest moments and gives me a faith that I can use to help others, too.