Hey “A Year Ago” Megs,
I’ll cut right to the chase. Right now, you’re in the dead center of the hardest time of your life. Life is hitting you with things you never thought you’d face, especially at this young of an age.
I know that things look bleak. You’ve just faced one of the hardest decisions of your life: should you stay, or should you go on the World Race? I want to encourage you that staying is the right decision, even though right now it is hard to see why and it feels excruciatingly painful. Even though it was hard to hear God over the roar of stress, fear, and pain, you sought Him with your entire being and it has brought you into the fullness of His plans for you.
And that’s not even the hardest part. Your beautiful and lovely mom, who took up such a large and precious residence in your heart, has gone home to be with the God you both know and love. When she moved out of this world and moved home to heaven, a new guest moved into her place in your heart: grief.
Grief was so scary at first. I remember imagining him standing behind a door, and myself afraid to open it because I thought he might drown me if I welcomed him. Grief is strange; he’s a shapeshifter. Some days he feels empty, and not in a good way, but in a way that leaves you aching and painfully aware of what you’ve lost. Some days he was so heavy he threatened to crush you and you really thought you might suffocate. Typically, he visited unannounced and unexpected, and had this inexplicable way of influencing your emotions – generally sending more than one at a time, to enhance the emotional confusion. And sadness was his favorite flavor to add to the concoction.
I encourage you to welcome Grief. Don’t run, despite his peculiarity. He has much to teach you about life, about yourself, and about God. He will help you process your pain and wield it for the Kingdom of God. He will help you remember mom with love and joy while also validating your pain. He will grow you in compassion and thankfulness. God uses grief to accomplish His will in you, if you let Him. Just like God is in the joys of life, He is also in the sorrows.
The upcoming year that you are about to live is not at all what I expected it to be. Nothing can prepare you for tragedy. What do you do when everything you thought you knew falls apart? And what do you do when your mom, the woman who raised you, loved you, grew you, supported you, taught you, isn’t there to help you, like she always has been for every other trial, big and small?
Recently, I was asked by someone you haven’t met yet, how? How did you handle this past year? How are you still going on the World Race? How did you stay faithful to God despite everything you just went through?
In that moment I wanted to travel through time and ask you, but I knew you wouldn’t know either.
After processing this question, I think it all came down to desperation.
Please stay desperate for Jesus. Keep clinging to Him and seeking Him. I have never grown so much as I did when I was desperate for His presence and His comfort. One of the things I treasure most about how you walk through this time is your raw honesty with God. I cannot stress enough how important that is, not only for now but for the rest of your life.
This journey is going to be life changing. It’s going to be hard and beautiful. This year especially is going to be hard. But hard things are not all bad. This hardness is going to refine and purify you. Surrender to the hardness, don’t try to fight it. Surrender to the grace of God and let it wash over and transform you.
Your story is unique and it’s yours. For some reason I find comfort in that. Nobody else has exactly my story, and I feel a responsibility to live and share it well. God trusted you with this precious life, to be an ambassador for when He says “no.” To sing of His goodness and faithfulness even when your circumstances would have you believe otherwise.
Cling to your family, cling to your friends, cling to God. These are the top three things that are going to keep you together when all you really feel capable of is falling apart.
There is so much more I wish to tell you. So much that I have learned that has shifted my perspective on who I am, who God is, and how to live and love. I suppose those can wait for another letter on another day. For now, I’ll leave you with this: I think that you have played the cards you were dealt in the best possible way. You let God transform you using something that was intended to ruin you, but instead, He intended it for good. And for that, I am incredibly thankful for you.
Love always,
“Present” Megs
