Dear Me,
There you are, 15 years old. As you look into the future, it’s probably a good thing you can’t see me at more than twice your age: you’d be terrified of the years that must pass before you will finally be that wife and mother you dream of now…
Your best friend now? She’s going to move away. You’ll keep in touch through the years, but you will make other friends. I promise. Two of your closest friends will be your little sisters. I know right now, at 8 and 10, the gap seems huge, but in a few years you’ll be quite the threesome. Oh, and your mom. Right now you clash a lot, but you’ll get past that and be really close friends. You’ll even be a birth attendant as she has your youngest brother… and a dozen years later, she’ll be by your side as you give birth to your first daughter.
You look pretty old-fashioned in that homemade dress. Your fashion sense will mature, but you’ll keep that love of everything old, especially books (my, what a library you’ll have in your 130-year old house!) And eventually you might learn that what you wear really isn’t as important as what’s on the inside. I know you’ve only been taught that since you could talk. Keep working on it. (This is to 30 year old me, too!)
You don’t have very specific plans for what to do after high school. If you thought about it now, you might do some things a little differently, but don’t worry… God has a way of using everything to shape you into the person he wants you to be. You won’t go to college. You’ll stay home until you get married (and keep sharing a room with your sisters). You won’t ever have a formal job, but the wide range of experiences you’ll get instead will be well worth it… volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center, working on the farm, working for your dad in many capacities, doing freelance writing and editing and formatting.
And since getting married is on your mind a lot right now, let me tell you a few things about your future husband. You don’t know him now (so don’t worry about not knowing a lot of eligible guys). You will get your heart seriously broken before you meet him, but you’ll come out stronger on the other side. God’s getting him ready, but you won’t meet him until you are almost 28. Despite the advances in technology and the fact that both of you will be on all sorts of online networking sites, you’ll end up actually meeting in person. You, little country mouse, will end up living in Los Angeles, CA, and you’ll be just fine. You’ll end up letting go of so many dreams to marry this man, but it will be worth it, because you’re going to find a love beyond anything you can imagine right now. Don’t worry overmuch about the crushes you have on other guys in the intervening years. It’s part of growing up, you’ll learn from them, and once you meet your man, you won’t even remember how it felt to like anyone else.
And those dreams you let die? God will give them back to you in surprising ways. You’ll leave the big city to live in a tiny village in southern Illinois, in an old house surrounded by a picket fence. You’ll have a garden, a clothesline, a fireplace, and even a barn. And wonder of wonders, you’ll have a little girl with her daddy’s eyes and mama’s hair. It’ll be worth the wait, I promise.
Love, Me
Linking up at YLCF and chatting at the sky
