A Month of Letters: A Letter to Your Present Self
I know you...not the version everybody else knows. I know the woman underneath all of it.
I know how quickly you can laugh, how easily something completely stupid can make you lose it, how much you love being surrounded by your family. I know you can be loud and opinionated and passionate and completely ridiculous one minute, then go quiet because somebody said something that landed harder than they realized.
I know you notice things...probably too many things.
The change in somebody’s tone. The conversation that felt different. The person who used to reach out and doesn’t anymore. You can tell yourself a hundred times not to care, and sometimes you really do mean it.
Or how about these little aches?
Why don’t they like me?
What did I do?
Am I too much?
And I wish I could reach across all these years, take your face in my hands and tell you to stop asking people who don’t understand your heart to explain your worth to you.
They can’t. Some people will misunderstand you. You know some already have.
There'll be people who decide who you are without ever bothering to know you deeply enough to be right. There'll be people you have defended who won’t defend you, people you love who won’t know how to love you in the way you need. People who'll be perfectly comfortable receiving everything you give while offering very little or even nothing in return.
And yes, sometimes it will hurt like nothing else!
Because faith has never required you to lie about what hurts. Jesus never asked you to call rejection painless. He never asked you to pretend your grief didn’t rearrange you...you know that it did.... very much so.
There was a version of you before November 2022, wasn't there? And then there was the mother who had to learn how to live in a world where her Levi was no longer physically in it.
I still don’t know how you did that....I don't think you do either.
Because how does a mother explain surviving the death of her child? There is absolutely no language for it!
You carried him inside your body once. Then you carried him in your arms. You watched him become his own person, with his own voice, life and story. He was in your life, every single day. You two were close and he spoke to parts of you that nobody else could.
And then somehow you were expected to keep living after his stopped.....
People still needed things.
The sun had the audacity to come up. Bills still arrived. Laundry still accumulated. People laughed. Holidays came around again. The calendar kept moving as though something enormous hadn’t happened.
And you moved with it. Not because you stopped loving him and certainly not because you were finished grieving.
You moved because somehow a human heart can be shattered and still keep beating and I need you to understand something about that.
Every time you laugh, you're not leaving him behind. Every beautiful day is not a betrayal. Every new memory you make doesn't replace an old one.
Every time you worship with your whole heart, every time you belly-laugh with your daughters or your grandchildren, every time you make plans for the future, every time you get excited about something completely ordinary, you are NOT moving away from your son.
You are living.
And you are allowed to.
What did I do?
Am I too much?
And I wish I could reach across all these years, take your face in my hands and tell you to stop asking people who don’t understand your heart to explain your worth to you.
They can’t. Some people will misunderstand you. You know some already have.
There'll be people who decide who you are without ever bothering to know you deeply enough to be right. There'll be people you have defended who won’t defend you, people you love who won’t know how to love you in the way you need. People who'll be perfectly comfortable receiving everything you give while offering very little or even nothing in return.
And yes, sometimes it will hurt like nothing else!
Because faith has never required you to lie about what hurts. Jesus never asked you to call rejection painless. He never asked you to pretend your grief didn’t rearrange you...you know that it did.... very much so.
There was a version of you before November 2022, wasn't there? And then there was the mother who had to learn how to live in a world where her Levi was no longer physically in it.
I still don’t know how you did that....I don't think you do either.
Because how does a mother explain surviving the death of her child? There is absolutely no language for it!
You carried him inside your body once. Then you carried him in your arms. You watched him become his own person, with his own voice, life and story. He was in your life, every single day. You two were close and he spoke to parts of you that nobody else could.
And then somehow you were expected to keep living after his stopped.....
People still needed things.
The sun had the audacity to come up. Bills still arrived. Laundry still accumulated. People laughed. Holidays came around again. The calendar kept moving as though something enormous hadn’t happened.
And you moved with it. Not because you stopped loving him and certainly not because you were finished grieving.
You moved because somehow a human heart can be shattered and still keep beating and I need you to understand something about that.
Every time you laugh, you're not leaving him behind. Every beautiful day is not a betrayal. Every new memory you make doesn't replace an old one.
Every time you worship with your whole heart, every time you belly-laugh with your daughters or your grandchildren, every time you make plans for the future, every time you get excited about something completely ordinary, you are NOT moving away from your son.
You are living.
And you are allowed to.
And he would expect you to, you know this.
I think somewhere inside you there's been this strange tension between gratitude for the life you still have and grief for the life you desperately wish were still here.
You don’t have to choose between them, Jill. You can miss Levi AND love your life. You can grieve AND laugh. You can carry an ache AND still be genuinely happy.
The heart is big enough for both. Yours certainly is! Look at everything it holds!
Six children.
Three bonus children.
I think somewhere inside you there's been this strange tension between gratitude for the life you still have and grief for the life you desperately wish were still here.
You don’t have to choose between them, Jill. You can miss Levi AND love your life. You can grieve AND laugh. You can carry an ache AND still be genuinely happy.
The heart is big enough for both. Yours certainly is! Look at everything it holds!
Six children.
Three bonus children.
A husband.
Grandchildren who have no idea yet how deeply their existence has woven itself into you.
A family that you have spent decades building your life around!
You became a mother so young that sometimes I wonder if you ever REALLY got to meet yourself before somebody needed you. Motherhood wasn’t something you added to your life. It became the architecture of it.
For more than three decades, somebody has needed something from you.
Food.
A ride.
An answer.
Money.
Advice.
Comfort.
A cuddle.
Grandchildren who have no idea yet how deeply their existence has woven itself into you.
A family that you have spent decades building your life around!
You became a mother so young that sometimes I wonder if you ever REALLY got to meet yourself before somebody needed you. Motherhood wasn’t something you added to your life. It became the architecture of it.
For more than three decades, somebody has needed something from you.
Food.
A ride.
An answer.
Money.
Advice.
Comfort.
A cuddle.
A lap.
A shoulder.
A permission slip.
A clean shirt.
A babysitter.
A listening ear.
A referee.
A prayer.
Mom.
Mom.
Mom.
And I know there were days you wanted five minutes where nobody said that word. But....I also know it became one of the deepest parts of who you are.
Now some of those children are grown. They have lives and opinions and choices you cannot control. Sometimes they do things differently than you would. Sometimes you wonder what you should've done differently.
And because you are you, you will be tempted to go back through thirty-plus years of motherhood with a red pen.
Don’t!
You were learning too!
You were raising human beings while you were still becoming one. You got things wrong.
Of course you did.
There were moments you could've been more patient. Times you reacted instead of listened. Things you understand now that you couldn’t possibly have understood then.
Own those things when you need to! Apologize when you need to! But don’t rewrite the entire story of your motherhood around your mistakes.
Your children were loved! FIERCELY! And they STILL are!
And one thing I know about you is that you'll never make a sport out of tearing them down. They are pieces of your heart walking around outside your body. EVEN when they frustrate you! EVEN when they hurt you! EVEN when they are grown! ESPECIALLY then!
And then there’s Justin. Marriage has never been the little framed quote people hang above the bed. It’s two imperfect people aging in real time. It’s stress, money, work, fear, children, misunderstandings and ordinary Tuesday nights. It’s watching somebody you love go through things you can't fix for them.
You have learned that loving someone doesn’t mean you can save them from every hard thing. THAT has been difficult for you.
Because you are a fixer.
Good grief, are you a fixer!
If there's a problem, you want a plan.
A list.
A phone number.
A form.
A spreadsheet.
A person to call.
Give you twenty minutes, a pen and paper and you’ll try to reorganize the entire crisis!
But some things can't be organized into submission. Some things have to be lived through.
You're still learning that. You're also still learning that taking care of yourself is not something you earn after everybody else has been sufficiently cared for. Your body has been trying to tell you that for years!
A babysitter.
A listening ear.
A referee.
A prayer.
Mom.
Mom.
Mom.
And I know there were days you wanted five minutes where nobody said that word. But....I also know it became one of the deepest parts of who you are.
Now some of those children are grown. They have lives and opinions and choices you cannot control. Sometimes they do things differently than you would. Sometimes you wonder what you should've done differently.
And because you are you, you will be tempted to go back through thirty-plus years of motherhood with a red pen.
Don’t!
You were learning too!
You were raising human beings while you were still becoming one. You got things wrong.
Of course you did.
There were moments you could've been more patient. Times you reacted instead of listened. Things you understand now that you couldn’t possibly have understood then.
Own those things when you need to! Apologize when you need to! But don’t rewrite the entire story of your motherhood around your mistakes.
Your children were loved! FIERCELY! And they STILL are!
And one thing I know about you is that you'll never make a sport out of tearing them down. They are pieces of your heart walking around outside your body. EVEN when they frustrate you! EVEN when they hurt you! EVEN when they are grown! ESPECIALLY then!
And then there’s Justin. Marriage has never been the little framed quote people hang above the bed. It’s two imperfect people aging in real time. It’s stress, money, work, fear, children, misunderstandings and ordinary Tuesday nights. It’s watching somebody you love go through things you can't fix for them.
You have learned that loving someone doesn’t mean you can save them from every hard thing. THAT has been difficult for you.
Because you are a fixer.
Good grief, are you a fixer!
If there's a problem, you want a plan.
A list.
A phone number.
A form.
A spreadsheet.
A person to call.
Give you twenty minutes, a pen and paper and you’ll try to reorganize the entire crisis!
But some things can't be organized into submission. Some things have to be lived through.
You're still learning that. You're also still learning that taking care of yourself is not something you earn after everybody else has been sufficiently cared for. Your body has been trying to tell you that for years!
And yes, you look at it sometimes and wish it were smaller. You see numbers, weight, age, and changes. You remember younger versions of yourself and wonder where she went.
Well, guess what....she’s right here.
She just has more stories now.
This body made children.
Held many babies linked to her womb.
Buried a child.
Worked.
Worshipped.
Stayed awake worrying.
Got out of bed when its heart didn’t want to.
Walked into church and sang while carrying things nobody in the room could see.
It's brought you ALL the way to this moment.
So please.......stop treating it like a renovation project. Take care of it! Get stronger. Lose weight if that helps you feel better and live better. Eat differently. Walk. Lift weights. Bounce on that ridiculous little rebounder. Stand on the vibration plate and jiggle every blessed thing God gave you.
But, girl....love the woman doing it! Don’t postpone loving her until she weighs 130 pounds again. She needs you NOW!
And while we’re here, can we talk about fifty? Because it’s coming. And I know there's a part of you staring at that number thinking, How in the world did we get here? You don’t feel fifty.....whatever fifty is supposed to feel like. Maybe that’s because the woman inside you doesn’t age in neat little decades. Some days she’s twenty-five. Sometimes she’s seventy-eight. Sometimes she’s a kid who wants somebody else to handle everything.
But there is something beautiful about reaching this age.
You know more now.
Not everything.
Thank God!
But enough to recognize how much energy you wasted trying to convince people to understand you. Enough to know that being liked and being loved are not the same thing.
Enough to realize that some relationships survive because you keep resuscitating them.
Enough to know you don’t have to chase everybody who walks away.
Let them walk. Not angrily and not with some dramatic speech about knowing your worth.
Just...let them.
You spent enough years standing at closed doors wondering what you could say to make someone open them.
Turn around!
There is still SO much life behind you.
And there is something else I don't want you to miss.
God trusted you with a voice! Not JUST a singing voice.
Although, yes, that too.
A voice.
For years, there were things inside you that you didn't know where to put. Then somehow.... you found yourself leading worship. Music director. You!
Sometimes I think you still look around internally and wonder if somebody made a clerical error. But think about the timing, Jill!
Well, guess what....she’s right here.
She just has more stories now.
This body made children.
Held many babies linked to her womb.
Buried a child.
Worked.
Worshipped.
Stayed awake worrying.
Got out of bed when its heart didn’t want to.
Walked into church and sang while carrying things nobody in the room could see.
It's brought you ALL the way to this moment.
So please.......stop treating it like a renovation project. Take care of it! Get stronger. Lose weight if that helps you feel better and live better. Eat differently. Walk. Lift weights. Bounce on that ridiculous little rebounder. Stand on the vibration plate and jiggle every blessed thing God gave you.
But, girl....love the woman doing it! Don’t postpone loving her until she weighs 130 pounds again. She needs you NOW!
And while we’re here, can we talk about fifty? Because it’s coming. And I know there's a part of you staring at that number thinking, How in the world did we get here? You don’t feel fifty.....whatever fifty is supposed to feel like. Maybe that’s because the woman inside you doesn’t age in neat little decades. Some days she’s twenty-five. Sometimes she’s seventy-eight. Sometimes she’s a kid who wants somebody else to handle everything.
But there is something beautiful about reaching this age.
You know more now.
Not everything.
Thank God!
But enough to recognize how much energy you wasted trying to convince people to understand you. Enough to know that being liked and being loved are not the same thing.
Enough to realize that some relationships survive because you keep resuscitating them.
Enough to know you don’t have to chase everybody who walks away.
Let them walk. Not angrily and not with some dramatic speech about knowing your worth.
Just...let them.
You spent enough years standing at closed doors wondering what you could say to make someone open them.
Turn around!
There is still SO much life behind you.
And there is something else I don't want you to miss.
God trusted you with a voice! Not JUST a singing voice.
Although, yes, that too.
A voice.
For years, there were things inside you that you didn't know where to put. Then somehow.... you found yourself leading worship. Music director. You!
Sometimes I think you still look around internally and wonder if somebody made a clerical error. But think about the timing, Jill!
Think about who you were becoming. Think about how close you came to being done. And then there you were, standing behind a microphone, responsible for helping other people turn their attention toward Jesus.
And we know it's not because you had everything together. Maybe because you didn't?
You know what it is to worship while hurting. You know what it is to sing words that your emotions haven't caught up with yet. You know what it is to believe God is good while simultaneously asking Him why.
THAT kind of worship has weight! Don't confuse insecurity with humility. You're allowed to acknowledge that God gave you something. You're allowed to get better at it. You're allowed to lead. You're allowed to take up space. And you don't have to become somebody else to be used by God.
He ALREADY KNOWS you're emotional. He KNOWS you overthink. He KNOWS you're stubborn sometimes. He KNOWS sometimes you talk before you've completely thought something through. He KNOWS you can get your feelings hurt.
He KNOWS there are days you feel spiritually powerful and days you sit down to pray and your brain apparently leaves the building.
Jill, NONE of this surprises Him. He called you knowing the WHOLE woman.....not the edited version.
I think you have spent some parts of your life believing you needed to become better before you could become useful to God.
But look backward.
He was using you while He was healing you.
Teaching you while you were teaching others.
Carrying you while you were trying to carry everybody else.
There have been prayers you didn't know how to pray.
There have been times all you had was, "Jesus."
Maybe that was enough?! Prayer was never about impressing God with your ability to articulate pain. He understood the tears before you translated them. He understood the silence too!
You want to be a woman of prayer.
I would have to say that you already are becoming one.
Not because you always know what to say.
Because you keep coming back.
And THAT'S what I want for the rest of your life.
Keep coming back!
When you're confident, come back.
When you're confused, come back.
When you've screwed something up, come back.
When you're angry with God, bring that too!
When worship feels effortless, worship.
When it costs you something, worship then too.
When life is so good you almost feel guilty for being happy, thank Him without apology.
And when grief shows up unexpectedly.........and knocks the air out of an otherwise ordinary afternoon, don't scold yourself for still hurting.
Sit with it.
Say his name.
Cry.
Then keep living.
There are grandchildren who need to know your laugh.
Daughters who are still watching you become.
Adult children who may understand you differently as they grow older.
A husband who is growing older beside you.
Songs you haven't sung yet.
Things you haven't written.
People you haven't met.
Scriptures you've read twenty times that God will somehow make new on the twenty-first.
There are probably hard days ahead too.
I won't lie to you just because this is supposed to be encouraging.
Life has already taught us better than that.
There will be disappointment.
There will be people you cannot keep.
There will be prayers whose answers you don't understand.
There will be changes you don't want.
Eventually there will be more goodbyes.
But you know something now that the younger you didn't, don't you? You can survive a day you don't think you can survive. You know because you have. And survival isn't the greatest thing God has done in you.
You stayed soft!
THAT'S the miracle I don't want you to overlook.
You STILL love, Jill.
STILL hope.
STILL get excited.
STILL believe people can be good.
STILL cry during songs.
STILL care whether somebody feels left out.
STILL want to make things beautiful.
STILL believe prayer matters.
STILL believe God speaks.
STILL believe there is purpose in your life.
After everything, your heart did NOT become stone.
Protect that!
Not everyone gets access to it......but protect its tenderness.
And please, for the love of Pete.....STOP being so cruel to yourself in your own head.
I mean it!
You would never speak to somebody you love the way you sometimes speak to yourself.
You wouldn't look at another grieving mother and tell her she should be farther along.
You wouldn't look at another woman approaching fifty and point out everything that changed in her body. You wouldn't look at someone trying something new and call her ridiculous for not being perfect yet. You wouldn't tell another Christian that one season of doubt erased decades of faith.
So why are you the exception to your own compassion?!
You're not!
He was using you while He was healing you.
Teaching you while you were teaching others.
Carrying you while you were trying to carry everybody else.
There have been prayers you didn't know how to pray.
There have been times all you had was, "Jesus."
Maybe that was enough?! Prayer was never about impressing God with your ability to articulate pain. He understood the tears before you translated them. He understood the silence too!
You want to be a woman of prayer.
I would have to say that you already are becoming one.
Not because you always know what to say.
Because you keep coming back.
And THAT'S what I want for the rest of your life.
Keep coming back!
When you're confident, come back.
When you're confused, come back.
When you've screwed something up, come back.
When you're angry with God, bring that too!
When worship feels effortless, worship.
When it costs you something, worship then too.
When life is so good you almost feel guilty for being happy, thank Him without apology.
And when grief shows up unexpectedly.........and knocks the air out of an otherwise ordinary afternoon, don't scold yourself for still hurting.
Sit with it.
Say his name.
Cry.
Then keep living.
There are grandchildren who need to know your laugh.
Daughters who are still watching you become.
Adult children who may understand you differently as they grow older.
A husband who is growing older beside you.
Songs you haven't sung yet.
Things you haven't written.
People you haven't met.
Scriptures you've read twenty times that God will somehow make new on the twenty-first.
There are probably hard days ahead too.
I won't lie to you just because this is supposed to be encouraging.
Life has already taught us better than that.
There will be disappointment.
There will be people you cannot keep.
There will be prayers whose answers you don't understand.
There will be changes you don't want.
Eventually there will be more goodbyes.
But you know something now that the younger you didn't, don't you? You can survive a day you don't think you can survive. You know because you have. And survival isn't the greatest thing God has done in you.
You stayed soft!
THAT'S the miracle I don't want you to overlook.
You STILL love, Jill.
STILL hope.
STILL get excited.
STILL believe people can be good.
STILL cry during songs.
STILL care whether somebody feels left out.
STILL want to make things beautiful.
STILL believe prayer matters.
STILL believe God speaks.
STILL believe there is purpose in your life.
After everything, your heart did NOT become stone.
Protect that!
Not everyone gets access to it......but protect its tenderness.
And please, for the love of Pete.....STOP being so cruel to yourself in your own head.
I mean it!
You would never speak to somebody you love the way you sometimes speak to yourself.
You wouldn't look at another grieving mother and tell her she should be farther along.
You wouldn't look at another woman approaching fifty and point out everything that changed in her body. You wouldn't look at someone trying something new and call her ridiculous for not being perfect yet. You wouldn't tell another Christian that one season of doubt erased decades of faith.
So why are you the exception to your own compassion?!
You're not!
You get grace too, yannow!
You get patience!
You get another chance tomorrow!
You get to change your mind when you learn something.
You get to admit you were wrong without deciding you're worthless.
You get to outgrow people, habits, beliefs and versions of yourself that no longer belong in your life.
You get to rest!
You get to be happy!
Really happy!
Not "happy considering everything."
Just happy.
And babe, when that happiness comes, DON'T interrogate it. Let it sit down! Make it coffee. Let it stay awhile!
You've known enough sorrow. You don't owe sorrow permanent residency just because it once had your address. I don't know what the next fifty years hold. I don't even know how many of them we'll get.
But I know how I want to live whatever remains. I want to stop waiting to become worthy of my own love. I want to stop treating my life like a rough draft. I want to be present for it.
I want to know my daughters as the women they're becoming. I want to soak up my grandchildren while they're still little enough to climb all over me. I want to grow old with Justin and laugh about things only the two of us remember. I want to sing until my voice changes, and then figure out how to sing with the voice I have. I want to pray until talking to Jesus feels less like something I do and more like somewhere I live.
I want to keep learning.
Keep writing.
Keep changing.
Keep laughing.
Keep becoming.
And someday......when this life is much farther behind me than it is today, I want to look back at this version of myself with tenderness. The almost-fifty-year-old woman who was still figuring things out.
The mother.
The grandmother.
The wife.
The worship leader.
The woman who loved Jesus and sometimes had questions for Him.
The woman carrying a son in her heart whom she would have given anything to hold again.
The woman who could be surrounded by people and still sometimes feel lonely.
The woman who wanted deeply to be understood.
The woman who was finally beginning to understand herself.
I want to tell her:
You were never too much for God.
Your grief wasn't too much.
Your questions weren't too much.
Your personality wasn't too much.
Your dreams weren't too late.
Your body wasn't too far gone.
Your mistakes weren't too big for grace.
And your life wasn't over.
NOT EVEN CLOSE.
So, sweetheart...
Enough fighting yourself.
Come home to yourself.
You get patience!
You get another chance tomorrow!
You get to change your mind when you learn something.
You get to admit you were wrong without deciding you're worthless.
You get to outgrow people, habits, beliefs and versions of yourself that no longer belong in your life.
You get to rest!
You get to be happy!
Really happy!
Not "happy considering everything."
Just happy.
And babe, when that happiness comes, DON'T interrogate it. Let it sit down! Make it coffee. Let it stay awhile!
You've known enough sorrow. You don't owe sorrow permanent residency just because it once had your address. I don't know what the next fifty years hold. I don't even know how many of them we'll get.
But I know how I want to live whatever remains. I want to stop waiting to become worthy of my own love. I want to stop treating my life like a rough draft. I want to be present for it.
I want to know my daughters as the women they're becoming. I want to soak up my grandchildren while they're still little enough to climb all over me. I want to grow old with Justin and laugh about things only the two of us remember. I want to sing until my voice changes, and then figure out how to sing with the voice I have. I want to pray until talking to Jesus feels less like something I do and more like somewhere I live.
I want to keep learning.
Keep writing.
Keep changing.
Keep laughing.
Keep becoming.
And someday......when this life is much farther behind me than it is today, I want to look back at this version of myself with tenderness. The almost-fifty-year-old woman who was still figuring things out.
The mother.
The grandmother.
The wife.
The worship leader.
The woman who loved Jesus and sometimes had questions for Him.
The woman carrying a son in her heart whom she would have given anything to hold again.
The woman who could be surrounded by people and still sometimes feel lonely.
The woman who wanted deeply to be understood.
The woman who was finally beginning to understand herself.
I want to tell her:
You were never too much for God.
Your grief wasn't too much.
Your questions weren't too much.
Your personality wasn't too much.
Your dreams weren't too late.
Your body wasn't too far gone.
Your mistakes weren't too big for grace.
And your life wasn't over.
NOT EVEN CLOSE.
So, sweetheart...
Enough fighting yourself.
Come home to yourself.
There's nothing waiting there that God hasn't already seen. He knows every room, every locked door, every memory, every regret, every beautiful thing, every broken thing, and He stayed!
So....maybe you can stay too. Stay with yourself when you're difficult. Stay when you're disappointed in yourself. Stay when you don't recognize the woman in the mirror. Stay long enough to meet her again.
She's STILL in there.
And I think you'll find that she isn't someone who needs to be fixed nearly as much as she is someone who needs to be loved.
I love you.
I'm sorry it took me this long to learn how to say that without immediately adding a qualification.
I love you.
Period.
And Jesus...Thank You for her. Thank You for every year. Thank You for the ones that were beautiful and the ones we still don't understand. Thank You for Levi. Thank You that love didn't end when his earthly life did. Thank You for Justin, for our children, for our grandchildren, for every ordinary piece of this life I might have overlooked.
So....maybe you can stay too. Stay with yourself when you're difficult. Stay when you're disappointed in yourself. Stay when you don't recognize the woman in the mirror. Stay long enough to meet her again.
She's STILL in there.
And I think you'll find that she isn't someone who needs to be fixed nearly as much as she is someone who needs to be loved.
I love you.
I'm sorry it took me this long to learn how to say that without immediately adding a qualification.
I love you.
Period.
And Jesus...Thank You for her. Thank You for every year. Thank You for the ones that were beautiful and the ones we still don't understand. Thank You for Levi. Thank You that love didn't end when his earthly life did. Thank You for Justin, for our children, for our grandchildren, for every ordinary piece of this life I might have overlooked.
Thank You for finding me in every version of myself. Thank You for never requiring me to clean myself up before coming close. And whatever is ahead, Lord, don't let me spend it afraid of living. Teach me to hold the past without living inside it. Teach me to love people without losing myself. Teach me when to hold on and when to release. Keep my heart tender, but give it wisdom.
Let my children know, really know, how deeply they are loved. Let my grandchildren remember that MiMi loved Jesus, loved them fiercely, and knew how to laugh.
Let my worship be real. Let my life be real. And when I forget who I am again, because I probably will...remind me Whose I am.
I'm still here.
You're still here.
And we're not finished yet.
Love,
Me
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