SAVE THE SNOWFLAKES!
Our culture often makes fun of teenagers and young adults calling them snowflakes, or millennials because they all seem like angry, overly-sensitive, immature drama queens. And we assume we need to toughen them up with putdowns, throwing them out of the house, etc. The people my age who were born in the nineteen fifties, sixties and even seventies are quite concerned about this generation that will soon take over. I have thought about this a lot.... How do we reverse this trend towards cultural, religious, political and family breakdown? How do we help our children and grandchildren?
I believe we first must quit our judgments of these kids. Their attitudes may confuse us and even make us angry, however, our kids are not reacting to an easy culture. These "snowflakes" are running from the horrible world we have thrown them into and they do not have the emotional, experiential nor spiritual maturity to handle.
We have raised our children in unstable quicksand. Even though half of marriages don't end up divorced, the fact that half do makes many children feel like a Damocles sword is above their heads and they may have subconscious hyper-reactions each time parents are too loud or too quiet with each other. They see what happens when families fall apart.
A huge percentage of families have adults addicted to alcohol or drugs and many adults these kids know are on legal anti-depressants. That sends the message to our children that adults can't handle life, so how can they?
Adults often want to empower kids with too much knowledge that their brains are not developed enough to handle. We smother our children with sexual perversion and politics and angst. We allow them to watch and play explicitly violent games as entertainment. We have created a world that is so terrible for them that we, whether we know it or not, act like we all are victims and then get angry with them for their own actions of victimhood.
We have sent the message to our children through media that the point of life is to pursue happiness--that we should avoid uncomfortable situations and surround ourselves with laughter, fun, amusement, distraction, self-indulgence and food. We have forced a droning meaninglessness into everything by cowardly avoiding anything that is important--in both words and actions.
The last few generations have lived in a world of weak men--weak fathers and grandfathers and uncles and teachers. Weak men are either passive and never do anything to protect others or they become the bullies. Real men are self-sacrificing heroes and these kids only saw heroes in the pretend-world of media. So our male children had very few mentors to know how to be good men. Most of these children were also deprived of stay-at-home mothers. How can we expect these kids to have become mature when we didn't protect them from Satan's full-fledge onslaught of evil?
Then to compound things, we protected them from all the wrong things--like hard work, discipline, moral compasses, good adult examples, siblings, close families--and we wonder why they are snowflakes. They are snowflakes because our generation was a snowflake factory!
Maybe they need less extreme cultural drama and more traditional normalcy. And we can start giving this to our children and grandchildren by our lives of Christian stability and holiness.
We need to understand that the government can do very little for our families. Teachers and pastors can only do so much for our children. It is not up to them (whoever them is) to solve our problems. It is up to us. And we can only do it through personal holiness.
It is time for us to quit putting it off. It is time for us to quit making excuses. Now, today, is the time we need to make a commitment to becoming righteous and noble and strong and wise for our children. If you can't do it for God, if you won't do it for your own sake, have enough love to do it for your children or grandchildren.
Start the long journey to holiness. (What else do you have to do with the rest of your life?😉)
1) First and foremost, get on your knees and ask God for forgiveness. Repent and turn from your wicked ways. Go to confession. And if you don't know what you have done that you need to ask forgiveness for, that's okay. Ask God to reveal it to you. But don't put it off. Actually kneel down and ask God to give you the strength to repent no matter how you feel, at this point sincerity isn't important. Ask God to give you sincerity! Don't simply do it in your head, repent with your body. This is important because it shows the demons that you mean business. Kneeling to repent is the first action of repentance. And it is important.
Remember the Bible story of the leper Namaan who wanted to be healed but didn't want to do the action of getting into the dirty Jordan river and dip seven times. His pride wanted to do something big and heroic. Yet, he was healed by doing something that seemed to him demeaning and trivial. Repent with a gesture of physically kneeling.
2) Repeat number one daily. Get in the habit of repenting daily even if you don't think you have done something sinful that day. You have, you just may not be aware of it.
3) Read scripture daily. If necessary get up early--earlier than you want to--even if you have to sacrifice some sleep. Get up and read scripture and petition God for your families needs.
4) Go to church. I highly suggest the Catholic Church because I have tried them all and there is nothing in any church like the Catholic Church which is set up to help people discard their sins and become holy through the sacraments. The Catholic Church is the seven-step method to holiness. Christ gave us the sacraments that we could be "perfect, even as Your Father in heaven is perfect."
Other churches may make us feel Christ's acceptance and love and that is wonderful! I am not criticizing that. I loved being Protestant and learned so much from their churches. But they are not set up for battling sin.
5) Read inspirational literature by Christian heroes. Read the hard stuff--not fluff that tells you that God wants you to be wealthy and happy at all times. Read the reality of those who have gone through hell and have found joy and peace through sacrifice. The story doesn't have to be depressing or sad--just don't read the lies of those who tell you happiness is just an easy formula of taking certain "empowering"steps. If someone tells you that happiness is found in money, fame or power--run from them! Joy is found at the top the mountain of right action. And right action is most often very hard and feels horrible as you go through it. Joy and peace is when you have conquered sin, not when you learn to live with it. Sin and joy cannot coexists. Again, I am not trying to criticize, I am not a judgmental person. I just know what works.
6) Spiritual success is learning to become strong through submitting our wills to God. So each day renew your commitment to God.
Remember that right now, earth is a war where sin is your battle. People are not your enemy. Always keep that in mind. Pray that God will always keep Satan as the target of your wrath. Satan is your enemy and he will destroy you with sin. Satan may use people to do this, but be clear that humans themselves are not who will take you down. Humans deserve our most patient love, our deepest and sincerest kindness. And we can't do that when we are overwhelmed with sins in our own lives. We must first battle to get the log out of our own eye and after that wonderful victory we can have the strength and wisdom and love to help others rid themselves of that horrible pain of sin that is the sliver in their eye.
Christ is here to battle with you, giving you the grace of courage and strength to win each and every battle. And when you fail? God will forgive you if you repent. Stand and have courage to battle again. For the battle of sin is not simply about helping you to be sanctified, but through your sanctification, you will be strong for your family. They will see you and want to be like you. Then you can point them to the Cross and it will mean something to the snowflakes. They will see God in You and the Cross will be worth it.
