Nobody Should Have Told You That

If you are young and somebody at your church has told you to go without food, here is the sentence first, before anything else.

They should not have told you that. You are not in trouble, you have not done anything wrong, and you do not have to do it.

Eat all your meals today. That is not a compromise and it is not a lesser option and it is not you failing at something. It is the right thing, and it is what this whole site would tell you if it could sit down next to you.

Here is why that comes first instead of at the end.

Somebody sixteen years old, whose family is going through something, who has been sitting in a room where the adults are serious and warm and clearly mean well, is in no position to run a check on what an adult at church just said. That check is not a sixteen year old's job. It is not a failure of yours that you did not know, and it is not rudeness to decide, right now, that you are not doing it.

Tell a parent or a carer, or your doctor, or a teacher you trust, or any adult outside that room. Not because you are in danger and not to get anybody into trouble. Because things like this should be checked by a grown up who is not in the middle of it, and you should not be the one holding it.

And if you are the youth leader reading this over somebody's shoulder: nobody under eighteen should be told to go without food for a spiritual reason, by anybody, ever, and that is the whole of the guidance and there is no version of it with an exception in.

What Jesus did when adults organized the children

There is a moment in Mark where grown ups took charge of who was allowed near, and it is one of the few times the Gospels record Jesus getting properly annoyed.

But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.Mark 10:14

Read who He was displeased with. Not the children. The disciples, who were managing access with entirely good intentions and had decided the young ones needed a process.

He removes the process. There is no qualification in that sentence and no preparation required and nothing anybody has to do first, and He finishes it by saying the kingdom belongs to people like them.

You are already fully welcome, at sixteen, with nothing done and nothing performed. I am not saying that to be nice to somebody young: it is the plain sense of what Jesus said and to whom (Mark 10:14), and it is the Holy Spirit, not this page, who makes it real in a youth room on a Friday rather than a story about somebody else.

And your family thing is not on you

Here is the part that matters most, and it needs saying straight.

Whatever is happening in your family, you are not the mechanism for fixing it. Not by going without anything, not by being good enough, not by praying in a particular way and not by any arrangement you might quietly make with God about it.

You are not what is holding your family up, and that was never handed to you. Scripture says cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee (Psalm 55:22), and it is the Holy Spirit who does the actual carrying, and He has been doing it in your house whether or not anybody has mentioned it to you.

That is not a way of saying it does not matter to God. It matters enormously. It is simply not a job that belongs to somebody your age, and no adult should have implied that it does.

Now the sentence this site says on every page and means completely. Some people must not go without food at all, and if you are young that includes you. Anybody of any age with a medical condition, medication, pregnancy, any hard relationship with eating, being underweight, unwell or unsure should speak to their doctor and let that answer be the answer. You are not one step further from God because you ate your dinner. Scripture says the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works (Psalm 145:9), and the Holy Spirit has never once come in a smaller measure to anybody on account of a body.

And if things at home are hard, or if you are frightened, or if something has been happening that you have not told anybody about, please talk to somebody real: a parent or carer, your doctor, a teacher, a school counselor, a crisis line, and the emergency services if you or anybody near you is in danger tonight. That is not going behind God's back. That is exactly the sort of help He puts in a world on purpose, and using it is not a lesser kind of faith.