Christian Kids are hurting in out Churchs. (part 1)

Before reading this blog I would like to let you know that I have not written this to condemn anyone or the Church. I write this not out of bitterness or hurt. I am writing this out of the heaviness of my heart and I for one want to change and be aware of others.

I am going to be sharing something that I have not spoken much about, something that is really hard to talk about, I am not doing this to hurt anyone but to help people.

I have just been speaking to a childhood friend who has shared the hurts and struggles she faced in her teenage years due to family breakdown. It broke my heart to hear some of what she went through and what she carried alone. This girl and her family had been involved in a Church all of her life. It struck me that no one stepped in and helped her and her family. She is not the only one, over the years I have been told stories of hurt and abandonment carried by Children and teenagers.

I also went through this as a teenager. When I was 13 my mother had a breakdown, my father was away for work for a week and I did not know how to get hold of him. A lady from the Church we were involved with came and visited us and saw what was happening and then left, no one called to see if I was ok, everyone in the Church talked about it in secret. No one ever spoke to me about it and it was pushed aside. But I was treated differently after that. My parents were very active in the Church and I know everyone knew what happened and that I was alone.

The things that happened that week should never have had to be carried by a 13 year old alone. I was at home for 1 week with a lady who did not know who I was. A lot of things happened that week which will not benefit anyone by me giving all the details.

The outcome of that week was good , the Lord used the breakdown as testimony of his healing power and his unconditional love. Since that incident mother has been healed of mental illness and my parents became pastors soon after the healing.

I am coming across more and more of these stories and seeing lives off track and wrong choices taken because no one was there. There are so many young people and young adults walking around feeling abandoned and unloved who have been raised in the Church.

I know that there is no such thing as a perfect Church, if there was such a thing there would be no people in it. I believed people want to the part of the solution, and a lot of people probably don't see that our Christian kids are hurting. Fear has a lot to do with this not wanting to stick our noses into someone else's business. Often we put so much effort into the "unsaved", street kids that we don't look around us, to the kids in our own Church. Don't get me wrong I think out reach is needed and am all for it. But the kids in our Church matter just as much.

This post is to bring the fact to our awareness that there are christian kids hurting out there. If we know that there are things going on in a family or a child's life we need to speak up. If we don't know what to do go to the pastors or leaders and get help and pray for them. Please get help and pray for these kids. It can be so easy to get caught up in our lives and not see, I have been praying that God will open my eyes to hurting kids. The enemy wants our Kids we need to stand in the gap for them and help them.

I look at all the wasted years of my life that I struggled with what I went through and it would have been so easy for me to go the wrong way. A lot of years I was of no use to God because of all the hurts I carried that I was blinded to others hurting around me I was so scared that I lost some of my compassion for people, I was just warming a seat in Church and going through the motions.

Father help me to see our Hurting kids

and give me the strength to do something

and to make a difference. Help me to overcome

the fear of man.

Keep me real so I don't miss the signs and my

heart soft so I don't turn a blind eye.