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christian counseling today
Vol. 21 no. 2
Chap Cl ark
“Darkness is shorthand for anything that scares me… the problem is
that there are so few people who can teach me about that… so many
congregations are preoccupied with keeping the lights on right now the
last thing they want to talk about is how to befriend the dark.”
— Barbara Brown Taylor,
Learning to Walk in the Dark
1
There is a gap between how people tend to think about adolescence and the reality
of how a teenager experiences the world. This is true even in the Church, perhaps
especially in the Church. Most adults continue to believe that “high school is the
best time of your life,” so they typically downplay, or even deny, the struggles and
angst that kids consistently feel. On one level, it is not
some
who struggle with
making sense of their precarious journeys in an unsympathetic environment; it is
everyone
. However, for many, and the number is not small, this struggle can be
smothering and hopeless… with no end to the darkness. Far too many fall deeper
into isolation, only making the pain all that much worse. Growing up being told to
“get with the program” and constantly being admonished with, “You don’t know
what a real problem is…,” have taught adolescents that vulnerability and honesty
are simply too risky. Where, then, do they turn? Who is there for them? When the
sorrow becomes too much, when the burden is simply too great and they believe
there is no hope to be found, suicide becomes the last option. Still the third leading
cause of death among 10-24 year olds, suicide becomes the final attempt to exert
power over pain.
to die
Adolescent Depression,Suicide & the Church
too young