20 years young

Dear 20 year old self,

The person you are right now is not who you will be.  The person you are is someone running from shame but also someone who has allowed yourself to be covered by shame, truly believing you are one step ahead of the flood of shame but drowning in it at the same time.  Calling it something else.  You do not yet have a brain that is fully developed but you think you have everything under control.  You have been someone who hid behind the religious phrases and go-to cliches that christians are supposed to say to people.  Meanwhile, you have not come to understand who God actually is.  You have walls that are surrounded by moats, barbed wire, and attack dogs in order to keep yourself safe, yet inside is your very own self-torment chamber.  You are in denial of your own pain.  You are confused and broken but you add a fresh layer of glue with any evidence of cracking that may occur.  It is all for naught.  It is all wasted energy.  You don't know it but there is something greater for you.

You will know that accepting Jesus as your savior was not the end point but the beginning.  That following requires you to have not only your eyes fixed on Him, but your ears listening for his footsteps, your hands grabbing onto his clothes...following with every part of yourself at all times to see where he is leading you in your journey.  The cloak of shame given to you early in your life will begin to unravel, leaving a trail of threads that show how far you have come.  Lightening the load by bringing these things into the light.  You are much more than you believe you are.  Jesus did pay it all in order for you to be more than you are.

You won't know it until you are almost in your third decade of life.  You will wonder why it took you so long and you will wish you could go back and "do life" over again knowing what you know.And when I say know, I don't mean a shallow grasping of the concept, I mean a deep heart knowledge that changes. your. life.  But be encouraged, this is all going to be used for God, this is all preparing you for what you will come to know.  The extreme blindness that you have now will make this knowledge more breathtaking than if you were only nearsighted.  When God brings us out of the darkness we didn't know we were in, the light is even more vibrant and radiant.  God's love for us is extreme, and I am excited for you to accept his love for you.

Have hope my younger self, you will love who God has made you to be.