Today I got some bad and hard news.

Manhattan, Kansas has lost another teen to suicide. He isn’t just a number. He has a name. He has parents. He has friends. He rocked a bow tie better than anyone I’ve known. His story wasn’t supposed to end this week. But it did. It came to a tragic end that wasn’t ever intended for him.

I’ve talked about characters and settings and co-writing your story with the Writer. And today, I’ll talk about the most important thing in writing: to keep going.

Keep writing your story.

Conflict will come. But keep writing. Donald Miller says that there’s a force in the world who doesn’t want us to write beautiful and meaningful stories, and that force is Satan. He doesn’t want us to keep going. He wants us to give up. We can’t listen to the lie that our story isn’t worth living.

He was an amazing kid. He loved hard and he laughed hard. He lived and breathed and was loved. He is still being loved.

I wish he would have seen out of the dark place. I can’t change what happened. I can, however tell you this:

Your life is a story. Your life is a story worth being written and lived. Fully lived.

Don’t stop writing. Even more, don’t stop co-writing. Our Writer writes better stories than us, but we have to be willing to listen. We have to trust His voice, and that what He says is true. That there is hope and help and healing and so much of our story left.

If you need help, there are characters in your story to help you. If you need help, raise a hand for help. We need you. Your life and story matter, and you cannot be replaced.