I removed my blogger address from Facebook becuz I've decided that I don't want the whole world to know my innermost thoughts. I prefer a selective audience so this post showed up as a note over there:
I set out to end my life the first time in 1990. I was 13. I tried again at 15. I desperately wanted to be dead. I couldn’t find a reason to live but I learned to put on happy faces and pretend everything was ok. I wore many masks back then, changed personalities to fit where I was and who I was around. I learned what to say and how to say it so that no one worried about me. But I was drinking, doing drugs, and doing whatever else would numb the pain and help me forget who I was for awhile. Death consumed my thoughts most days. I remember standing at the bottom of the grain towers in the little town I lived in, looking up and thinking, “If I jump, no one could stop me then.” I walked a dark, dead end road for many years. Hopelessness was killing me.
A couple of years ago, a song playing on the radio caught my attention. Music has been a life line for me for as far back as I can remember. When nothing or no one else can, it consoles the darkest parts of me, the “slums of my soul”. This song was one of those. I felt like it could have been written just for me…I wanted to know who was singing it. I’d never heard of Seventh Day Slumber before but I became a fan that day. So, when I heard they were playing a concert in Broken Bow, I felt almost compelled to be there. The music was awesome but what blew me away was what the lead singer had to say. He stood there on the stage and told his story to a crowd of all ages, a story of a broken home, of being a social outcast, of drug addiction, hopelessness, and attempted suicide. I didn’t expect it and I certainly never expected that this successful musician, this guy who had it all “together”, could have once been as badly screwed up as I was. He was real and I identified with his story in more ways than I cared to admit. The message he brought that night was one of restoration and of hope. It was a message I needed to hear and I left there with a desire for more people to hear it, too.
The more I look around me, the more young people I see with the same hopeless eyes I once had. I guess because I’ve walked that road and I know the pain that is still inside in so many ways, I have such compassion for these kids. I’m troubled by the hurt and the brokenness I see all around me. I’m ready to see a change…I want to see these lives filled with hope, love, and LIFE. And that’s just exactly where the vision began for this Friday night.
By the grace of God, I’m alive and more than that, I’m happy to have LIFE. I have been blessed with three children and ironically, my two oldest are now 13 and 15. I watch them and see the whole world in front of them. They’re just beginning. I wonder how I could have been so convinced I had nothing to live for at such an early age.
The line from the song that stuck in my head and spoke to my heart that day was this one: “I know it seems like there’s no hope for you, but I know your life is worth more than you can see.” I needed to hear that I was WORTH something during those years of my life, that I mattered. And that’s the word of encouragement I want to pass on to anyone in a hopeless state: You’re here on purpose and your life counts, so somehow, make your way to this concert. It’s free…you got nothin’ to lose.
A couple of years ago, a song playing on the radio caught my attention. Music has been a life line for me for as far back as I can remember. When nothing or no one else can, it consoles the darkest parts of me, the “slums of my soul”. This song was one of those. I felt like it could have been written just for me…I wanted to know who was singing it. I’d never heard of Seventh Day Slumber before but I became a fan that day. So, when I heard they were playing a concert in Broken Bow, I felt almost compelled to be there. The music was awesome but what blew me away was what the lead singer had to say. He stood there on the stage and told his story to a crowd of all ages, a story of a broken home, of being a social outcast, of drug addiction, hopelessness, and attempted suicide. I didn’t expect it and I certainly never expected that this successful musician, this guy who had it all “together”, could have once been as badly screwed up as I was. He was real and I identified with his story in more ways than I cared to admit. The message he brought that night was one of restoration and of hope. It was a message I needed to hear and I left there with a desire for more people to hear it, too.
The more I look around me, the more young people I see with the same hopeless eyes I once had. I guess because I’ve walked that road and I know the pain that is still inside in so many ways, I have such compassion for these kids. I’m troubled by the hurt and the brokenness I see all around me. I’m ready to see a change…I want to see these lives filled with hope, love, and LIFE. And that’s just exactly where the vision began for this Friday night.
By the grace of God, I’m alive and more than that, I’m happy to have LIFE. I have been blessed with three children and ironically, my two oldest are now 13 and 15. I watch them and see the whole world in front of them. They’re just beginning. I wonder how I could have been so convinced I had nothing to live for at such an early age.
The line from the song that stuck in my head and spoke to my heart that day was this one: “I know it seems like there’s no hope for you, but I know your life is worth more than you can see.” I needed to hear that I was WORTH something during those years of my life, that I mattered. And that’s the word of encouragement I want to pass on to anyone in a hopeless state: You’re here on purpose and your life counts, so somehow, make your way to this concert. It’s free…you got nothin’ to lose.
1 comment:
You go girl! Here's to healing & helping!
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