pray

My heart breaks. It breaks because of young people- middle schoolers and highschoolers who are hurting.  Before it was my job to take care of my high schooler and I had a very narrow view of what my job was.  Take care of Lucas.  Take care of my other kids.

I don’t have a high school age child anymore.  Which ironically has opened my eyes in such a tremendous way- and it is just so frightening.

Now that he is gone I feel like I need to get in touch with them, with students, to get a feel for what the pulse of the high school is like.  While I am taking baby steps I feel a calling to help there- somehow.

The report I get there is so much hurt, so much loneliness, insecurity, anxiety, depression, hopelessness.  That kids are not helping each other through tough times and instead pouring salt in each other’s wounds.

I am very very saddened.

I also know that there are some, probably many, wonderful kids. I have met a handful. Kids that “get it.” Kids that get why they are put on this earth.  That its not about them. Whose hearts are full of love and kindness.  I guess that there are not enough of those kids to influence the others.

I know there are cases where “Live Like Lucas” has already come and gone and it’s back to reality.  Students are just wanting people to like them, to stay in the right crowd, to make sure their own happiness comes first. They take other’s problems and use them as a way to boost their own self esteem.

I don’t know if that many, say, 12-18 year olds read my blog.  If they did, I would say to them, you do not know how much time you have on this earth.  How many times have you heard that, right? It would never happen to me. It would never happen to me. Well it happened to our family. Our worst nightmare came true.  Lucas had 15 years and ten days on this earth.  You just don’t know.

Even if you lived to be 100, why do you think you are here? To be popular, to be well liked, to push others down on the way to the top?

How would you want to be treated if you were hurting? How do you want to be treated, period?  Many of those who hurt do it because of their own hurt.  The cycle must be stopped.

I don’t know exactly what the answer is, to healing all this pain and suffering these kids are going through.

Well I do know one answer, a very important one.

Mark 12:30-31 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

John 3:16  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Ephesians 4:32 “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

I am on my knees in prayer for these kids.  I am begging God for a transformation. I am begging for an answer.