We are young, but we are brave.

We don’t see it coming, we don’t see the bolt of electricity come, and if we do, we think it’s a bright shining light.

Bottom line is, even if you see ‘em coming, you’re not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does, so what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. the big moments are going to come. You can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are.

 – Joss Whedon

I was told a while back that I was nothing but a cat trying to fit into a dog’s world. I was told I didn’t belong, I was told that I didn’t look like I should.

I think we see the bolt coming, but I think when we see if from afar we don’t really anticipate how much it would hurt so what we do is we ignore it, we chose to look away and ignore the obvious. I think we’re afraid of pain and hurt, I think we want the same life we’ve always had, and so we start living in this virtual world formed in our minds. We start living in a fictional setting where everything is okay, or so it seems. We walk around with that ecstatic smile on our faces; we become plastic, covered in makeup, metaphorical makeup. We lie our way through life saying we’re okay, but the truth is we are far cry from that. We build walls and add glass to cut anyone trying to climb these walls and save us from ourselves.  We cause pain and we cause wounds and we cause cuts, what for? How does this work out for us? It doesn’t, it never has. When the bolt hits us, we don’t even know it, we cut all our emotions out so we don’t even feel it, our lives become about ‘us’ and no one else.

Or does it?

We try to fit in, we try to be like them, we try to understand the way they look at things, and we try to achieve what they expect us to achieve, Perfection. In the process of trying to be perfect we make a mistake, and then we aren’t perfect anymore. The moment we realise we aren’t perfect, is the moment we realise change has finally hit us.

But even when the change hits us, we don’t necessarily let it on. So we build up walls, and cry ourselves to sleep, we talk less and drink more, we search for ways and means to make this pain, this change go away, some of us are lucky, but some not so. We lie to everyone, we laugh at all the jokes, but deep down change is eating at us trying to walk out and make a scene. But we know the consequences of that, we know that if we let the change show, people will know.

People should never know.

And then we wake up one day, and everything has suddenly changed, our lives have become different, and we are left bare for the world to see. In this moment, in this moment of utter nakedness we find that we aren’t really left bare at all. We are covered and protected but the one who loves us. So we build ourselves up and even with the hurt we embrace the change, and we strive for a better life, we work for a better tomorrow, because we finally see ourselves for what we truly are, we finally see that we were never naked, we just felt it. But we were free, free to be ourselves, defined by only the lines we draw for ourselves, defined by only the truths we believed in, we are defined by the one we believe in. We may be young, act wild, live freely, but I promise you, inside our love for God has no bounds. And to most looking at our outsides we would be just plain clad teenagers trying to find our place, what they don’t see is that we have found our place.

I think people need to start looking a little deeper, setting aside their stereotypes; they need to look us Christian Youth, as people and not as machines. I can assure you, our lives are not defined by the world, our lives are defined by Jesus.

We make mistakes, we fall, we cry, we laugh, we jump, we dance, we party, we walk around, we travel, we write, we make bad choices but eventually we learn, through it all we learn because we have a loving God who teaches us. So give us some space, correct us with love, point out our mistakes with grace, that’s how God does it.

Most of all, accept us for who we are. God created us the way we are for a reason, and somewhere down the line we fall, but then again, there is always someone waiting to catch us. Don’t judge us based on how we look, the clothes we wear, the people we meet, the places we go, if you do want to judge, then stop right there and remember God never judged you.

We maybe young, but Jesus always loved the broken, the misfits, the misunderstood, and young, and the outcasts.

We are young, but we are still learning, and that’s the beauty of it, the older we become the more we have to learn, let us learn.

We all have different stories; give us the freedom to write our own.