What do you do with a problem? What do you do if your life feels like one serrated edge? If you move forward, you end up with blood running down your wrists. If you stay where you are, the problem festers and gets uglier and messier until it forces you to look at it. And everyone knows you can’t go back. 

 My generation is the “anxious generation.” There’s glaring strings of statistics to prove it: more suicides, more medication, more depression, more adolescents hiding in closets and following social media like it’s the Holy Grail. Everyone’s cradling this heavy void—what do you do with a life? How have we gotten so bad at figuring out the answers? 

 The holidays can make you feel like you’re alone on a desert island, and everyone else is carving turkey and sharing smiles around a Thanksgiving table. It’s never been so easy to hide in the crowd, to watch the mall fill with busy humans clutching packages and strolling to an inner music you’ve forgotten how to play. You’re not scared of standing out anymore, you’re scared you won’t be found. When you start blending into the drywall, a few friends away from becoming invisible—when you realize you could move and leave as much of a hole as a pebble plucked from a lake—that is when you start breaking under the weight of your problem. What do you do with a life?

  We tend to miss them—the teenagers hiding in the edges. We make excuses. We don’t want to be pushy. They’re so glued to their phones it’s impossible to talk to them. But maybe the real reason is we’re not far enough removed. These anxious people are wearing our worst fears and insecurities like extra jackets. Their jagged corners are out on the table for everyone to see, and ours are too close to the surface to risk being exposed again. 

 We forget that the beauty of our redemption shines through the cracks in our facades. The splintered pieces tell a story of the healing. Without the anxious nights, the breaking and hurting, there is no redemption. And without the scars, we have no witness of the Redeemer. 

Jesus moves in the vulnerable. He has no place with the self-righteous.

 This anxious generation needs to hear this. Jesus meets you at your messiest. Your wounds are beautiful places where He can work. You will be found. 

 What do you do with a problem? You give it to the Redeemer. And then you begin again.