An open letter to pastors everywhere:

As I write this, I am 19 years, 0 months, 25 days, 1 hour, and 29 minutes old. And I have experienced pain.

I am 19, and when I was 3, my father went to war for the first, but not the last, time.

I am 19, and when I was 5, he left again, and that same year, my little brother almost died.

I am 19, and when I was 7, I contracted cellulitis and needed emergency surgery so I didn't die.

I am 19, and when I was 9, my best friend died.

I am 19, and when I was 12, I was deemed worthless, the devil, someone told me that no one would want me, that I was doomed to destitution.

I am 19, and when I was 14, my parents started a long drawn out process of separation that eventually ended in divorce several years later, ripping our family to shreds.

I am 19, and when I was 15, my father went into combat, and there were days I wasn't sure he was coming back.

I am 19, and when I was 16, I spent several weeks living in a domestic abuse and violence shelter because that was the safest place for me to be.

I am 19, and I have experienced pain.

I am a millennial, and I have experienced pain.

You might not understand this, and that is fine, but when you talk about millennials, you talk about our pursuit of happiness, and our unwillingness to accept pain. I've heard you say that we haven't really experienced pain and death and tragedy until we've left the nest, that we are too young and too carefree to know true pain of life, and somehow, that makes us less Christian. We haven't felt the pain of age, we don't know what it's like to experience deep emotion. We spend our lives floating from mountain to mountain to mountain without ever looking down. We don't need to cry out in despair for our Lord, and that our faith is weak without those trying times. You remind us the valleys are okay, and you encourage us to embrace them with the assumption that we haven't already. I hear that--I hear it a lot--and every time a part of me dies inside.

I don't feel recognized or heard. My story has no bearing when you preach to upper-middle class citizens. When you cater your message to such a limited demographic, I wonder how my life went wrong. Why am I 19 with pain? You say I am too young to have felt death. Say that to the little girl standing at the foot of her dead horse, 5 years a companion, gone. Say that to the girl who watched her parent's perfect marriage crumble into nothing. Say that to the girl who graduated in a homeless shelter. Say that again to me.

Tell me I have not felt pain, and I will show you the scars of my past. I will show you moments I cannot take back. Places my life shattered. I will show you the multitude of houses I have moved from. A series of lives I have left behind. I will show you worlds of suffering, and I will ask you to tell me again that I have not felt pain, or death, or destruction.

I will bring you to the cemetery. Paint you the picture. The sun is shining. People settle into chairs in front of a silver casket with yellow flowers. A little mouse-nosed girl stands, shaking, afraid her voice will fail. It does, but her mother and her brothers pick her back up, and they sing "It Is Well" until she feels like it is well, and then she opens her eyes, and the casket is still there, and her friend is still gone, and she will wait an eternity for the best hugs in the world. She will wait until after death, and in the meantime, there will be a VT shaped hole in her heart. One only her friend could fill.

I will bring you to June. The trees are swaying in the breeze. The runway is clear for takeoff. Everyone is happy. Except, no one is happy. Smiles hide tears as we wave handkerchiefs, sending our soldiers to die. My little sister lets go of her balloon; she hopes it will block the runway and her daddy won't go. Daddy, don't go. And he does. And our lives were never the same.

If caskets do not represent death, and planes: loss, then maybe, Mr. Pastor, you're right, and I haven't felt pain. But more than likely, you are wrong, and my life has been categorized by moments of struggles. Maybe I have seen the valleys. Maybe, I already know how to celebrate mountain tops. Maybe.

And maybe, just maybe, there are more people like me. More humans who have seen more life in 19 years than most do in 40. Maybe they too feel empty and void, as if something is wrong with them and their life is "preacher talk" worthy.

So please, think before you speak. Consider tragedy as well as prosperity. Recognize that millennials are young, but also recognize that youth rarely means innocence, and some of us have seen worse than nightmares while awake.

Yours sincerely,

Moriah Joy