In loneliness, it's easy to forget who you are

I spoke at a conference yesterday that promoted healthy connections in our youth. Over the course of the day, we heard heartbreaking stories supported by equally heartbreaking data that portrayed a generation of disconnected kids.

Disconnection is a toxic feeling. It eats away at you. And our youth, just like you and I, will often take toxic measures to escape it.

These stories are particularly challenging for me. Over the past decade I've come to grips with the truth that I have felt disconnected most of my life. And most of my life I have clung to destructive habits and addictions to escape the toxic feeling our young people are battling these days in epidemic proportions.

When I am done speaking, I always receive kind words about my message. A gentleman came up to me afterward yesterday and asked me, are you a pastor?

I told him I was not.

He said, well, you have the fire of a pastor. You should be one.

In some ways, I wish I didn't have that fire. Because that fire comes from a place of deeply feeling this struggle our kids are facing. It comes from a place of deeply fearing the decades ahead for them if they don't find someone to feed their hunger for connection.

I fear loneliness will eventually eat away so much of their lives that they will one day wake up and have no idea who they are.

Or worse, they will come to identify themselves by the person they've become to deal with the pain of no one ever coming to know the person they really are.

They will come to see themselves as an addict or a loser or a monster or someone who is lonely because they are certainly not worthy of anyone noticing them.

At the close of our day yesterday, a principal from a local school shared stories of things his school is doing to connect kids in powerful ways. As part of his presentation, he shared a video with us. The video was called I choose you.

In the video, conversations were filmed between teachers and students. Conversations where the teachers told students they were allowed to choose a student they believed in, and then have a conversation explaining to that student explaining that belief.

Some of the students broke into the biggest smiles in those conversations. Some of them teared up. And some of them had to wipe away the tears that rolled down their cheeks.

Me, I was the latter all through that video. I was wiping tears.

It is powerful to witness a young person have the parts of themselves noticed they were sure no one ever would. Parts of themselves they themselves were likely dangerously close to believing weren't parts of their identities at all.

What a beautiful thing to witness kids moved to such deep emotion by simply being seen.

And believed in.

This principal said they use human connection in their school as a far greater predictor of student success than any standardized testing. And by the way, grades and attendance have skyrocketed in his school.

In so many spaces, including the spaces our kids inhabit, we've traded in being noticed for who we are for being noticed for the trophies we collect.

And now we have a world full of trophies belonging to people who have no idea who they are.

It's at the heart of a world in great pain, an abundance of which is being felt by our youth.

The saddest part of that is the answer is so simple. If you want to experience the beauty of that answer today, find someone you think may have given up on themselves.

Tell them you believe in them and tell them why.

Stand in their smile, or in their watery eyes, and know you are standing in the answer of all that is eating away at so many of us.

Connect someone's disconnection.

Help someone trade in temporary relief for something far more permanent.

Let's help remind each other who we really are.