"Teenagers are horrible, insufferable creatures that we
can’t get across to, so we might as well not try. When they’re nineteen or twenty, we’ll be able to tell if they’re normal human beings, but until then they are definitely all clinically insane"
– Everyone who is not a teenager.
Question: Why is it that when someone makes the comment, "Well... he/she is a teenager...," we all respond the same way. With an, "Ohhh... that explains it." We, as a society, generally agree that the ages of twelve to eighteen are the hardest years of our lives. Seriously, if you paid me a million dollars I sincerely, 100%, would NEVER re-live my teen years. It’s like overnight you suddenly want to be around your friends 24/7, the biggest issue becomes wearing the coolest clothes, and you definitely do not want to share anything that belongs to you! Ever! Instantly you discover that boys/girls in fact do not have cooties, and most of all, your parents are no longer the centre of your lives. It’s like all at once you realize there is a world out there, and it’s all been created just for you and you alone! (False) So how does knowing this make a difference? How does God tie in?
Unfortunately, I do not have a PhD in behavioural science. I am actually only a couple days into an entry level Psych course at the Red Deer College. I can’t tell you exactly how hormones play into the equation or how long this stage is going to last.
I can, however, tell you that no matter who you are or where you come from, everyone needs somebody in their life that they know will always be there for them. Everyone needs someone they can count on. What if when you were fourteen and the entire world was unexplainably changing in front of your eyes, you found yourself completely alone? And as the rest of the world walked out, nobody walked in? What would you do?
I can tell you what I did. I ran.
I grew up in a broken home, almost as broken as they come. Parents divorced, father not in my life, single working mom and no one helping us. I was the youngest of three, with a brother who is two years older than me and a sister who is eight years older. My sister, from as far back as I can remember, always had a rocky relationship with my mother and my mom kicked her out when she was fifteen. After that I always had a rough relationship with her as well, and I can’t remember a time when we ever got along. I don’t know if that is truth and we never did get along or if my memory is poisoned so much that I can’t recall any good times. Either way by the time the teen years hit, history was repeating itself and we were constantly fighting. A few years passed with me being in and out of my mother’s house until I was fourteen and I left for good. I thought, "Finally I’m free". The only problem was that I was alone.
I moved in with my friend’s parents and within weeks I was addicted to alcohol. I stopped going to school because I was so hung-over I couldn’t get out of bed. I started to make really bad choices and get caught up with the wrong people. I spent the summer of grade nine sleeping anywhere that I could lay my head at night. Sometimes friend’s houses, if their parents let me. Sometimes I slept in tents. Sometimes I didn’t remember. The abandonment pain was so intense sometimes, I would look for any escape. I started cutting to distract myself from the emotional hurt and eventually it wasn’t enough. I would just drink myself into oblivion, and it was only there that I found relief. Even then, although I didn`t know it, God loved me.
``Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you
on the palms of my hands."
Isaiah 49:14-15
My mother had forgotten me, but God had not.
Over that summer I also reconnected with my grandparents who were my mother’s parents. I had been estranged from them since I was a little girl, and the reunion was bitter-sweet. After going so long not seeing each other, and finally reconnecting was great. But I was also fifteen and heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol. Life went on and I got deeper and deeper into substance abuse. Then I tried harder and harder to hide it from my grandparents. Little did I know that I did a crappy job of hiding it!
One day, in the beginning of my grade ten year, my grandparents sat me down and offered me a second chance. They told me they loved me with all their hearts and they would always be there for me. They offered me a second chance at life and told me the facts that I had heard over and over again at school and in counsellor’s offices. I was going to ruin my life if I continued what I was doing, and they couldn’t bear it. I finally believed it, so when they offered me a choice to move in with them and start over, I took it.
My life from that moment on has changed into the most amazingly awesome, horribly terrifying, outstandingly epic, and magnificently tragic life I could have ever dreamed of. The only catch is I didn’t dream it. There was a long period of time in my life that I didn’t dream. I didn’t hope. I didn’t have faith. I didn’t care. About anything. What changed?
Someone loved me. Someone cared. Someone made a difference, and for that period in my life, it was enough.
I went on to graduate from high school, and then attend college. I was well into my second semester at RDC when my life changed again. God took someone home that I wasn’t ready to let go of. At this point in my life, it was the third death in two years I had experienced. Aged seventeen, eighteen, twenty-five. I was eighteen and devastated. I didn’t even wait until the semester was finished; I moved home. Again, I ran.
This time around, my grandparents weren’t enough. During the time I was away at college, I had gone back to frequently drinking and experimenting with drugs. After I went home I fell into a dark place and I couldn’t stop drinking and I didn’t want to. Once again I didn’t care about where my life was going. I didn’t have dreams anymore. I didn’t have hope. I convinced myself that no one understood me, no one knew what I was going through and no one truly cared.
Then I met an amazing woman named Theresa. I was working for a law firm at the time, and she was a legal assistant who worked in the office with me. After a couple months of getting to know her, Theresa asked me if I would come to church with her. Her church was Pentecostal, and although I had no idea what that meant before I went, I sure did after I left. It was crazy to me; the Pastor walked back and forth on stage, yelling into the mic. I remember trying to sing songs out of the old hymn books that I could barely read, and sitting in a stiff pew that hurt my back after only a few minutes. But they were alive and full of energy and on fire for something and I wanted it. I went back the next Sunday and that’s when it happened. My God moment. The one of a kind, can’t breathe, can’t think, straight to the heart, knock you over backward, take your breath away and send you spinning kind of moment. The big one. The pastor was talking about the unconditional love that God has for us and I remember hearing him say that if anyone is in need of prayer, they could come to the front. I remember thinking about my friend that had passed away. I didn’t know it then, but I had started to cry. I felt everyone come over and put their hands on me and start praying for me and all of a sudden, I just lost it. I heard the word Love echo in my mind, but I didn’t just hear it. I felt It. On the inside, in my heart and in my soul and it just kept spreading. I can’t even describe it for you, because God’s love is indescribable. Paul tried to describe it in Romans for us, but even he could not say the words that describe His love for us.
"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers,
nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:38-39
My life hasn’t always been exactly easy and even after I turned to God and accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Saviour, my problems haven’t just gone away. I still struggle with countless issues and problems that come up in life. Even Paul said, "I die daily" ( 1 Corinthians 15:31), but God the Father promises to never leave us. Moses says,
"It is the Lord who goes before you.
He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you.
Do not fear or be dismayed."
Deuteronomy 31:8
I’m at a place in my life where I hear God calling me to serve. I have gained a heart of compassion and empathy through Jesus Christ and feel compelled to walk in love (Ephesians 5:1-2) just as Jesus did.
So back to my first two questions. How does knowing that life as a teenager sucks make a difference, and how does God tie in? I didn’t have anyone growing up to turn to in times of trouble. I didn’t have a rock in my life, and although I know now that the Lord walked with me, I didn’t know it then. Maybe my life would have turned out differently if I had known. Maybe it wouldn’t have. Either way, I would have known someone loved and cared for me, no matter what I did. What a gift it is! Now I just want to share it with everyone, especially teenagers. If we all agree that the teen years are some of the hardest years, then doesn’t it stand to reason that they are the most important years to know the Gospel? Doesn’t it make sense that we provide people that will be there for them, no matter what, no matter when, no matter where, no matter how, to share this great news? As a youth leader, I am here to build up my students, sit with them, cry with them, talk to them, listen to them but most importantly I refer them to the only person I know that can help them always: Jesus Christ. Amen.
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