Dear Younger Me (How God Sees You)
Dear Younger Me,
When the lies invade your mind and heart, hold onto the words of God, and claim them for yourself.
Isaiah 62 will one day become one of your favorite passages because of the beautiful words God uses to describe His holy city and people. God uses phrases like “crown of splendor,” “the Lord will take delight in you,” “your God will rejoice over you,” and “Sought After.” What if you start choosing to believe that’s how He feels about you, too?
Psalm 139 can be a hard one for you to really appreciate, but when you start to really dig into the words, you’ll see that its truth is meant for you, too. Even when the mirror isn’t your friend, believe you are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” that God cares so much about you to know every single move you make and how many days you have and thinks countless thoughts about you. (The King of the world thinks about you – think about that!). From your very beginning in the womb, He watched over you – what a love!
Isaiah 43 can remind you of many other beautiful truths, like “you are mine,” “you are precious and honored in my sight,” “I love you,” and more.
These aren’t the only passages that can show you how God sees you as one of His people, but these are some I’ve come to appreciate very much. You’ll find more, I’m sure. My hope for you is that you would hold these words so close to your heart that there is no room for lies. Your heart is valuable to your Father, and He wants you to know how lovely you are.
Love,
Megan
Dear Younger Me,
I wish you would learn to breathe. You think you have to do all and be all and you run around from activity to activity and wonder why you have no time for the things that really matter to you. Let yourself slow down, okay?
As you get older, you’ll realize you don’t have to do all and be all; in fact, you’re going to realize you physically can’t. You’ll run yourself ragged trying to keep up to the point where you just feel like faceplanting right into the ground. While you might be able to boast about everything you can do on such little sleep, soon you’ll see how valuable sleep is, and more than that, how valuable life is. There is so much life outside of everything you think you need to accomplish. Go for a run (or a glorified jog), take a walk, sit by the water, make a bracelet, take a bath, and the list can go on and on.
Don’t lose sight of yourself in the rush of life. Take the time to pause and to breathe and to see yourself as God does. In Isaiah 42:5 it says, “…He gives breath to everyone, life to everyone who walks the earth.” How cool to think that God gives you your breath, and that means your breaths certainly matter. The words you speak matter, and what you do while you take those breaths matter, too. Let yourself slow down to appreciate the breaths God gives you.
Love,
Megan
Dear Younger Me,
In the 18 summers you get to spend at home with your family before college and work become a part of your life, make the most of them.
Get off the couch and set down the book you’re reading and go play with your sisters. Don’t get me wrong, the summer reading program is great and valuable, but when you keep reading and reading to try and win the top reader award for the most pages read during the summer, you’ll realize later in life it was not worth it to give all your time to that. You read more that summer than you’ve ever read in your life, and it’s neat to think that you read over 8,000 pages, and I don’t think there was anything wrong with seeing how far you could go, but where you missed the mark was realizing that there was life to be lived. You’ve forgotten most of those books you read, but there’s only so many times you’ll get to play three-way Battleship in your life with your sisters. Or do puzzle races.
There’s going to come a time when you reach high school that you’ll realize much of your summer will be devoted to sports, and you’ll have to decide how much you really want to do and if it will be worth it to spend mornings and nights all summer in the gym for two sports. You might question yourself for giving up a sport, but know I’m proud of your decision. Looking back, I can see how physically draining it would have been to do everything, and I can still say I wouldn’t have enjoyed giving my whole summer to being in that gym.
You have 18 summers with your family. Absolutely put value in grabbing hold of life-growing opportunities like reading and sports, but don’t let them consume you. Live life with your people, too!
Love,
Megan
Dear Younger Me,
Cling to faith. Keep holding on.
Remember the rope you had to climb in gym class, and how hard it was to make it to the top? You’d try and try and muster up all your effort to pull yourself up and you couldn’t get high enough to touch the beam (except for maybe once). You so badly wanted to get to the top in order to prove your ability, but you would find yourself stuck partway up the rope, losing your strength to go on, and worrying about letting go.
And that’s where you find yourself sometimes. Stuck. Losing the strength to go on. The beauty comes when you realize the only real “rope” to cling to is God. And when you feel like you can’t go on and have no strength to move forward, God’s still with you. In fact, His power is made perfect in weakness. And while admitting weakness is not your forte as you’re someone who tries to keep it all together, God knows you’re human.
There’s a quote from Max Lucado that says, ““Let God have you, and let God love you – and don’t be surprised if your heart begins to hear music you’ve never heard and your feet learn to dance as never before.” Embrace that and let God love you. And hold on to your faith, and let Him hold you back.
Love,
Megan
Dear Younger Me,
Fight like Jesus did. When your mind is overcome with doubt, shame, fear, and insert any other emotion here, do what Jesus did when He was led into the desert. When Satan challenged Jesus and said to Him, “If you are the Son of God…”, what if he was also making Jesus doubt who He was?
Yet, Jesus answered every challenge like this: “The Scriptures say…”
When the enemy comes to challenge you, remember to fight this way. There are several places in the Bible that command resisting the devil, being alert, and standing firm against his schemes. This is exactly what you should do, but sometimes trying to figure out how to resist and stand firm is exhausting and you end up at the point where you’re crying out to God, “I can’t think anymore – please just hold me now.”
But, Jesus’ way worked. He knew the Word, and He held to it in the trial. Not only did He hold to it, but He spoke it. So, fight like He did. Hold to the truth in God’s word and speak it!
When you’re insecure – The Scriptures say…I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
When you’re doubting – The Scriptures say…God will never fail you.
When you’re tired – The Scriptures say…God is your shelter and His promises protect you.
There’s no better way than to follow the example set by Jesus, and even more comforting to know that as you do what He did, you’re also speaking His word over you!
Love,
Megan
Dear Younger Me,
When you watch a complicated movie, you start blurting questions. You know it’s important to be patient, and you think you are generally a patient person, but you’re really not as patient as you think you are. The movie, in your opinion, would make much more sense if you knew the answers right away, even though you know the answers are coming and they’ll be revealed when they should.
In the same way, you are not very patient as you wait in the unknown. All the questions of what your life should look like or why it looks the way it does and how to handle everything you don’t know how to handle make you anxious. You can ask God, “Why is this my story?” You can ask Him, “What do I do right now?” You can ask him, “Why can’t I get it right?”
But, even in the unknown, God is God, and He does know the answers, though you may have to wait for them. Think about Abraham in the Bible. God called him to pack up and move to a new land, but Abraham probably wasn’t sure how this would all play out. He had to walk from his homeland to the new land through all that land in between. I would like to think he had a ton of questions, but his faith carried him through.
Even Jesus had to remind the disciples that even if they didn’t understand some of the things going on, someday they would. You also might not understand what or how the Lord may be working in your life, but I believe that you can rest assured that you will someday.
Love,
Megan
Dear Younger Me,
Remember that day when you were driving home, and the “ROAD CLOSED” sign blocked your way so you just decided to turn right since you couldn’t go on? You then picked another road to turn left on so you could at least keep heading east. Unexpectedly, that road took you along the river, which was a beautiful sight at that time of day with the sun shining through the trees on the water. The unknown of that detour led to beauty, and at the end of the road was the town to which you were driving.
Like then, when you come to what feels like a detour in your life, where it seems the road is closed or even if it feels like you’re taking the long way to where you want to go, there’s beauty to be found in the detour. Unlike that drive, detours in life are often mixed with pain, but if you choose to, you’ll see the good. Sometimes you’ll see the good after the fact, and sometimes you’ll catch glimpses of the sunshine on the water while you’re on that unknown road. The cool thing is, God knows exactly where that detour ends and it’ll be right where you’re meant to be.
Remember to allow the detour to grow you in character, perseverance, and hope. And, whether you find yourself on the detour or back on the highway, remember the promises that God is with you wherever you go and that what you go through in this life will never compare with the glory to come.
Love,
Megan
Dear Younger Me,
Remember when Mom had you reading and writing down every Bible verse about the words you speak, because you weren’t speaking nicely to your sisters? She wanted you to learn then that your words matter to other people. You didn’t realize then how truly important words can be, especially when they are so full of life and so needed when you’re discouraged!
You’ll also learn and come to realize someday that your love language is words of affirmation. You thrive on the good words others speak of you or to you. However, the irony is that it is difficult for you to give words of affirmation to others (I think you’re more of a gift-giving person!). It doesn’t come natural to you to give compliments to others, but what if you didn’t think about the awkwardness and just spoke the words anyway? What if you just took the time, like others have done for you, to send a text of encouragement or write a note? What if they need your words just as much as you’ve needed theirs?
My hope for you is that you would learn this way of loving others. I’m not too great at it right now, but I hope for you that you would make it a point to say the words of Truth others need to hear. As I have received words of encouragement exactly when I’ve needed them, God can speak through you to others who need to be encouraged, too.
Love,
Megan
Bart Millard from MercyMe, who has a song “Dear Younger Me,” shares this advice for his younger self. For the full conversation about the advice he would share, listen to the A Closer Look podcast, where you can also hear about MercyMe’s new album and upcoming tours.
Dear Younger Me,
You hear the words over and over, “You’re so close! You can do this!” And you appreciate the words and the kind hearts of the people behind them who love you and are doing their best to cheer you on, but in your exhaustion and stress, it’s hard to find the willpower to take the next step toward the light at the end of the tunnel. Forget sprinting towards the finish line – you feel like you’re trudging through the mud.
And in that mud that consists of late nights and tears, you don’t see a lot of joy. You imagine how joyful it will be to walk across that stage, and how joyful it will be to celebrate with your family and friends, not to mention how joyful it will be to finally get eight hours of sleep again, but it’s hard to find the joy right now.
So I encourage you to choose to celebrate the little joys. Celebrate the words of the person who says, “You’re so close! You can do this!” Celebrate shopping for your graduation dress. Celebrate that study break with friends (and you really need to take those breaks). Celebrate that the stress of this season isn’t for forever. Celebrate how far you’ve come, and let that carry you through.
Because, my dear, you’ve climbed mountains. You’ve done some really hard things. You’ve overcome a lot. And you’ve accomplished a lot. You’re on the homestretch now, so keep your eyes on the finish line at the peak of this mountain. And remember you’re not alone. Lean on your friends and family. Cry those tears of frustration. And hold onto God who has held every moment of your life in His hands and is cheering you on as you finish this journey He’s set before you.
Love,
Megan
