In the past three weeks, allow me to fill you in on life in the Greater Baltimore Metropolitan Area:

Shooting on the first day of school at a local high school Bomb threat at a local High School (different from the school above) Middle school student brings a gun to school aiming it a classmates, teacher and then himself. Thankfully no one is hurt Shooting at a State University Woman pinned between two cars (intentionally) at local tourist area

Baltimore, I don’t remember things being this intense all at once. Now there are some who would say these things happen every day, watch the news. While I agree that there are shootings every day, these events seem to stick out to me because most of them involve our youth.

Which leads me to one question: Where is our hope?

As I think about an answer to this questions, I want to caution us during a political season such as this, not to hope in an elected official, regardless of party preference, as policy and politics is not the hope that we need.

I had the opportunity to ask a young man last week about hope.

What he shared with me and a few of my peers broke my heart. Literally (well, as literal as you can be about that).

His response to me was that America’s youth do not hope and do not feel that they need it.

Wow.

Really?

My peers got really defensive about this. Yet as I thought about what this young man said, I could not help but see his point.

I admit I still disagree with him, I vehemently believe that we need hope, but I can see where he is coming from.

Let’s think about this for a moment:

There is the mentality: “If you don’t like your spouse, find a new one!” There is no commitment or examples of endurance.

Dad’s, where have you been the past twenty years? There are more mentoring programs for fatherless youth now than ever before. Men, can we please step up to the plate for our families?

Parents are stealing the identities of their children because their credit is so bad they can’t get the lights to stay on.

We have more stuff than ever, but at what cost? Families. Relationships.

Perhaps this is too rough for a Monday morning. But this is the reality of a young man who I had the opportunity to talk with last week.

This young man is no cynic. He was humble, honest, and I appreciate that so much.

So how do we change this? I do not know, but if it must start somewhere, allow it to start with me. However, I alone am not enough.

Will you stand with me?

There is a song I love by a band named Elevation. One of the lines goes like this:

“Now’s the time to let love rise, and carry hope to hopeless eyes, and show the world that mercy is alive”

We need hope, now more than ever.

Across the world, will you work with me to bring hope to a generation?