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A Letter To My Twelve-Year-Old Self
June fifteenth of this year marked my eighteenth birthday. By God’s grace, I’ve successfully circled the sun enough times that I’m considered an adult.
When I was twelve I was encouraged by the leader of my Bright Lights group to write a letter to my future self. It’s funny to see how dreams can change over the years. I wanted to share with you the letter I wrote, and a response I wrote to my twelve-year-old self.
Sometimes it’s encouraging to look back and see that some things really do work out how you hoped. And at the same time, the things that don’t turn out how you want them to are God’s way of saying He has something else planned for you.
The Land of the Free Woman?
The Fourth of July is tomorrow! When we, as a country celebrate our independence. Our freedom. Our country. But something got me thinking about how our country expresses our freedom. In some ways we express our freedom through love, through religion and other ways that represent good morale. But for the most part, I think America expresses it’s freedom with an arrogant, headstrong selfish attitude.
One of the most prominent ways America expresses its freedom is through feminism. Feminists have such a huge megaphone right now and they use it in any way they can to shovel their ideas and lifestyles down this country’s throat. I know that that is a very strong statement but I feel like it is no longer the “Land of the Free”, or the “Home of the Brave”. I think it is the Land of the Free Woman and the Home of the Feminist.
Obsessed With Your Own Beauty
I am obsessed with my looks. There, I said it.
Not the type of obsessed that I can’t pass a mirror or other reflective surface without checking myself out. I’m not arrogant in that I think I’m so beautiful that I simply must have another look at myself. I don’t take selfies anywhere and everywhere and scatter them throughout various outlets of social media. I don’t make selfie books for my husband, Kim Kardashian-style. But I’m obsessed with certain aspects of my appearance.
I don’t quite know how or when this “obsession” started, but I suspect it had something at least in part to do with an unkind boyfriend I had my freshman year of college. Though I was 5’ 7” and maybe 110 pounds on a water-retention kind of day, he made the remark at some point that I could “stand to lose a little weight.” For someone who’d endured some hurtful comments about my looks (something about me not being as pretty as other girls) early in my youth, I had already suffered a few dings to my self-esteem, so this jab about my weight was particularly stabbing and I took it straight to the heart.
Stepping Into the Unknown
Today I had to do something very difficult. Right now I am on a plane headed back to California. I am going to be a youth counselor at a Christian retreat center in the beautiful Redwood forests of Santa Cruz. But I had to leave behind my beautiful home in the mountains of Montana, I had to leave my friends and church body. But more than that, I had to say goodbye to my big, wonderful, amazing family. I am literally stepping into the unknown, leaving behind everything I’ve ever had close to me 24/7.
I know I’m being called to minister to the youth and to be a young women’s counselor, but sometimes, following God’s lead is scary. We don’t have everything figured out, and I don’t think we ever will. But isn’t it comforting to know that we are following the ONE who does?
A Summer Break Challenge
You made it through another year of school and hallelujah, summer is here! It’s time to finally get away from the books and indoor boringness. It’s time for fun. You’ve put up with the whole “scheduled life” for long enough. Congratulations by the way!
I know that we all make plans for the summer-even when we have no plans, we still are planning to have no plans. Anyway, in all the fun and busyness of summer we can easily put God in the background. Among the swim parties, the BBQ’s, the camping, and everything else that summer break entails, God is not at the forefront of our minds. It’s very easy to get swept up in the tide of “summer break” and skip out on alone time with God.
Sometimes, without mentally confessing this, we don’t really want to think about God during our free time. We don’t want to let conviction set in and spoil the fun that we are so looking forward to having. In a way, we want a vacation from God.
Youthful Imaginations that Destroy Us
Have you ever heard of the ripple effect? When you do something that sets an entire plan into motion, when you make a decision that will effect the rest of your life that ripples into other choices you make int he future. The ripple effect is when we do something that ripples into others lives, into your future, into the future of your children and even you grandchildren. The ripple begins with a decision that is made by you.
Decision making is the most important, life defining, memorable, crucial thing you will ever do in your life. The decisions you make are very important. How you make them, how you follow through with them, and how they will define you is even more important…
Confessions of a Broken Heart
I couldn’t do it anymore. I was tired of pretending that everything was “okay”. I was tired of faking to have a good relationship with Jesus. I was tired of looking and acting like a good Christian girl. I was giving up… It had been a long hard 6 months. I was scared, lonely and tired of pretending. I wanted to run into my room, shut the door and never come out.
We all have times in our lives when we feel distant from God. We hold our feelings in because we are scared of feeling like a horrible person for not trusting that God is good all the time. We don’t even want God knowing about our lack of faith in Him. So we go on pretending until we are tired out and simply can’t pretend any more.
Thoughts About Our Sin Life
I knelt on the side of the raised garden bed pulling the weeds from the moist ground. My hair whipped in my face; I should have pulled it back before my hands got dirty. The spring afternoon sun warmed my back and shoulders, reminding me that winter was really, truly gone from Ohio.
I am one of the few that enjoy pulling weeds. The dirt under my fingernails, the excuse to be outside in the sun, the time to be alone and think. As I pulled the weeds in the strawberry bed I thought about how our sins are like weeds.
Were You Expecting Mr. Perfection?
It’s a beautiful picture, right? Whenever I’m upset or anything, he knows exactly what to say, understands me perfectly (because he’s Mr. Perfection, of course)…
Can I Really Trust God With My Future?
“If I do things my way I will be happy. I can’t trust God with something like this!”
“God’s ways are too religious for me, I need to make things happen my way or else I won’t be happy.”
“Only I know what I need. My future is my problem. Jesus can just come along with me for when I need help.”
“This is too precious a thing to trust God with.”
All of these statements are made from people who have..