If you ever want to be humbled, tell anyone in high school that you’re taking a gap year.

“Oh, so you’re not going to college?” 

“You don’t know what you want to do yet, and that’s OK. You will figure it out.” 

“College is not for everyone.” 

“If you don’t go to school right away, you will never make your way back.”

These statements came from teachers and students alike and never seemed to be spoken with good intentions or an encouraging tone. The negative connotation of not going to college right away is not something I was fully prepared for.

My name is Sam. I took a gap year and loved it. It changed me — it made me grow up, and I don’t regret it.

College was a normal thing in my family, but more school was the last thing I wanted to do. So I took a break from it. I didn’t take a gap year because I didn’t know what I wanted to do or I thought I couldn’t do it. School filled 13 years of my life with anxiety, stress and pressure to fit in. I did not want to continue that pattern after high school, but eventually I came to the conclusion that going to college was the best option for me. I knew what I wanted to do and college seemed like the best way to pursue my career.

I was planning on playing Division II basketball, but God had other plans when I snapped my left leg during a homecoming relay race in front of the entire school. I have a video if you ever want to see it. Following this accident, the injury required four different surgeries on my leg, and I knew that if I went to college right away I would have had to balance school with doctors cutting and closing my leg up repeatedly. 

No thank you.

Since I was young, I’d wanted to be a professional basketball player and become a team chaplain after a long, successful career. Once I figured out I was no longer going to the NBA, I understood that God put a calling on my life to work in ministry earlier than my original blueprint had in store. I’ve wanted to be a pastor virtually my entire life, and I have never second guessed that. 

So, what better way to spend my gap year than to work at a church? 

I worked full-time at a church near my hometown in Colorado Springs. I interned with the youth ministry and was their assistant youth pastor and facilities manager. I learned new things about the American church, the business side of church management and how even something spiritual is changed by culture.

I loved my gap year – every day I got to be an adult, driving to my nine-to-five, making my own meals, building my schedule around my 40-hour work week. I got to learn and teach others about Jesus and clean and fix a really old church building. From painting walls and repairing chairs to simply taking out trash and scrubbing toys for kids’ church, it was my job to make sure the church was presentable for Sundays. On Sundays, I led middle and high schoolers in a Bible study and taught second to fifth graders the Bible stories I grew up hearing – stories about David and Goliath, Jonah and how much Jesus loves us by dying on the cross for us. On weekdays I had meetings with pastors and youth leaders all across the state. I even had my own desk and shared an office with the other youth pastor.

The shift from high school to working full-time with coworkers double my age was an adjustment that I wasn’t expecting. I had to grow up immediately out of high school while my friends were at their respective colleges still living like teenagers. 

Gap years are awesome – the time spent in between college and high school, despite the negative connotation toward it, helps you better understand who you are, whose you are and where you are going in this life. I would not be who I am today if I did not have the experiences I had during my gap year, from staying up way too late with middle school boys at a lock-in to telling my own story and hearing that it impacted the students. I was able to relate to them after sharing my own struggles with mental health and my relationship with God. This left room for God to work in my heart and the hearts of the students. 

A gap year wasn’t always part of my post-high school plans, but the time to heal – both mentally and physically – is something that I’ll never regret.