Last week in The Mended Heart P31 online Bible study, licensed counselor Stephanie Clayton shared this powerful tool in healing. She asked women to write a letter to their younger self and say all the things that she needs to know.
Dear Me,
As a baby girl, you are treasured. Your big brown eyes are bright and you are carefree full of giggles.
As a toddler, you are carefree, loved, and a beautiful little girl. Life is challenging but those challenges do not touch you because your mom has a fierce love for you.
As a child. you will be okay moving to Dodge City. A new school, a new neighborhood, new friendships, you meet your first friend, Trudy. Little girl school will be hard because you’re teased. You have a blind left eye and kids are mean, calling you a cross-eyed baboon. Who calls a child, a cross-eyed baboon. But you have friends, there is Trudy, and now you have Sandy, Pauline and Carol. The turmoil in your home is there, prayers said, grown up problems but you are carefree. You prayed and accepted Christ as your savior, you now have a safe place to go and to pray. Most days you are carefree playing jacks, jump rope, slip-n-slide. You love your dolls and playing pretend. Little girl, you do not have to feel insecure. You are a daughter to the King of Kings. Your earthly Mom loves you with a fierce love. You can give those feelings of insecurity to Jesus.
As a teenager, life is great in Dodge City, in ninth grade, your dad helps you through that English class. But then your world changes, a move that is really difficult. California Dreamin, you have no choice but to California you go. You leave everything you know and your friends behind. You will survive. You will meet friends. If you only knew feelings of insecurity and ugliness would go away, if you would just trust God with those feelings. You are pretty. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. If you only knew that the love of a boy is temporary, and you will get your heart-broken because he is insecure also. In your senior year, your world changes again, you have to leave your church to go with your dad who once again is serving God. If you would only give those feelings to God. Don’t run away from God. Don’t seek love in all the wrong places. You will survive your choices.
I was insecure as a teenager. I did not feel I was pretty. My insecurity prevented me from stepping out and trusting God. There are times I feel I ran ahead of God. But even with my marrying young, God gave me two wonderful sons. When my husband and I struggled, God became real to me. When my husband was hurt and became disabled, God gave me the ability to become a nurse. When I had feelings of hate, God gave me a new heart one of forgiveness. My life verse is Nahum 1:7
The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.
God is good and He is good all the time. He has been with me when I had feelings of insecurity and hate. God is love. He loved me when I felt worthlessness and unworthy of His love, He loved and forgave me before the foundations of the earth. Ephesians 1: 3-10
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love heb predestined us for adoption to sonshipc through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, hed made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
Many mistakes along the way, much forgiveness. Today I walk in forgiveness and I live free.
I know the things in my life causing feelings of insecurity. However, I know that nothing can separate me from the love of God.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37-39
