Who is Normal Anyway?
I had wanted to write about this about three weeks ago. An incident happened on the CpR retreat that was pretty significant. The nurse who came for the weekend rode up and back with me, since I came a little late. On the way home, she was telling me how she had gotten a chance to sit in on the Sat night session. During the session, there was a drama about suicide. And while the nurse, J, was there, a female student was watching the drama and just got freaked out and had to run out of the room... Since no other adults were following her out, J ran out to see if she was okay. The girl was talking about how she hadn't thought about suicide in so long and that this drama just really got her. And she couldn't stop thinking about it again. At one point, the girl said, "I'm just not normal."
J had the presence of mind to say to her, "You ARE normal. Everyone has something to deal with." Is that great or what? Because that is so much of what students are dealing with, whether its contemplating suicide, or thinking about whether their shoes are cool or not. Of course, it could very well be all of us who are trying to decide whether we are normal or not, us adults just hide it a little better. But in either case, I loved it the fact that a visitor to our ministry could shepherd a kid like that. And I think those words are so significant. Those are the words that some of our students are dying to hear.
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