I’m not quite sure why, but I love obituaries. Actually, I do know why: I love the great stories they tell about the lives of interesting people, or people to whom interesting things happened. They are not necessarily famous, but at some point something extraordinary happened in their life.
I read an obituary last week for Marguerite Garden. Marguerite was a teenager living in Brittany during the Nazi occupation—and a spy.
For days on end she would cycle round the local coastline, gathering intelligence on soldiers, boats and mines, which was duly relayed to MI6… One day she was going to collect eggs and spotted a tall mast with strange wires in a local field. The farmer’s wife, assuming she was just a nosy child, told her it was for sending messages to the German submarines. Within three days the RAF had destroyed the mast.
No one ever suspected her because who would suspect a 14-year-old girl on holiday of anything other than being a 14-year-old girl on holiday.
Perhaps in your church you have encountered people who think young people aren’t ready to make a mature commitment, aren’t ready to take any leadership role in the church. They don’t suspect the amount of spiritual thinking and theological development that already exists inside those unprepossessing forms. Who would ever suspect a 14-year old girl of being a prophet, a 13-year-old boy of being a preacher? But perhaps they are, if we overcome our stereotypes of holiness. And it's probably a good idea to know that they are spying on us.
The truth is, teenagers are always watching, checking to see if what we say we believe matches what we do. They are spies more often than we know. What are they going to tell their friends and allies about us? Will it be safe for others to join in? Or will they just stay undercover until they make their way to friendlier territory?
You already know this, but make sure to pass on the word: don’t sell the kids short. Look at Margeruite Garden. Teenagers know more than you think they do.