Teens - Emotional Pain and Disappointment

Excerpted from
Teenagers Are People Too!
By Joyce Meyer

Know that many of the young people who read this book are hurting emotionally. You may be one of them. You may have hurts that you have not shared with anyone.

In fact, many times when we are hurting, we won't admit it even to ourselves.

For years I was hurting really badly due to being sexually abused from the time I was a young child until I left home when I was eighteen. But I acted as if I really had things all together in my life. Most people would have never known or could not have even imagined what I was going through in my home life. It is amazing how good we get at hiding our pain.

If you are going through emotional pain and disappointment with life and people, I strongly encourage you to be honest with yourself and begin to talk to God about it. He really wants to help you. You can talk to God about absolutely anything - He understands all you go through in life.

You may even be in a situation similar to mine where you are being sexually abused. I encourage you to talk to someone you trust - your school guidance counselor. or youth pastor - or look in the yellow pages for a teen hot line, or do some online searching for a web site on the Internet for teen organizations that offer help, etc. The bottom line is, don't wait. Do whatever you feel God is leading you to do to get help immediately.

Emotional pain is one of the most devastating things that any of us must face and learn to deal with. We learn in the Bible that God heals the brokenhearted. (Isaiah 61:1.) He exchanges our hurts and pain for blessings if we give them to Him. He gives us ... beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness... (v. 3 KJV). God cares about how you feel.

Don't keep your hurts hidden. If you do, they will get deeper and deeper and do more and more damage to your personality.

For many years I refused to face the issues in my life. When I finally did face them, it took many more years to overcome the problems that had developed in my personality.

If you are running from reality, hiding from issues that need to be dealt with, I strongly encourage you to stop and begin right now to face your problems. The longer you put it off, the longer you will be in bondage and pain.

Being healed emotionally is painful, but at least it is a type of pain that leads somewhere positive if we turn to God for help with it. It hurts because we usually have to talk about and deal with things that have been buried within us for a long time.

Making Wrong Things Right

Has your life been a big disappointment up until now? That can change! No matter how others have treated you, be determined not to let their opinions and actions determine your worth and value as a person. Remember, God loves you, and you are precious in His sight. You are a valuable person, and God has a good plan for your life.

Have people disappointed you, perhaps even people you should have been able to trust and turn to at any time? Don't let your past dictate your future. Don't withdraw from life and intimate relationships because you have been disappointed in the past. Put your trust in God and ask Him to lead you to the right friends.

Even if your own family has disappointed and rejected you, God welcomes you into His family. His Word states that He adopts us as His own:

Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, yet the Lord will take me up [adopt me as His child]. - Psalm 27:10

As you turn your life over to God, you will find Him bringing justice to you. He delights in taking wrong things and making them right, He works good out of what Satan and others intend for harm. (Genesis 50:20.)

I have an absolutely awesome life now, and yet I suffered horribly all of my teenage years. When I was twenty-three years old, I remember thinking that I had never been happy in my life. I prayed and asked God to send someone into my life who would really love me and let me be happy.

God has done much more than I even asked, and He will do the same thing for you.' He will take all of the wrong things done to you and work them out for good as you trust Him and His Word.

God Keeps His Promises

The Bible is God's book of guidelines on how to live a successful, outrageously wonderful life. Every issue we will ever face in life is covered somewhere in the Bible. It is filled with wisdom for everyday living.

God does not play guessing games with us. He is very plain in His Word about what He likes and does not like, what He approves of and does not approve of, what works and what does not work. When He promises something, He always does what He says He will do. This is something we are not accustomed to with people.