Hope for the Downcast Soul
I was reminded of this again with the CDC's recent release of the results of the 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. This is the most recent data, tracking trends among America's youth with behaviors such as sexual behaviors related to violence, unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use, unhealthy dietary behaviors, inadequate physical activity, obesity, etc ... While there is some good news in these statistics, if you look closely, one alarming statistic stood out. Among teenage girls "persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness" rose from 36% in 2011 to 57% in 2021. Correlating to this statistic, suicides attempts have increased 50% in the last decade, with almost 25% of teenage girls attempting suicide at least once in a 12 month period. Let that sink in for a minute. Six out of ten of our teenage girls are struggling with these persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, depression, whatever you want to call it and one in four find it so bad that they want to end their life. Keep in mind these are 2021 findings. My guess is that, if anything, these numbers have only increased in 2023. Despite being the wealthiest nation in the history of the world and having access to whatever we need materially, there is a void in at the core of so many of these beautiful, young image bearers. Why is this? There could be lots of reasons. Does our very materialism contribute to this sadness? What purpose do young people have? Certainly the rise of social media is playing a huge role in this phenomena. How has our treatment of the pandemic contributed? We could proliferate our speculations, and surely it is multi-faceted. But as I alluded to earlier, this highlights some of the urgency of our life together. We need to pray, think, and act in ways that offers hope and support to these girls and their families in the midst of their struggles.
And there is hope! Listen to these words of another who dealt with persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. "My tears have been my food day and night ... Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me ... (Psalm 42:3,5, 10)." This lament of the Sons of Korah in Psalm 42 and 43 captures so poignantly the current conditions of the teens in our midst. Cast down in the soul, they look around and feel they don't measure up. All day and night feeding on tears stemming from these feelings of sadness and hopelessness. But the psalmist does not leave it there: "Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. .... By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me ... (Ps. 42 5, 8, 11)". The psalmist so accurately represents both the malady and the cure. The feelings of sadness and the hope to be found in God. God, the one whose beautiful song beckons us in the night. God, the one whose light and truth (Psalm 43: 3) continue to pursue the most desolate of us, inviting us to life. God, the one who in Jesus, bore our sorrows and became acquainted with grief. Who took all this to the cross so that we could be filled with his joy. These truths are what we must make our food and drink. This is what we have to offer the world. This is what we need to urgently hold before the world!
Photo by Hillie Chan on Unsplash