A very REAL post
This one is going to be a very real post so brace yourself
This past weekend my wife and I had our first "date" in more than a year. We got a sitter and decided to go to the Purpose for the Pain tour event that was taking part at our church. This event was being put on by our student ministry and in conjunction with To Write Love On Her Arms.
It is an organization that was started by a friend of a girl named Renee who had been turned away from treatment facilities while she was dealing with depression, cutting, drug abuse, etc. A couple of her friends took it upon themselves to live with her for every second for 5 days to "break" her self-destructive patterns and inject God back into her life. They then started a movement to help people just like Renee break the chains of her afflictions. It is a world wide phenomenon and what I feel is an important movement. I had heard about it a while ago and always thought that it was important, but never really delved into the research that much.
So, Friday night we went to the concert. I must say that I discovered that dates don't have to be as expensive as they were prior to kids and still have a lot of fun. We went to Subway beforehand and went to the show. It was quite weird when we showed up, as we were the oldest people there by at least 10 years. :( The first band, nevertheless, was good. Then came Dan Evans of "The Biggest Loser" fame. Dan was a very good songwriter and he has an amazing story of overcoming an addiction to food that kept him from pursuing his dream of performing music. Then came Renee Yohe and this is where the night turned real.
If you know me, which I hope you do, you know that especially when going to concerts I get really excited and look at the website and scour them for hours while preparing to go. In prepping for this concert I found myself trying to find more out about Renee's story and the incredible journey that she has been on. I found that she is even more of an incredible person when you take the time to listen to her story from her own words. I knew that listening to her in person was going to be emotional, but didn't know to what extent. When she came on stage she started to read excerpts from her book and found that a lot of the things she was reading about mirrored a lot of stuff that I thought/wrote when I was younger. As I listened to her I thought a lot about the things that I went through when I was younger, obviously not as intense as the things that she or others go through, but my issues all the same. Her thoughts of death, suicide, murder, and pain sounded so familiar. When you have these thoughts you think that something is really wrong with you and that you are the only person in the world that are having these thoughts and nightmares. Pain is personal and just can't bring yourself to share any of it with others. As we listened, I started to wonder how many people here, at the church, were going through these things. I hear of the adults that are dealing with their own issues, but what about these kids. When Renee was done speaking she opened the floor to questions and I heard some of the most shocking things I have ever heard.
A girl, that I can only guess to have been around 12 or 13, grabbed the mic and started about how she wanted to know how to comfort a friend that was her age that was considering suicide as an option to deal with the pain of her mothers sickness. 12 or 13 years old!!!!! The mic was passed around to a couple of other people wanting to know from Renee how God changed her life. When they were starting to wind down on the amount of time she was allowed, another girl that must have been 17 or 18 took the mic and said that she was a "scratcher" since blades scared her. She would scratch herself until she bled to deal with her depression. The mic eventually came back to the little girl that was dealing with her friend and you knew as soon as she handed the mic off the first time there was more to her story. When she got the mic the second time she almost immediately started to cry when she said, "...I have thought about ending it..." Wow. I don't know what kind of pain this little girl is in, but to contemplate suicide at 13 is insane.
As adults, we think "how could these kids have any depression issues? All they have to worry about is high school" but apparently it is happening. As much as we try to ignore the problem, it is not going away. According to the TWLOHA website, suicide in people 15-24 is the 3rd leading cause of death and 90% of all cases of suicide mental illness which 2/3 are never treated. This really gives me a different perspective of where our young people are today. I now know that those thoughts that I had weren't all that uncommon and I thank God that He spared my life.
I ask today that during your prayers you pray for our youth. The young kids of this nation are under far more stress than they will let out to an adult. I ask that you pray for their healing and strength to talk about the problems that they are having. I ask that you pray for them to seek out counsel if they are having thoughts of suicide. It is real and an epidemic.
If you are a parent, show and tell your kids how much you love them everyday. Spend 5-10 minutes to tell them how much you love them and find out if they are having problems. As a verse in the bible says, "Be quick to listen, slow to judge..." Ask questions, get involved in their lives. Tell them that you are proud of them for something every day. You wouldn't believe how much those 5-10 minutes every day can change the life of a young person.
If you are not a parent but know people that have tweens and teens, be there to listen to them. If you don't know people that have kids this age, be a big brother/big sister. Kids just want to talk to someone who will listen. I have found that it is much easier to get things off of my chest when I am not speaking to my parents or someone that is going to judge. Please help to fight this. If we band together as a nation, we can turn this problem around.
If none of these apply to you, just be there to talk to people. We as humans are flawed and a lot of the time we just need someone to talk to. If you have friends that you have seen changes in, talk to them. Don't counsel, just listen. Be there always.
For more information on depression, self-injury and addiction, please click on the banners below.
Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah
This past weekend my wife and I had our first "date" in more than a year. We got a sitter and decided to go to the Purpose for the Pain tour event that was taking part at our church. This event was being put on by our student ministry and in conjunction with To Write Love On Her Arms.
It is an organization that was started by a friend of a girl named Renee who had been turned away from treatment facilities while she was dealing with depression, cutting, drug abuse, etc. A couple of her friends took it upon themselves to live with her for every second for 5 days to "break" her self-destructive patterns and inject God back into her life. They then started a movement to help people just like Renee break the chains of her afflictions. It is a world wide phenomenon and what I feel is an important movement. I had heard about it a while ago and always thought that it was important, but never really delved into the research that much.
So, Friday night we went to the concert. I must say that I discovered that dates don't have to be as expensive as they were prior to kids and still have a lot of fun. We went to Subway beforehand and went to the show. It was quite weird when we showed up, as we were the oldest people there by at least 10 years. :( The first band, nevertheless, was good. Then came Dan Evans of "The Biggest Loser" fame. Dan was a very good songwriter and he has an amazing story of overcoming an addiction to food that kept him from pursuing his dream of performing music. Then came Renee Yohe and this is where the night turned real.
If you know me, which I hope you do, you know that especially when going to concerts I get really excited and look at the website and scour them for hours while preparing to go. In prepping for this concert I found myself trying to find more out about Renee's story and the incredible journey that she has been on. I found that she is even more of an incredible person when you take the time to listen to her story from her own words. I knew that listening to her in person was going to be emotional, but didn't know to what extent. When she came on stage she started to read excerpts from her book and found that a lot of the things she was reading about mirrored a lot of stuff that I thought/wrote when I was younger. As I listened to her I thought a lot about the things that I went through when I was younger, obviously not as intense as the things that she or others go through, but my issues all the same. Her thoughts of death, suicide, murder, and pain sounded so familiar. When you have these thoughts you think that something is really wrong with you and that you are the only person in the world that are having these thoughts and nightmares. Pain is personal and just can't bring yourself to share any of it with others. As we listened, I started to wonder how many people here, at the church, were going through these things. I hear of the adults that are dealing with their own issues, but what about these kids. When Renee was done speaking she opened the floor to questions and I heard some of the most shocking things I have ever heard.
A girl, that I can only guess to have been around 12 or 13, grabbed the mic and started about how she wanted to know how to comfort a friend that was her age that was considering suicide as an option to deal with the pain of her mothers sickness. 12 or 13 years old!!!!! The mic was passed around to a couple of other people wanting to know from Renee how God changed her life. When they were starting to wind down on the amount of time she was allowed, another girl that must have been 17 or 18 took the mic and said that she was a "scratcher" since blades scared her. She would scratch herself until she bled to deal with her depression. The mic eventually came back to the little girl that was dealing with her friend and you knew as soon as she handed the mic off the first time there was more to her story. When she got the mic the second time she almost immediately started to cry when she said, "...I have thought about ending it..." Wow. I don't know what kind of pain this little girl is in, but to contemplate suicide at 13 is insane.
As adults, we think "how could these kids have any depression issues? All they have to worry about is high school" but apparently it is happening. As much as we try to ignore the problem, it is not going away. According to the TWLOHA website, suicide in people 15-24 is the 3rd leading cause of death and 90% of all cases of suicide mental illness which 2/3 are never treated. This really gives me a different perspective of where our young people are today. I now know that those thoughts that I had weren't all that uncommon and I thank God that He spared my life.
I ask today that during your prayers you pray for our youth. The young kids of this nation are under far more stress than they will let out to an adult. I ask that you pray for their healing and strength to talk about the problems that they are having. I ask that you pray for them to seek out counsel if they are having thoughts of suicide. It is real and an epidemic.
If you are a parent, show and tell your kids how much you love them everyday. Spend 5-10 minutes to tell them how much you love them and find out if they are having problems. As a verse in the bible says, "Be quick to listen, slow to judge..." Ask questions, get involved in their lives. Tell them that you are proud of them for something every day. You wouldn't believe how much those 5-10 minutes every day can change the life of a young person.
If you are not a parent but know people that have tweens and teens, be there to listen to them. If you don't know people that have kids this age, be a big brother/big sister. Kids just want to talk to someone who will listen. I have found that it is much easier to get things off of my chest when I am not speaking to my parents or someone that is going to judge. Please help to fight this. If we band together as a nation, we can turn this problem around.
If none of these apply to you, just be there to talk to people. We as humans are flawed and a lot of the time we just need someone to talk to. If you have friends that you have seen changes in, talk to them. Don't counsel, just listen. Be there always.
For more information on depression, self-injury and addiction, please click on the banners below.
Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah
Comments
What a way to spend a date night with your wife, though! Maybe next time you'll take her to a movie or goofy golfing? :)
God is working hard on you and it's cool to see the transformation that is taking place.
Yo' sista in Christ...
Becki