Today at School

I was visiting a friend at the high school my son goes to. I had to drop something off to her and we were talking. She was talking about her little girls and I was talking about my bigger boys. I saw a very pregnant teenager walk to the lunch room. I asked if she was really pregnant. She said yes, it was true.

At dinner tonight, I asked my son if she knew the pregnant girl. He asked me which one. I did a double take and asked him what he meant. He said he knew of several girls in school who were pregnant.

All I could think was, "how sad for those girls". It is really a sad ordeal if you think about it. I don't know the stories about why the girls ended up pregnant. But I have to wonder about the reasons why the girls felt the need to have sex at such an early age.

The social worker side of me wants to know what their life was like that caused them to look to another person for love and sex. Why did they feel giving away that part of themselves was so important, so necessary so soon.

I am not talking about just the sex part of the relationship. I am talking about the need to have a relationship so intimate with another person. The need to take on a role they are too young to fully understand the consequences of. The relationship requires them to take on the emotional, physical and financial responsibilities of adulthood.

A teenage girl is not always physically able to have a baby without complications. There are some physical complications common to pregnant teenagers that older mothers-to-be are not afflicted by.

No matter what they decide to do, keep the child or give the child up for adoption; the emotional toll is huge. Their childhood is over when they choose to raise the child. The remembrances of the child they gave up still affects them no matter how much time goes by.

So the question still remains; what could have happened to them to make them want to search for intimate and adult relationships? Could there have been someone who could have given them the unconditional love without such a huge price tag?

I know who that is. I know that Jesus can give them the love they need to fill up that lonely spot in their heart. Jesus can fill their needs without taking from them their childhood. Jesus give them their future.

My prayers remain for those teenage girls in my son's school who are pregnant. My prayers also go to those girls who think that having sex will bring to them all that they are needing. I also pray for the boys who feel to have sex to fill the needs inside themselves.