Deep hurting teens

I was reading an article today regarding how teens deal with the challenges they face in life. In reality it was talking about teens that are facing difficult, really difficult things.

The article revealed that approximately 20% of teens have tried to "cut" themselves. It said that 11% of teens are regular cutters. Let me project those numbers out into terms here in Fredericton. We have two high schools in our city with about 4000 students in the two schools. That would mean that roughly 800 students have cut themselves at least once and that 440-450 of them are regular cutters. That saddens me.

I was talking to some teens about this today and one teen told me that she personally knew nine teens that were cutters. She came up with that number in about 30 seconds of thinking. She said she feels they do this because they do not know how to deal with the pain and sadness. She talked about how they are having family and relationship problems that they can't deal with so they turn to this type of abuse.

Another teen I talked to shocked me when she told me she knows a ten and seven year old that are regular cutters. That is a child in grade 2. That makes my heart break. She told me the kids regularly cut themselves with scissors and knives. What could possible be so bad that a seven year old would be cutting themselves?

The answers may not be obvious at first, but if we think about it things are really bad for many teens and children. They are confused, rejected, abused and feel like they have no one to talk to. They must truly hurt at a very deep level.

I was reminded of the young lady I met at SoulFest, the same one that prophesied about this ministry. After she prophetically prayed for me, she sought me out. She later showed me the cut marks on her arms and told me she overcame the cutting when she understood how much God loved her and how He wanted to help her with her problems. I know Boaz needs to be involved in helping teens with this behavior too.

Our ministry is about helping teens. We need to seek God's face and ask Him how we can make a difference in this area. I know he loves every single person and His heart must break for those who choose to hurt themselves.