to me {letter to my teenage self}

Oh, there you are. You, at fifteen and so full of adventure and hope. I’m glad I caught you for a moment.

It won’t take long, I promise.

There are dozens of things that  I could tell you, of course. Like the fact that your best friend will end up marrying your brother (I know you wondered about that for years).

I could tell you about the next three homes you will live in and about how in a few years God will ask you to give away all that money you’re tucking away…

But here’s the truth: it won’t help you to know. The journey and the wondering and the surprises- those are the works of a God who loves and is molding you into His image.

There is one thing, however, that I want to whisper.

No, perhaps I wish that I could do more than that. I wish I could shout it.

Loud, loud, loud.

The way that you duck in embarrassment when you realize that you were wrong about something? The way that you hide and stay quiet and feel guilty?

Stop.

Recognizing that you were wrong does not mean that you failed.

It means that the Holy Spirit is working in you. 

You have Him. You have clung to Him and sought Him and cried out His name. He’s going to change you. Your thinking will alter. Your heart will transform. The things you thought yesterday will change. 

Embrace it. Rejoice in it. 

You’re not a failure. You’re a sinner who is being transformed by a gracious and loving God.

Keep striving,

Your older {but still being transformed} self

p.s. It’ll be quite a few years yet, but eventually you’ll end up attending a Christmas concert in Lowville, New York. When you get introduced to a brown-eyed boy who smiles and tries to catch your eye, do yourself a favor and try to remember the introduction? It’ll come in handy when you laughingly say that you met your husband at your parent’s house and he gives you a strange look and says very slowly, “Nooo…. we met way, way before that.”  ‘k thanks.

({The blogosphere is full of letters to our teenage selves this week, in celebration of Emily Freeman’s new book Graceful. Care to join us? What would you like to be able to tell your teenage self?)