Light at Tunnel’s End

What hope do we offer those facing their darkest days?

It’s been a rough few months for Diane Eble.

Author of this month’s cover story on teenage suicide, the assistant editor of CT’S sister publication CAMPUS LIFE has found her recent assignments focusing almost exclusively on individuals experiencing the dark side of youth: a lonely young woman whose cry for help came in the form of too many pills; a 22-year-old boy “with everything going for him” struck down by leukemia; and the two families in “Too Young To Die” (page 19) who candidly grasp for answers to their own questions of Why?

“You become emotionally involved with these people,” Diane later told us. “You want to do more than simply report a story on suffering. You want to help.”

And, in the midst of it all, you learn to cling tenaciously to God’s grace.

“Everyday things, the things we take for granted, take on new meaning,” she said. “When you see and talk with people struggling with self-esteem and health—basic kinds of things—you have a new appreciation for what God is doing in and through you right now, however undramatic that may seem.”

Indeed, for many whom Diane talked to over the past several months, that recognition of a God who is at work in the lives of his people is the light at tunnel’s end.

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