What an excellent concept! Even so, if I were writing this, I would say "Show young people love..." It's a hard concept to explain. Love must be felt. I would hope they would have felt it before they come to me, but it is not a given. As wonderful as it would be to live in a world where there is no abuse, it DOES exist. How do we tell them about love if the only attention they have ever received is a hand lifted in anger? How do we tell of the love that God created between a man and a woman if they've been sexually abused? How do we tell them about love if they've grown up with people who have only taught them shame and fear?
We cannot explain it, love must be shown. And the showing may very well be a long process. What reason do they have to trust us if we do not work to earn this trust? In most cases, the abuse comes by way of the very people who should have loved them from their first breath. Why should they believe we would be any different? Although one incident of abuse can have a traumatic impact, it usually doesn't stop with one...it happens time and again. And we must love them, time and again until God's grace shows them our love and His.
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