Dear Teenage Darcy,
Your 16th year was marked with many changes, many more steps closer to independence from your family. Although you enjoyed many of those changes as the year progressed, you struggled with who you saw yourself as. New Year's Eve of your 16th year was a down year, you were broken-hearted because so many people in your life had "someone." You found an interest in your life at that point, and you acknowledge that it was infatuation but you had hoped it to be more than that. You plainly stated that you had "wished it was love."
Oh girl, how this statement has been uttered many times throughout your life in various relationships with guys who walked in and out of your life. But something you need to know at this point that would drastically change the course of your life: true love looks so unlike what the world would have you believe. At this point in your life, you think that love is dependent upon what you can see and what that person can do for you. But love is so much more than that. Words are difficult to form into a real sentence about what love really is, but I can assure you that many of the guys you met in your teens and early 20s had no right to really be as close to your heart as you had let them get. You saw the exterior and thought that having a great exterior made for a great interior, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
Something I wish that you could grasp at this age is this: enjoy the time of innocence in your life and quit trying to be someone that you are not supposed to be. Being yourself is the greatest gift you could ever give someone else, and if someone chose not to be in a relationship with you that's not your fault. You cannot choose or control someone for not being the person you want them to be, but you can become the woman that you are called to be. The only person that you can control is yourself, and loving yourself is far more significant in an relationship than anything else.
Song of Solomon 2:7 says to not awaken love until it so desires. Love, in the purest form, is not controlled or manipulated. It is not rushed or forced. True, pure love is patient and honoring of a person's character and heart. Looking at God's response to His people in the Bible, you see that He's patient and allows His people space to do their own things. He doesn't force them to have a relationship with them, He allows them to go off and live the life they would choose. But when they come to their senses, when they find themselves in the darkest pit of life, He answers their prayers and comforts them in their greatest time of need. So when someone moves away from you relationally, just trust that God is protecting you from something that you may not be able to see right now. And know that when His appointed time for love happens, it will happen:)
You are a precious gem, and I truly hope and pray that you fully grasp the depths to which you are loved by God and those He's placed in your life. Just because it seems as though you are alone because you don't have a dating relationship doesn't mean that you're alone. It means that you're prized enough in the eyes of God to put a barrier between the those boys who aren't worthy to have your presence and you. Just because you're the "only" one (which you aren't, by the way) who doesn't have a relationship doesn't mean that you're a social leper. It means that God wants to keep you for just the right man at the right time. For now, just enjoy learning about the woman God has called you to be and be thankful for the intimacy you have with the one who breathed the very existence into you.
We'll talk soon, and enjoy your holiday weekend!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Dear 16 year old me,
I came across your journal you had received for your 16th birthday, and the memories that were captured within those pages came rushing back to my mind as I opened the very first page. I have to admit that reading through the first few entries of that book made me laugh, because what you saw as such HUGE issues in your life weren't really anything more than just a small wave in the ocean of your life. And though I laughed at some of the comments you made, and I thank you for your honesty, my heart hurt for the missing nuggets of precious truth of what life was truly about. So in the coming days/weeks/months/years (you know how long-winded I can get), I am going to respond to the things that you recorded during those years and speak the truth of what was really going on in life. Just know that the words I record on these pages are not meant for judgment or shame, but instead for a way to encourage you to see life from the perspective of the 33-year old woman that you have become. How it affects you is not up to me, but rather up to how you choose to absorb them and embrace the wisdom I have learned through the years.
Your initial journal entry was one that showed the struggle that you faced through many pages of that journal, and I wanted to tell you that being skinny is NOT the goal of life. Being skinny isn't even the goal of high school. although at the time you would have struggled to believe that. This idea of being skinny has been the bane of your adulthood years, but just being a certain size, shape or weight doesn't mean that you have the ideal life. Take it from me, you can be the thinnest you've ever been in your life and still have the entire world fall on your shoulders. You can have the scale tell you a number that you haven't seen since before you started middle school, but your heart can be even more shattered than it has ever been.
1 Samuel 16:7 speaks of the moment when Samuel went to choose David to be king over Israel. Samuel had this image in his mind of what the next king should look like, but God said that He doesn't consider the outward appearances but what's in the heart. People through your entire high school career spoke that truth into your life, and yet you never received that as truth from God's heart. You didn't really believe that you deserved to be called beautiful because you didn't fit that specific outfit or have the thinnest waist. But your heart loved people, your heart STILL loves people. You want to make the most of every situation, you long to see those you love have the greatest experience of love from you. God saw, and still sees, your heart through every circumstance and He has it all in His hands.
Regardless of what you do with this nugget of wisdom from an oldie (I know you think I'm old, so there), embrace this truth: God has surrounded you with people who see the beauty of your heart and of your soul. He has given wisdom to those people in your life that see beyond the world's wisdom, and has given them the sight to see your heart as His child's heart. Don't blow off the love He's given to you through the people He's placed in your life. Don't focus on what you see, or how you see yourself. Ask God to allow you the wisdom and the ability to see you as He sees you, and when you do things will begin to change:) And how you see yourself in the mirror will no longer be dominated by what you see in the physical mirror, but what you see through the mirror of God's word.
I love you, and I want you to know that your life isn't consumed for bad things. God has a beautiful purpose for every situation. And your life is a beautiful message of redemption and of hope. Just keep holding on to God, and seek Him like you've never sought Him before.
Love you little girl!!!! See you in 18 years:)
Darcy
