Dear Nineteen Me. . .

“… stepping over the divide between childhood and all that lays beyond.”

| jo march. little women |

     Dear nineteen me,
Today, you are one sleep away from turning the page to twenty.

Yes, I’m talking to you.

You, the little girl who itched at the thought of when this day would come. The girl who had all sorts of dreams in a wacky imagination of what would happen before today arrived.  The girl who thought that arriving at twenty would be full of all-grown-up and all-put-together feels. Oh silly you. You feel anything but this.

Nineteen. The year you were learning to trust, choosing to rest, being surprised every day with the unexpected and embracing it.  It’s been the bookend to a childhood you wouldn’t (and couldn’t) have traded for a million diamonds or anything just as valuable. You weren’t easy. In fact, there were many times when you believed you wouldn’t live a harder year. But it’s amazing how the most difficult years can also blossom into the most beautiful, the mundane can switch tracks to the adventurous.
Because that’s what you’ve been.

Honestly, you linger to say goodbye. You got one chance at living this last teenage year, and you know there were so many opportunities you didn’t take, many more hugs you should’ve given, more conversations you wanted to have, more smiles and laughs you could’ve unleashed, and more lessons you wish you had learned and embraced better.
But you, nineteen, were golden. And silvered. And bronzed.

Even if you really really could, you wouldn’t go back and live it over again, because * “I don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life.” You’re called to a new year, to move on. To look ahead, not just looking back. You’re grateful to the Lord for such a year as this.

You skip ahead with excitement to the twenty-year-old you. You don’t know anything about it, you’re a newbie. You’ll have new stories to be acquainted with, and crazy moments of lessons you’ll wade through and come out looking anything but beautiful. But you are more than up for this challenge.
Because you’re here by His grace, you know God has new plans as this volume of childhood and teenage-hood closes and a new and unknown one unfolds.

Regardless how you’ve changed from last year to this, or how you change from this year to next, one thing is cemented, engraved, stamped and sealed on your heart. . .

 “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, and today and forever.”

H e b r e w s 13: 8

Most sincerely,

Almost twenty me