Praying the Scriptures for Your Teenagers by Jodie Berndt

Author:Jodie Berndt
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2021-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Praying against Self-Harm and Suicide

The LORD has chosen you to be his treasured possession.

Deuteronomy 14:2

I first heard about the practice of cutting when our oldest daughter was in middle school. We lived in southern California at the time, and a couple of girls in her grade had been seen with razor marks on their arms. My heart ached for the girls and their families. What would make a teen want to hurt herself in that way?

Back then, I thought the girls’ behavior was an isolated incident, one of those “out there” things a kid growing up in the shadow of Hollywood might decide to try. Now, though, I know that adolescent self-harm, often through cutting and burning, is alarmingly common as teens struggle to cope with stress at school, in their families, and in peer relationships. And teen suicide—self-harm’s evil cousin—is also on the rise, jumping 56 percent in a single decade. Today, suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents, right behind car wrecks and other accidents.1

Statistics like these would come as no surprise to my friend Karen—nor would the findings that say that self-harm and suicidal thoughts cross racial, gender, and socioeconomic boundaries. To all appearances, Karen’s daughter Natalie looked like she had a near-perfect teen life . . .

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.