"Yesterday at that baby shower, I was jealous of Callie, because she got pregnant without trying. And we try. I get shots, I take my temperature, I put my legs in the air, and nothing. The universe says 'Screw you, Meredith', and gives Callie a kid. And then puts Callie through a windshield. I mean, what the hell is going on? What's the point? I mean, is there a reason for this? Because if you can think of a reason, any reason at all, why the universe is so screwed up, and random and mean, now would be an amazingly good time to tell me, because I really need some answers."
~Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy, Song Beneath the Song
This past weekend, my daughter lost a good friend to suicide. He was a former member of our church youth group and among my daughter's group of friends at school. I think quite a few of these kids were asking why the universe is so random and mean.
Actually, I think our entire population of young people asks why the universe is so screwed up on a regular basis. Look around. The economy is in a shambles. Families fall apart regularly. There are school shootings, and kids throwing themselves off water towers because they were bullied. Our elected officials fight and call each other names like they belong in middle school and not in the hallways of our government. Nothing gets better, it only gets worse, and the media plays up the "worst" every single day for hours and hours.
We have raised an entire generation of kids who believe they are nothing more than animals. There is no absolute right or wrong. Nothing is really your fault. Everyone deserves a trophy or a certificate. Competition is bad.
There is no hope.
Let me say it again. There is no hope.
What other possible explanation is there, beyond those four little words? What else can possibly explain why an 18 year old boy, with his whole life ahead of him, would take a gun and shoot himself? There is no hope.
There is nothing bigger than you or your problems. There is nothing better coming anywhere down the line. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is no hope.
For all of these young people the universe IS screwed up and random and mean.
And we sit around and blame the government, or the public school system, or the liberals, or the tea party people, or the idiots from Westboro Baptist Church, or the devil.
We blame everyone but ourselves.
And yet, we, the adults, the ones who were once young and once so full of hope, WE built this society. And then we threw our own kids, once full of hope, into this den of lions and we failed to give them a reason to keep... hoping.
Dreaming.
Living.
Last night, our church youth group held a Grief Share. I think a lot of our church was praying, because how do you help this generation understand something that you can't explain? After so many years of no hope, how do you offer hope?
There is nothing I can say that makes this any better. There is nothing I can do. For 5 days, I struggled with that truth. I was powerless, as a parent, to help my child see beyond this moment in time. I was powerless.
But God, He is all powerful. For a moment, even I forgot that. For three straight days, seven times, I kept seeing this one verse. It was in my personal Bible study. It was posted on my facebook timeline. It came in my email. And it was the verse I was randomly given to read in my Beth Moore Bible Study yesterday morning.
Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
Read it. Again. Again. Again. Drink it in. There is hope.
(P.S. I could have written more, so much more, but God says things so much better than I do.)
