“I don’t understand this whole God thing! There are things that He does that just don’t make sense to me. Also I don’t get how anyone can be 100% man and 100% God, wouldn’t that be 200%? You can’t have 200% of anything. I continually wrestle with my mind while my heart rest at ease at the thought of who Jesus is and knowing He resides in my soul. My issue is my brain.

I don’t need all the answers, I just want the answers I do have to make sense. The more I reasearch who He is the more confused I become. This is not what I desire. So does this mean I should stop attaining knowledge about who He is? Of course not, but there is something special about having a child like faith and not letting all my logical and philospohical reasonings to become a blockade. My thoughts are complicated and all over the map. One minute I believe whole-heartedly in who Jesus is and the next second I wrestle with who He really was and is. I don’t know, I guess I was just curious to see if any of you out there wrestle with these same thoughts. I don’t need your educated responses as to why I should believe in Jesus either, I’ve heard them all, what I want to know is if any of you can relate to me!”

-Wrestling, Male-Age 18

 

Friendship is a funny thing. Everyone has their own ideas, own opinions on how friends should treat them. The funny thing is that people aren’t thinking of their friends. They are just thinking of how their friends treat them, or act towards them, or what they tell them and so on. Exactly. Exactly wrong. True friendship starts with selflessness. It isn’t even about how much you know about your friends. Being a friend isn’t knowing why your friend is sad, it’s making yourself look stupid and acting like a fool to get them to laugh and have a better day; being a friend is taking your friend’s place when they are being made fun of; its going out of your way to do something nice to them; it’s taking the blame for them when they are up to their neck already; it’s cancelling plans to be with them when they really need it; it’s giving them a compliment and an encouraging word, it’s telling their new boyfriend or girlfriend that if they break your friend’s heart then you’ll break his or her face; it’s believing in them; it’s making them feel like their Special, Important, Worth Something,

I Strive everyday to be this person, to be this friend, it’s hard. It’s hard when my friends, those I love so much, don’t see it. They don’t see my efforts. And worse of all, they don’t return the efforts. It hurts. And it tears at my heart. Each of my friends has a piece of it, and its getting really hard to give more of it away, for fear that I won’t get anyone’s back L

-Figuring out Friendship, Female, Age. 17

“Pain, something I cannot go through on my own. Suffering, overwhelming
sadness, the feeling of being so small and worthless you could just
disappear. Being heartbroken and lost without a way. I find myself going
through these feelings, wishing to call to the One and only amazing, so
perfectly Holy God my Father. The One who doesn’t put these feelings on
me but pulls me from the deep shadowy hole filled with these feelings,
the place I find myself falling into so often. He is the one who is
there in that place with you right there waiting for you to call to Him
and ask for release. Turning to the world as I so often do, looking for
worldly things to fill and cover those whole things that are only
digging down tearing through me, breaking me. Building a wall around me
what I think is temporary happiness, temporary love, joy, but that wall
soon breaks and I’m there, no excuse, no where to hide there looking at
the great creator of the universe, the almighty father Jesus Christ I
feel so broken what I think is to broken to for anyone to heal but he
looks and shows me the most wonderful smile full of compassion
overflowing love and he wraps his arms around me and for the first time
I feel truly loved the kind of love that could never run dry, the kind
that’s always there and always will be. The kind I know I want so badly
to be acquainted with. The love no one could ever imagine possibly
giving me. The kind of love that’s worth living for, proclaiming to all
the kind that now flows through me. I feel now as a light for him and
for his so amazingly unexplained love.”

Feeling Love, Female-Age 17

“I continually find myself doing just enough to be good enough. Make sense? My life is lived by doing just enough to get by. Nothing significant or extraordinary, but just enough to appease my teachers and parents and nothing more. The problem with this is that the Lord has truly been convicting me lately that this type of lifestyle is not honoring to Him. I’m quickly realizing that what may be good enough in the worlds eyes is a poor use of my gifts and time in the Lords eyes. I’m tired of being good enough and doing just enough to get by, but it seems so easy when everyone else around me lives the exact same way. I actually have a friend at my school that always goes above and beyond with everything he does, and most of the other students always tell him He’s doing too much and that he needs to chill out, but to be honest, I’m envious of him. I wish I had that type of resolve, a deep conviction to give the Lord my best in every area of my life. In my academics, sports, relationships, time, and money. My heart is wicked and only wants to serve just enough, give just enough, and study just enough to get by. To feel good about myself, to feel secure enough in my relationship with God, and to get good enough grades to keep the ‘Rents off my back. But everything in me says this type of living is mediocrity, and I know that Jesus didn’t come to die so that I would live a mediocre life, yet I still do it! Ugh. Can anyway out there relate?”

Good Enough, Female-Age 17

“He attacks me in areas I forget are so vulnerable. His craftiness deceives me, and his masquerading pulls me in like crumb into a dirt devil. So often I feel like everything is fine, I convince myself of this atleast. What I am realizing is that when my relationship with the Lord becomes routine, my heart becomes dry, and my mind becomes dull. As David said in the Psalms, “My soul thirsts for Him like a parched land.” I’m parched, and my mind needs to be sharpened. I fail to apply myself academically and am continually wasting my time on video games and internet activities. What a fool I am!

My mindset today is everything but sharp. Romans 12:2 keeps piercing my soul like a skewer through a pineapple. I must renew my mind, and not just once, but continually. I often reflect how this happened. It was abrupt, rather it was a slow gradual numbing, like when you lay on your arm for too long, and before you know it your arm has no feeling. I need that feeling back, that feeling of being alive, of having purpose and functioning at full capacity. I hate the enemy, his numbinig effects, his crafty ways, and the victories he has gained in my life! This is me running from routin. May I only be satisfied at His well!”

-No More Numbness, Male-Age 19

 

“I fear silence. And I know quiet is exactly what the Lord wants for my life. But it is in the silent moments that I fall into the deepest pits of sin. When my parents are gone, or when no one is around my mind begins to explore the dark chambers of sin that I continually seem unable to escape. I feel so defeated as I continually try to have quiet time with God only to find my mind chasing other thoughts, and the painful thing is that these thoughts don’t stay as thoughts. Rather than fleeting they bloom. You see now why I fear silence? It is not good for me to be alone. I enjoy the closet, I enjoy the secrets, I enjoy the dark, just not the silence. That is my flesh enjoys all these things.

-Fearing the Silence, Male-Age 17

To ask myself if I am an invalid seems like a stupid question. I can run, walk, laugh, smile, move, I am healthy and in no way an invalid who is physically incapable of some things. Yet I am realizing that emotionally I am still stuck on my “mat” much like the invalid Jesus speaks of in the gospels. I have the opportunity to get well like the invalid in the story but am realizing that I am too afraid, to content to live the okay life on my mat than risk it all in order to really live. I am realizing that my fear to get up of my emotional mat in the story is causing me to run from God’s call. Or rather I have just not decided to answer it. Because what kind of loving God calls me to give up the one family member I have left, to give up the one good emotional tie I have in my life. But I am realizing slowly that giving up everything is what God calls us to do. When he calls us to pick up our cross and follow him, we are meant to leave everything behind. Like the disciples who were fishing on the beaches when Jesus asked them to follow him we are meant to drop everything and truly follow him. I am realizing that God wants us to make him our number one and there should be absolutely NOTHING here on this earth that we are not willing to give up, but that doesn’t make actually giving up what we love any easier does it? God would call me to give up the one thing I don’t want to. And I’m realizing that I’m finally at a crossroads where I can either obey God and be faithful and chose to pick up my cross and follow him, or continue to wait in the darkness never really getting better, staying on my mat. I don’t want to be chained to this mat anymore. And if I want to truly live I have to lay it all on the line and trust that God will catch me. Trust that his good and perfect plan will develop out of this risk I am taking. God paid the ultimate price so that I might live, and in comparison the cost he is asking me to pay pales in comparison in that of which he paid. So God I’m leaving this in your hands. Please help me pick up my cross and risk it all for you, so that I might truly for the first time live the Best life you have had planned for me all along. And finally role up my mat.

-Female, Realizing the Cost -Age 19

“The freedom I have found when I’m not consumed by what other people think. During my sophomore year these people kept me in their jail of thoughts. But this year I have stopped caring and have felt so liberated. I don’t care what they think about me, well at least not as much as I once did. I’m trying to become only concerned with whether or not my words, actions, and friends I choose are pleasing to God. I know I have a long ways to go before mastering this, but at least I feel like I’m on the right path. I’ll admit that I’m still insecure about some stuff, but like I said this is a process where I have only begun to renew my mind and transform my thinking. A process that  doesn’t occur overnight, but that will prove beneficial in the long run.”

 

-Freedom from Other’s Thoughts, Male-Age 17

 

I’m tired of blowing it! I feel just like Paul did in Romans 7, “I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do! And If I do what I do not want to do it is no longer I who do it, but sin living in me that does it!” Why can’t I escape my flesh? It seems like every time I turn around I’ve blown it. I hate it! I feel so weak. Even in the midst of being accountable to other guys I still drop the ball. I’m honest with them, but it doesn’t change that they know my junk. Perhaps this means I don’t have real accountability, or that I don’t even know what real accountability means. I feel like it is impossible to walk in obedience when my flesh is right there with me. Sometimes I will stay strong for a week or two and feel like I made ten steps forward, and then I’ll slip up again and feel like I took 11 steps back! It is so frustrating. I can’t fix it! But maybe I’m not suppose to fix it. As a mentor of mine told me, I need to let Jesus come in and fix it. It’s not lose/win issue, it’s a choose Him/sin issue. Fix me Jesus. I need help! Clean All of ME! From the Inside Out!

Tired, Male-Age 19

“These things inside race through my mind, “Where is God? Why isn’t He
answering? Does He even care?” I long to yearn for him, but I just
can’t get that passion back. He feels so far away. Did I do something
wrong? Sometimes I feel like He’s angry at me, and that’s why I can
never meet with Him. No matter how hard I try it always end up with me
being disappointed. I try to engage in worship but nothing ever
happens. I guess He’s too busy with other people. Am I not good enough?
What more do You want God? I’ve really tried. You know I have. Why
can’t you just meet me and show yourself to me? I already feel alone in
this school, can’t you atleast comfort me Lord? I don’t understand what
I can do to be noticed by You!” -Male, Age 17

“Pain, something I cannot go through on my own. Suffering, overwhelming
sadness, the feeling of being so small and worthless you could just
disappear. Being heartbroken and lost without a way. I find myself going
through these feelings, wishing to call to the one and only amazing, so
perfectly Holy God my Father. The One who doesn’t put these feelings on
me but pulls me from the deep shadowy hole filled with these feelings,
the place I find myself falling into so often. He is the one who is
there in that place with you right there waiting for you to call to Him
and ask for release. Turning to the world as I so often do, looking for
worldly things to fill and cover those whole things that are only
digging down tearing through me, breaking me. Building a wall around me
what I think is temporary happiness, temporary love, joy, but that wall
soon breaks and I’m there, no excuse, no where to hide there looking at
the great creator of the universe, the almighty father Jesus Christ I
feel so broken what I think is to broken to for anyone to heal but he
looks and shows me the most wonderful smile full of compassion
overflowing love and he wraps his arms around me and for the first time
I feel truly loved the kind of love that could never run dry, the kind
that’s always there and always will be. The kind I know I want so badly
to be acquainted with. The love no one could ever imagine possibly
giving me. The kind of love that’s worth living for, proclaiming to all
the kind that now flows through me. I feel now as a light for him and
for his so amazingly unexplained love.” -Female, Age 16