The Great Pause

After being coached by the training team at LinkedIN for the past several years, and learning the nuances of how to build my following....it felt like an abrupt stop when I wrote my last article on May 15th, 2020. After all, the "Influencers" will tell you that you should be posting something at least once a week to stay relevant. My last post was over 3 months ago and I wish I could say that my message is no longer relevant. In fact, because of the global pandemic, my message has become more relevant than ever.

So let's just talk about the word relevant for a moment. What does that even mean? When someone says our work has "relevance" or is "relevant" in today's culture, then what are they even talking about? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as "appropriate to the current time, period, or circumstances; or of contemporary interest." So my message remains not only current to the time period we are living in, but has actually gained contemporary interest among the world over the past five months. This current season has given my message more credibility than I could have ever imagined, because my message is and always has been about suicide prevention.

For those who have followed me up until my great pause of the past 3 months....you probably won't be surprised that I am even more passionate about my work now than ever before. Although the reason for what I do will never change, it has also become even more relevant due to this time period we find ourselves living in right now. Anxiety, depression and just the overall awareness of our own mental health have taken center stage in the past five months and the numbers are increasing at an alarming rate. The stress, fear and uncertainty created by this pandemic can wear anyone down, but teens may have an especially tough time coping emotionally. Feeling depressed, hopeless, anxious or angry may be signs they need more support and that's why my message is so relevant.

Over the past few weeks, we've had several young suicides in our local area. I recently spent three hours one evening with a group of young people who are angry and grieving and asking themselves what they could have done to prevent their friend's suicide. I get their grief and their anger because it has been mine also. On September 10th of 2020, we will mark the four year anniversary of the loss of our son Austin. He was only 20 years old and just beginning his Junior year at Wabash College. He had his whole life in front of him and in a split second our son lost hope, and made a decision that has had a profound impact on our family. Shortly after his death, we realized if our story could prevent even one family from living through what we have, then we needed to tell it and so my journey began....

When I started speaking to young people in the Fall of 2018, I could not have imagined what our world would look like less than two years later. I could never imagine that a global pandemic would cause our suicide rates to climb even higher. And I could certainly never imagine that we would be living through a time of isolation that would cause so many people to plummet into anxiety and depression. But that's our reality, and it's why I have been working all summer to prepare a strong message of hope for our youth. A message that will let them know that they are never alone and there is always a better solution than taking their life. I have never felt such a sense of urgency to get out and share our story more than I do right now.

Craig Groeschel says it best, "We're all feeling anxious because we're lacking community." I would agree with this statement and go even further by saying we were not created to be isolated. Craig goes on even further to say, "That it's probably going to take years of study to look back to this season and get an accurate picture of what quarantine isolation has done to the emotional psyche of a whole generation." The generation I am most concerned about right now is our teens and young adults. Those who were living in at risk environments even before Covid. These are the youth who are most at risk of losing hope and taking their lives and unfortunately our recent statistics have only confirmed this.

That's why my organization ClearlyHope will be launching a new website at the end of this week. We will provide information and resources to provide help and HOPE. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the greatest mental health providers in our state this summer. I have also joined our local Suicide Prevention Coalition in our county because it does take a village to save young lives and I can't do this alone. I will also share our story on my new website along with ways that we can all do better to help our young people stay alive and choose HOPE. Every month I will feature a local organization that is doing life saving work in our community and throughout our state. So my long pause is now over and even if it's through a mask, I will be speaking in schools throughout our state this Fall. Because my message is not just deeply personal, but even more relevant than ever before.