An Entire Generation

I am around kids of all ages in just about every area of my life..arguably an absurd amount considering I don’t live with any. They come to my door and ask for snacks when I am at home doing the dishes. I teach them on Sunday mornings and Sunday nights and Wednesday nights at church. I welcome them into my home on Thursday nights. I eat dinner and play football with them on Monday nights. I go on homeschool field trips with them on Fridays. Kids from all sorts of backgrounds and home lives.

When I think about our House of Hope kids, I expect it to be a little messy. I know that some of them don’t get dinner seven nights a week. Some of them do not have stable families. Some of them have experienced things that no kid should ever have to go through. I think that in general, we accidently assume that this is unique to them. I hear myself talk sometimes and I realize that occasionally I might make things sound worse than they actually are, when in reality, there are so many of our kids that have parents attending their soccer games and helping with homework and cooking dinners every night. In our communities, despite the bad there is also so much good that does not get talked about nearly enough.

BUT like I said, with House of Hope kids, I expect it to be a little messy.

The kids that I interact with that come from multi-level homes in nice neighborhoods, I find myself expecting them to have normal teenage problems. The relationship drama and the pressure to fit in is a part of growing up and figuring out who you are. I do not want to sound like I am minimizing these feelings, because I remember being 15 and struggling with these life-shaking things as well. It has become painfully clear recently that this is not the case as often as I would like it to be. With House of Hope, I prepare myself for trauma and let downs in order to protect my own heart when these situations occur, but my guard is not up as high when I drive out of the trailer parks. In the last two months I have been having a lot of conversations with teenagers that have left my heart broken. Conversations where I learn how frequently they have been let down in huge ways by the people in their lives. By the adults in their lives, more specifically. 

It’s really not a secret that mental health issues are at an all time high, but over and over again I am hearing stories from these kids about the adults closest to them who are not taking them seriously. It blows me away that we are not truly listening to these kids and we are suddenly surprised with the rise in depression and anxiety and eating disorders. In my experience, it is not that they aren’t talking…but we aren’t listening. These things really are not happening overnight. 

My heart hurts for all of the kids that have cried or vented or exposed deep wounds to me. Some of them have been House of Hope kids and some of them have not. It is not exclusive to one community or one group of people. I know there are a lot of adults that are intentionally pouring into the next generation daily…thankfully, I am surrounded by several of them, they do exist. 

I think writing this all down was really just a way for me to process my thoughts, they may not all be right. The consistent pattern of frustration that I have had towards the parents and authority figures and adults in the stories I have heard, pushed me to get it all down on paper. I guess I just want to encourage you to close this page and send a text to someone and remind them how incredible and valuable and loved they are. They might not have heard it in a while. It is not too late for us to do better.

- Alyssa