A letter to 18 year old Heather

Oh girl, buckle up. Your adventure awaits.

You’re starting college and moving away to Bloomington in one short week. Half excited, half terrified. That probably holds true for everyone else on campus, but I know it’s different for you. You’ve had to grow up quickly, take on big responsibilities and fight demons ready to take you down at any moment. College isn’t going to make that go away, but it is going to make you strong enough to face the transitions coming your way. You don’t feel strong right now and that’s ok. You’re on a journey to discover who you are and what you want. You’ve set that journey aside to care for your father, but he’s gone and it’s time. (That will seem harsh, just keep reading.)

You’re going to do your best to fit in on campus. You’re going to experience all the things you think you’re “supposed” to do as a college student. The thing is, you aren’t like any of your peers and you’ll learn that what works for a typical 18 year old isn’t what you need. You have too much baggage to jump into a frivolous life of parties, casual dating and binge drinking. Some will tell you this is the best years of your life. They were SO wrong, praise Jesus. Just be patient.

You think you want to be loved just as you are. Everyone wants that, right? What you’ll learn is that you really want is to feel SAFE. You don’t feel safe anywhere, with anyone. At home, it’s “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”. In relationships, you’re told you’re too needy. God has abandoned you, you think. In every area of your life, you can’t seem to find a place or person that seems safe.

Thus begins a life long struggle of feeling like you are too much and not enough simultaneously.

You can be too bold and you’ll make yourself smaller to help others feel comfortable. Especially with men who are threatened by your powerful personality. Stop that. You’ll learn that the people you want in your circle will embrace your boldness and encourage you to use it in powerful ways to help others.

You’re going to change your major three times, quit college and then return again, because you never get the sense that you really know where you’re headed. Nothing “fits” in your studies and you’ll tire of hemorrhaging money to Sallie Mae like you’re donating blood to an entire third world country. You’re going to find your place, but in the most unexpected of all places.

You’re going to lose yourself to taking care of others. You don’t know how not to. It’s all you know, after years of managing your father’s healthcare and a multitude of adults’ emotional baggage. Eventually, it will take a toll on your own well being and you’ll circle the wagons around the few that pour into you as much as you pour into them and honestly, some of those left out will be family and those you count as your closest friends right now, at 18. People change. You will change.

You’ll spend a few years in relationships with men that aren’t emotionally available and you’ll learn the valuable lesson that your life experiences and family of origin dictate what you expect from a partner- both the good and the bad. You’re going to meet a man that can spot that from a mile away and when he doesn’t run away from the tornado you’re brewing, you’ll open your heart in a different way than ever before. You’ll marry him and build a life that makes you feel safe for the first time ever.

You’re angry at God, I think that’s fair. You’ve lost a lot in your short life and you feel abandoned. It will be a long, slow burn to find your way back to Him but He’s waiting. He never left, not even for a second, despite what you think. The first time you feel like you’ve found your “place”, you’ll be shocked to know it’s church. God has something amazing planned if you’re willing to follow His lead. You’ll serve Him faithfully but you’ll also learn that church people/leaders are just fallible humans too. You’ll experience profound, deep seeded pain. It will almost break you. You’ll leave your safe place, feeling adrift, only to figure out that the place you feel the safest is just at the feet of Jesus, not in some building.

The thing I want you to know, Heather, is that you WILL find your way. It’s not going to look like everyone else’s path or the way you think it’s supposed to, but God has a plan. You’re a mess right now but God is going to take that mess and turn it into a beautiful masterpiece. You’ll still be able to see the jagged edges of disappointments, the cracks of loss, the worn, tattered pieces of hurt, but more than all of that, you’ll see the fire God has placed in your heart for Him and his church. It will outshine all of the pieces of you that you want to hide, to pretend, to ignore. Because the picture isn’t complete if it doesn’t tell the whole story and you can trust that God has written a beautiful story for you, Heather. Be patient, be faithful, be you. You can’t be too much or not enough. You weren’t made to be like everyone else, you were made perfectly in His image. Shine, girl, shine.