Sometimes, as a parent, I come across a news story or a statistic or a blog that breaks my heart in a million pieces, because even though it's not about YOU, there's always, always the image of your face. Like today. Today, I read that suicide is the second leading cause of death in children aged 10-24, and I thought "What if that was you? What if you decided that you were better without this world, that this world was somehow BETTER without you?"
And I wanted to tell you that this will never be true. NEVER.
I remember the day you were born and the moment they placed you on my chest for the first time. I remember how I looked into your half-open eyes and thought about all the prayers I'd prayed for you and all the plans I'd made for you, and I knew my life was forever changed and immeasurably better because you were in it. I pictured God knitting together your little body and filling it with personality, and I sat in awe of His masterpiece. I breathed in your scent and knew I would love you - always.
Please never doubt that.
Even if you're bullied, gay, unpopular, paralyzed, broke, pregnant or arrested.
Even if you don't get invited to prom.
Even if you get fired from your job.
Even if you get dumped by text.
Even if you're raped in the backseat of a car.
Sometimes I will be angry with you and disappointed in you, and I will want better for you, but I will always love you - recklessly, overwhelmingly and unconditionally.
But even if I didn't, even if NOBODY DID, it wouldn't change the fact that your life is worth living. There will probably be days when it doesn't feel that way, days when you're sobbing into your pillow, crushed by the weight of a break-up or a fight with your best friend. I've been there, and I remember when those things didn't feel like LITTLE things. They felt like heart-shattering, life-altering things. Things that made me feel unwanted and unloved. Things that made me feel alone and tired of struggling. But in the years that have followed, there have been so many days that have made me think "How could I ever have wanted to miss this?" Simple days when I was eating pizza on the couch in my sweats or driving down the highway with the music up and the sun shining on my face. Big days when I was walking down the aisle in a white dress or laying in a doctor's office hearing your heartbeat for the first time.
And trust me, days like that WILL follow. I know it's so, so hard to see now, but those hard times don't last forever.
So please, no matter how bad it gets, don't give up. Come to me, and we'll figure out a way to make things better. And if you feel like you can't come to me, go to SOMEBODY....go to your best friend or your youth minister or a random stranger on a suicide hotline, but go to somebody. Don't try to hold it in and don't try to be strong and fight these demons on your own. Because if you lose this battle, it's permanent. And it's not just permanent for you. Every person you touched would be irreversibly changed. I would have to pick out a coffin for you and watch as they lowered a piece of me into the ground, and I can't see how that pain would ever go away.
So please, please, please don't be one of the statistics. I know this just looks like words on paper, but find a way to make them real and find a way to feel alive because you deserve that.
Believe that you are absolutely irreplaceable.
Believe that you are beautiful, you are loved, you are priceless, you are created, you are worthy.
No. matter. what.
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