Wrote this yesterday. It just POURED out of me..

I'm tired and worn out and yet so young. My life has barely even started, and yet I cannot count the times I've been ready and willing for it to end. And I'm not alone.
This is the American tragedy. As our country takes bigger strides towards being the world's help-meet, the more it turns a blind eye to the filth, corruption, and pain growing and festering within. More and more people are passed by the more our ego grows. We are supposed to be the perfect nation, the one all others look up to. We have spent years, decades, even centuries cultivating our image. From the beginning, we were rebels, standing up against something everyone else gave into. Our reputation is to fight, to win, to be the nation who stands up against injustice no matter the cost.
I don't pretend to understand politics. I know almost nothing about Obama's health care reform strategies or what's even happening in this war anymore. No one ever tells me the straight, honest truth about what's going on. No one knows the straight, honest truth about what's going on. How can I debate what I don't know? But like a soldier who was in the middle of the fighting all these years can tell you exactly what they witnessed, I can tell you exactly what I'm seeing now. And what I know for a fact to be life as we teenagers know it interests me much, much more. All I'm about to say is what I'm seeing. What I'm being told. What's happening around me. And why I don't like any of it.
For instance. I know that for too long too many of my generation have been slipping through the cracks. America as a whole is much more important than an American individual, especially the moody, typical American teenager. All I can see is a universal generation of 13-18 year olds obsessed with sex, with fashion, with the media, with music, with alcohol, with drugs, and with driving- obsessed with all that's cool, and hip, and new. But that's not all. I also can see a universal generation of adults whose jobs are to keep us that way. They "aren't prepared to deal with this right now" so we should all just go to our rooms and leave them alone. Teen deaths are a tragic by-product, but as long as we keep quiet and watch our porn when Mommy and Daddy aren't looking, we'll end up fine. It's all just a part of life, of growing up, of being normal, right? A comatose society who cannot see the whole picture is a docile, trusting, blind, and stupid society, easily led in any direction. We are sheep. Retarded. Easily scared and too often looking for comfort. And as long as we trust our leaders, they can take us anywhere they want to.
Over and over again, we are told to shut up. To mind our own business- and our manners. We're too young to do anything. And why should we care anyway? There are new gadgets and clothing products and fishes in the sea every day. Plenty to keep us busy and out of everyone's hair.
I find it somewhat ironic that the quotes I find most fitting is from a Disney Pixar movie- the Incredibles. (Mr. Incredible: ) "They keep finding new ways to celebrate mediocrity, but if someone is genuinely exceptional...?" We give them money, a script, a contract, a place in the world where everyone else is just like them. "And when everyone's super..." *evil laugh* "No one will be." (Syndrome, the Incredibles)
Pornography companies target 11-17 year-olds specifically. Where teen pregnancy used to be shameful, it's now normal, an every day occurrence, something not looked at twice anymore. Sex is celebrated, even encouraged, by music, television, books, sex-ed teachers... It's now all your choice. If you love someone enough, why not? But no one tells us what love is anymore. War is noble, not realistic. Depression and self-mutilation is something to make money off of now, by catering to the Emo culture. Everything morally wrong is tolerated, encouraged in its own way (all in the name of finding ourselves and being able to choose), and then we're left to deal with the consequences because everyone else is too busy with politics and war.
Do you understand how many of my people have looked at life, at all they have the potential to be, and decided it would be better to die than to live? How many girls don't want to bring children into this world? How many have stopped living, even as their hearts beat and their eyes blink?

The person who controls the teenage generation controls the world. And it seems we have no choice as to who controls us. It's as if we're virtual characters in a Halo 3 game. It's not us playing, it's the person hitting the buttons.
Who's hitting your buttons? Who's controlling you? The media? Pop stars? Fashion? Music? Pain? Hatred? Are you okay with having no say in life? Are you just fine with being labelled for all time as the most stupid, sheep-like generation the world has ever seen? Are you good with everyone who's secretly laughing at you? With every person who thinks you're a waste of time to deal with, that your ideas are all wrong just because of an age number?

The Christian community is called to a higher purpose, one the secular world doesn't want us to achieve. If we are lulled into sleep, then we are worthless, easy to get past and easy to rob.
I'm tired of being counted as worthless. Of being labelled right off the bat. I won't be taken note of then tucked away on a shelf. I have a voice. I have a say. I have a right to say it. And I have the ability to make people listen to me, to have them hear all I need to say, and to never be afraid of making mistakes.
1 Timothy 4:12- "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, and in purity."
Psalm 119:9- "How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your word."
Psalm 119:1- "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against You."
Psalm 119:32- "I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free."
Romans 8:33- "Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies."
We can be the example, the person everyone else looks up to- even adults. And we have no fear. For if God is with us, who can be against us? He's fighting on our side. We have the opportunity to go down in history as the teenagers who changed history. Who changed so many lives that the world will never be the same. And it all starts with your Walk, with your circle. With the people you interact with every single day, with the things that you do every moment of your life, with everything you're passionate about. It starts with you.
Leaders, stand up and lead. God never promises it will be easy. It will be freaking hard. But He does promise life to the fullest through Him, every time. There's so much more than you can even imagine! With God at your side and a deadly, useful sword in your side, how can you be defeated? He's already won the battle. The victory is sure to be ours.

Now you've read this. What are you going to do about it? It's your choice. Make it matter.