I have heard of at least four individuals, young and old, who have taken their lives this week.

The thought of this has given me such a heavy heart.

I feel like in the case of one of those individuals, who I happened to know, something MORE could have been done.

I feel like someone somewhere could have done more. (maybe it was me, maybe I could have done more)

Someone somewhere could have shown this person that there is hope. There is a reason to live. Each of us has a purpose.

Someone somewhere could have taken time to talk with this individual about a positive and fulfilling future that awaited the answer to one question.

"Can I be free from my addiction?"

I think before one gets to the point of asking if they can be free from an addiction that could take their life, they ask, "Does anyone really care?" "Who can I call on to help me through these troubled times?" "Do I really have a purpose?" "Why am I alive?" "What am I doing with my life?" "Why do I feel so lonely?" "Why am I confused?"

I want to shout tonight, to everyone who is reading this blog...

YOUR STUDENTS NEED YOU TO CARE!

By now, as you read, a face of one of the students in your student ministry may have entered your thoughts. Be the one to call them, text them, email them, visit them - Be the one to do SOMETHING to connect with them to show them that you care.

John 10:10 (NLT)
"The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness."

Statistics on Teen Suicide:
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students
Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15-to-24-year-olds.
Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for persons between the ages of 10 and 14
Suicide is the sixth leading cause of death for 5-to-14-year-olds.
Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for all persons regardless of age, sex or race;
Every hour and forty-five minutes another young person commits suicide.

We can't wait any longer - they're crying out for help.

Be.

**

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said:

"The essential purport of the world-famous monologue in Hamlet is, in condensed form, that our state is so wretched that complete non-existence would be decidedly preferable to it. Now if suicide actually offered us this, so that the alternative "to be or not to be" lay before us in the full sense of the words, it could be chosen unconditionally as a highly desirable termination ("a consummation devoutly to be wish'd" [Act III, Sc. I.]). There is something in us, however, which tells us that this is not so, that this is not the end of things, that death is not an absolute annihilation.[3]"