Dear 15 Year Old Me

Dear 15 Year Old Me:

You turned 15 today and you have a basketball game in White Salmon. You are having a wonderful day until you hear the news. During lunch time 6 of your classmates get in a car accident, killing one of your good friends. A lot of them are seriously injured and you feel like it is unreal. You learn so much from this, but only if you could really see the big picture here. Life is short. The good news is that things turn out wonderful for you even though you will experience many times that you feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

I know that at your age your dream was to play basketball at the University of Oregon, but that is nowhere near where you end up. You injure yourself countless times and playing sports in college soon almost didn't seem like an option at many times. Although George Fox University is probably not on your radar at this age, once you get a little older you will eventually come to know that this is your dream college and you would not want to go anywhere else.

You are mixed up in some real bad stuff right now, and I often wish so much that you would see that you are so much better than that. You start getting in to things that should have never even been in your vocabulary at 15 and it gets you in to a place that you never thought you would be. You have a PE teacher in your life that continues to hold you accountable. If only you could see that instead of thinking he is judging you for your choices. He knows what your situation is like at home and he just wants you to see that you can go farther than that. Although you constantly turn your shoulder at him, there will be a point in high school where he ends up being the only person you can turn to.

After this first year in high school, you will feel pretty good about where you found your place. You are hanging out with friends and doing things that "make you happy." But those things only cause temporary happiness and only fill those voids for the time-being. There is something that happened before that you don't tell anyone about until you are 18, but you could have got some help for it had you not been so determined to keep that tucked away.

You are invited to a camp the summer after your freshman year, and that camp will soon be what plants the seed in your heart that will end up changing your life forever. At first you have a hard time truly grasping what it means to have a "Heavenly Father" because you have trust issues in your life when it comes to men. . Upon return from camp you say that you are different, but you go straight back to what you were doing before. You will spend the next couple years living a divided life. You seem to only pursue unhealthy relationships and even though right now you are "madly in love," I wish you could see that before your heart gets shattered.

Junior year comes around and you will really think everything is going great. You go to state with your volleyball team and soon after you will do something that makes you hit complete rock bottom. Life becomes instantly confusing and you have no idea what you are going to do, so you keep it to yourself. Soon after, you realize that your PE teacher ends up being the first person to know because he knew something was wrong. You will be forever thankful for how he was always there through and through. Then you seek out more help and gain some incredible relationships through Calvary Community Church.

Your life will change dramatically after some things did not turn out exactly how you planned for them. I know there will be a lot of heartbreak and grief going in to this situation you are placed in, but thankfully you reached out. You got help from your PE teacher's wife and this is a relationship that you will truly cherish forever. You will give your life to Christ after a 2 hour walk in the woods on a retreat and that following summer you will get baptized and your life will be forever changed. You go through senior year and have a blast and at the same time form relationships that will bless you more than you could imagine. And this is where George Fox comes in to the picture.

During April of your senior year, you finally made the choice to go to George Fox University and you play softball there. You soon get hurt and that pretty much ends your sports career. It is something that you will find very hard, but in the end is rewarding. There are tons of crazy things that happen your first year in college, but they help you grow tremendously. You witness miracles and you also experience a lot of grief. You have been going through high school believing that you want to do physical therapy but your heart changes and you switch to a double major in Social Work and Youth Ministry.

Although at 15, this is definitely nothing you would ever imagine, but honestly the Lord has blessed you tremendously. Your college years will be so important and you will build relationships with people that are worth every minute. At your age now, you keep your problems to yourself. You hide your life by putting a smile on your face. And even though it seems like that is the best choice, you will end up realizing that there is no better feeling than sharing your story. The people whom you tell your story to constantly remind you that your life is beautiful and you will learn to realize that yourself.

I just want you to know that even though things get extremely rough, keep pushing through. Try not to ever think of the things you will do as regrets because they are what will make you who you are. At so many times I would have hoped for you to come to a realization that just because you were around certain things your whole life did not mean that it was okay for you to do them too. And even though you will not see it right now, you will grow to be very wise for your age because you experience so much and bring a different perspective. You are a strong person and the Lord will steal your heart some day. Keep pursuring Him.

XOXO
20 Year Old Me