David Murray - Why Is My Teenager Feeling Like This?: A Guide for Helping Teens Through Anxiety and Depression

Other Crossway Books by David Murray

Exploring the Bible: A Bible Reading Plan for Kids

Exploring the Bible Together: A 52-Week Family Worship Plan

Meeting with Jesus: A Daily Bible Reading Plan for Kids

Refresh: Embracing a Grace-Paced Life in a World of Endless Demands with Shona Murray

Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture

Why Am I Feeling Like This? A Teens Guide to Freedom from Anxiety and Depression

Imogen was blessed with a vivid imagination, but it became a curse to her because of her fatal attraction to bad news stories. She would read about things like school shootings and other tragedies and imagine herself in these awful scenarios. She would mentally rerun all the scary movies she had seen. Always thinking the worst was going to happen, she was often fearful and sad.

The Key of Imagination

If you could see inside your teens brain, you would see a cinema with a movie on an endless loop. In many cases, its an R-rated film containing terrifying and disturbing images of pain and disaster.

Some teens watch movies they themselves have directed and produced. They have chosen to fill their minds with certain images and to watch the same movie every day. Some have reels of past trauma that they run, others are more taken up with present images, and others are more futuristic as they anticipate various disasters waiting to happen.

Some teens reluctantly watch movies that others have directed and produced. Theyve experienced bullying and abuse, and detailed visual memories of these incidents flood their minds and hearts, often every day, and sometimes many times a day. It doesnt take much of a trigger to press Play again.

Whoever it is that directed and produced the movie, the impact of watching it is the sameworry, pain, and stress. Why are such images so powerful and influential?

Visual Creatures

God has made us in such a way that we are attracted to images, scenes, graphics, and pictures, and they imprint themselves on our minds more vividly than mere words. Thats why God made such a beautiful visual feast in the garden of Eden. Sin, however, entered the picture and our imaginations with the result that sinful and harmful images now flood our minds, and our teens especially find it difficult to stop them.

In Matthew 6:2534, Jesus described what he saw when he looked inside the minds of those around hima constant loop of worrying images about what to eat, what to drink, and what to put on. These were just samples of the kinds of movies that run in the heads of all people. And its not just worrying images; there are often also sad images that result in depression.

In the teen book, Ive highlighted the most popular teen movies such as the perfectionistic standards we impose on them, Instagram, trauma, bullies, an angry God, violent media, and so on. Round and round and round these videos go. Its a mental torture, like being chained to a seat in a cinema as some of the scariest images and sounds play again and again. Thats what a teens brain often looks like.

We can try telling our teens to stop this. But no matter how hard they press Stop , the images keep coming. Thats because they cant stop something without starting something else. Instead of trying to stop bad images, they have to replace them with good images, with good movies. Thats what Jesus trained people to do in Matthew 6. And thats how we can help our teens.

What Are They Watching?

The first step is to find out what they are watching. When you see your teen stressing out, ask her, What are you seeing? What picture are you viewing in your mind? Talk to her about how that picture got in there and how it is affecting her. Identifying and naming the troubling image is vital because often our teens are not aware they are doing this. Use the image of a cinema to help them visualize and see what they are doing.

Second, take them to Matthew 6:2534 and show them how the answer is not to stop imagining, but to do better imagining, to replace bad images with good. Then show them the two primary sources for new and better images to feast uponnatural images and supernatural images.

Natural Images

I cannot emphasize enough how important this is. We can get our teens outside their own heads by getting them outside. If they spend their days indoors just looking at their devices, they are going to fill their minds with the worst kinds of images. As Jesus pointed to the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, we need to point our teens to the amazing wonders of Gods creation and providence all around us. There are so many different scenes just waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.

Get them a telescope and point them to the stars and planets. Buy them binoculars and point them to the birds. Provide a microscope and show them the minutiae of Gods creation. Encourage them to snorkel and look at all that is under the sea. Put them out in the garden to work, seeing beauty in the flowers and goodness in vegetables. Take them to a zoo to see the animals. Purchase a quality camera and lens for them, maybe sign them up for photography lessons, and encourage them to take pictures of what they see. Give them a fishing rod to go catch fish. Take them out in a boat. Go camping or skiing. Just get them outside and fill their eyes, ears, and noses with the sense-ational feasts God has surrounded us with.

The aim is not only to see nature, but to see God in nature, to see Gods wisdom, beauty, power, and glory in what he has made. As Jesus did, highlight his care and providence for much less important things such as birds and fields, in order to encourage teens that hell also look after them.

Supernatural Images

God has also provided multiple pictures in his word as well as his world. The Bible is not a dry book of dusty laws, but a unique photo album displaying 3-D pictures of God and his truth. For the teens, I highlighted a number of images that God uses to teach his people about himself (king, father, shepherd, shield, etc.). But these are just samples of the multiple graphics God has painted in his word for us to discover and enjoy.

As you read the Bible with your teen, look out for images of God and his people. Encourage your teen to do the same and to watch for images in sermons too. Keep reminding him of how God uses pictures to teach us, to replace harmful images of our own and others making, and to heal us. In doing so, you will help direct and produce a new film to run on your teens internal screen. And your teen will leave that cinema of image therapy with more happiness and peace as a result.

Turning the Key

1. Study. Read Matthew 6:2534 with your teen. Highlight how Jesus cares for people whose emotions are causing them problems and that he lovingly provides wise solutions.

2. Identify images. Help teens identify what images they are viewing (from their minds, movies, games, etc.) and how they influence their thoughts and feelings. A

3. Replace images. Show what images Jesus wants us to fill our minds withimages from nature and the Bibleand how these are designed to change our thoughts and feelings.

4. Nature trips. Encourage trips in and exploration of nature, and use all the senses to carve deep impressions on our imaginations that can be recalled at other times. If your teen cant walk in nature due to weather or other obstacles, view nature photos or documentaries that you can find online.

5. Visualization. Get them to visualize scenes in their mindsscenes of them laughing or on vacation or practicing their hobby or being with friends, and notice how that changes their feelings.

.APA Stress in America Survey: Generation Z Stressed About Issues in the News but Least Likely to Vote, American Psychological Association, October 30, 2018, https:// www .apa .org /news /press /releases /2018 /10 /generation -z -stressed .