1.29.2008

Well Hidden

Two weeks ago as part of our "Scarred" kick-off, we gave students the opportunity to anonymously share some of their hurts. To be honest, I went into it a little bit naively. Because our students come from upper middle-class families, are well provided for, go to great schools etc. it's dangerously easy to be lulled into thinking they don't face the same struggles other young teens do.

I was shocked back into reality as I read some of the responses. We simply asked students to write on a card:
"My Scar is _________________ and I deal with it by ______________."

The amount of kids dealing with (or not dealing with)significant emotional hurts was overwhelming. They hide it so well, but by scratching just a little below the surface we gave students the opportunity to reveal some painful truths. Plus, we were able to point kids to our fantastic 13 week program that helps students work through their hurts.

May God grant us all the ability to recognize hurting kids and the wisdom to help them navigate their pain in a way that brings healing.

4 comments:

Mark E. Eades said...

Ok I'll bit - what is the "fantastic 13 week program" you directed them to?

Kurt Johnston said...

Mark,
three times a year, we offer a program called "Life Hurts, God Heals" that is basically our student version of Celebrate Revover, a 12-step faith-based recovery program. We're fortunate enough to have a part-time woman whose sole focus is on this ministry and on our hurting kids. We've offered it for high school for quite a while and opened it up to junior highers a little over a year ago.

I wasn't trying to get you to 'bite' on anything, just didn't feel like going into all the details.

Anonymous said...

Kurt, are you guys going to offer the graphics and such at simply? We were going to do the LHGH thing in March anyway and I was trying to find a way to communicate it with an edge...I hate to reinvent the wheel.

Thanks man,

Kurt Johnston said...

Sean, because Simply already has a LHGH resource, I doubt there are plans for our 'scarred' version. If you contact me offline, I'd be happy to send you the graphics.