You are just turning 20 and there are so many things I wish you would have known or realized at this age. You have been dating Dudley for a couple of years now, and God has granted you the love of your life, but I want to tell you he cannot be your Savior. He can help you find Him, by loving you like Christ loves the church, but he can't replace Him. When you fell at God's feet and asked for somebody to love you, you should have realized you were already fully loved. As a little girl, you asked Jesus to be your Savior, but you thought that only meant that He would save you from hell and death. I wish you had realized at that moment you became His fully loved and fully righteous daughter. You were given all the things you needed for godliness and a righteous life, you just didn't know it. You also didn't realize you no longer had to strive for God's love or try to be good enough to earn it. I wish you had known you couldn't earn His love by anything you did or didn't do, you already had it. I wish you had known that everything you were striving for, you already had. I also wish you had realized that you didn't have to try to earn other people's love and approval. The only approval you needed, you already had. If you had realized how fully known and fully loved you were, you wouldn't have been striving for the things you wanted God to give you, you would have been free to simply pursue God for who He is! You could have been free to love all your people with open hands, to enjoy them and not try to control them or hold them too tight. I wish I could go back and tell you to put Christ first. To pursue Him with all your heart, soul, and mind, and body, and then you could have loved your people and even your enemies better. You wouldn't have been looking to them to complete you, but just to enjoy and love. I wish you would have known this so you would have been a better role model to your boys, and not teach them that a relationship with God is all about what not to do, but rather teach them how much He loves them and how He will always be the perfect parent to them that their Dad and I never can be. I wish I could have told you that money and things are meaningless, unless they are being used to help other people or further the kingdom. I would have also told you not to be such a big scaredy cat! I would have told you to trust God through it all. I would have told you that you are going to go through some really hard times and great losses, but through it all God was good and faithful. He had you in His arms the whole time! Even in your mistakes, He has come through and is redeeming the broken places. Sure, there have been consequences and scars from your sins, but God, in His infinite love and mercy, is redeeming the broken places and the losses. That's another thing, I wish I could have told you that God is not trying to take away your freedom or fun, but that because He loves you so much, He didn't want you to have to bear the consequences He knew your sin would bring. He wanted to spare you the pain. His boundaries for sex, money, excess , and for your big ol' mouth, and everything else were for your good His boundaries were like the bumpers on a bowling alley, just keeping you on the path to a full and fruitful life. I wish you would have realized that all sin does lead to death, and every day you have a choice to choose life or death. I think if you had really believed the truth you would have made way better choices. Most of all, I would have told you to not be anxious, to enjoy the season you're in, drinking up all the good and the bad of the moments through the lens of eternity. The small things are just blips on the way to a beautiful eternity and everything besides loving God and loving people is the small stuff.
Yours truly, (haha)
Your 58 year old self
