Of Course Many Young People Are Anxious and Depressed
Last weekend some of our grandchildren and I enjoyed our annual outing to Santa’s Workshop, a craft fair held in nearby Cookeville for the last 47 years. Our tradition doesn’t go back that far, but we have been going together for at least ten years. Stopping at the booth that sells these nativity sets is one of our many Santa’s Workshop traditions. These photos of our grandchildren who are now 14 and 12 are from 2016.
Year after year, I admired her nativity sets. Year after year, I thought, “I’d like to make a set of those.” Finally, a couple of years ago I decided that wasn’t going to happen, so I broke down and bought one. I asked our now-14-year old granddaughter to choose which one (I think she likes them as much as I do). This was her choice. It is standing today in Ray’s office, which was once the parlor in this old house.
The whole Santa’s Workshop experience nourishes my heart. Time with the grandchildren is the top joy. Most years I take them one at a time. I like the chance to learn what they find interesting.
We have been enjoying it together for so long that some of the vendors recognize us. The nativity set lady always remembers us. We have spent so much time at the toy wooden vehicles booth that this year the jelly-selling vendor next door greeted me like I was her long lost friend from elementary school. I felt so blessed. One year she was going to buy one of the vendor’s vehicles herself but when she saw that our grandson liked it, she insisted that I get to buy it instead. We have friends who are vendors, too, so it is always nice to see them.
We always talk to the older couple who sell their handmade puppets. Every year he gets the grandchildren to try one out. Every year he tells me that they are imagination toys and that kids don’t play with those kinds of toys anymore. It feels like the two of them are on a mission to change that. This year they had a puppet style from the mid-1700s. He said that he saw one in a museum in Quebec City.
I don’t try to do much shopping when I am enjoying the event with the children. Sometimes Ray goes back with me on another day, as he did on Saturday. For the last few years, food trucks have been an added feature. We stopped for a picture with this guy Spuddy who was advertising baked potatoes.
Another joy at Santa’s Workshop are the strolling friends I run into and the acquaintances I see, some of whom I haven’t seen in years. I ran into one of those last weekend. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation got started, but she talked at length about her concerns about the depression and anxiety that exist today among too many young people. Her thoughts went along well with something my brother said last week.
My little brother is 69 years old and has been bigger than his big sister for a long, long time. He is a hero to me. Two of the many complimentary ways to describe Steve are fun and wise, a splendid combination. The other day he thought of his own youth in the 1970s and said, “We didn’t have a fraction of what people have now, but we were so much happier.”
Steve in his happy 1970s era
When I told Ray about Steve’s statement, Ray said, “That’s really true. TV shows and media keep us stirred up.” (That is a generic us, by the way, because Ray and I don’t watch TV shows unless they are literally well over 50 years old and only a few of those.)
I agree that TV shows and media keep people stirred up. Depression and anxiety in some individuals are caused by his or her individual body chemistry. My heart breaks for everyone who must live with that challenge. However, other causes must contribute to the level of depression and anxiety present today. I believe that a large reason that too many young people are anxious and depressed is that they have not been immersed in Christian teaching all of their lives. They don’t know that there are ultimate answers for all those problems that keep them stirred up. They don’t know that they can give their anxieties to God. They don’t know that God really exists. They don’t know that He created the universe and holds it in His loving hand. They don’t know that they are amazing creations He made in His image. They don’t know that they can turn to Him with their sins and with every other need they have.
When I read Psalm 8 recently, I thought about this heartbreaking issue and realized that too many young people don’t know how precious they are to their Creator. No wonder they are anxious and depressed. Who wouldn’t be?
O Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth,
Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!
From the mouth of infants and nursing babes
You have established strength
Because of Your adversaries,
To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.
When I consider Your heavens,
the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
Yet You have made him a little lower than God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!
You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen,
And also the beasts of the field,
The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,
Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth!
Psalm 8