I love you so much! I know that you are only five years
old as I write this but there are some things I want to remember to share with
you as you get older so I thought I'd write them down now while I'm thinking
about them. I pray that you choose Jesus while you are still young. I pray that
you know how much God loves you and that he is trustworthy and has wonderful
plans for your life. I pray that you will choose to love and honor Him with
your life. I asked Jesus to be my Savior when I was 17, but I did not
understand what it meant to follow him then and didn't really begin that
process purposefully until I was nearly 20.
I wish I had been more secure in my knowledge of who I
was in Christ and more confident in God's plans and provision for me. I struggled
for several years with feeling shame at my failure and imperfection before
learning that the shame and fear I felt were from Satan. God is love and
perfect love casts out fear. There is no condemnation for those who belong to
Jesus. I didn't fully comprehend that my first couple of years of college and
believed the enemy's lies about myself. I pray that you do not also believe the
enemy's lies and so I want to share some of my experiences with the hope that
you might not travel some of the same roads I did.
I made a public profession of faith in Jesus and was
baptized the spring of my junior year of high school. I had a friend tell me he
already thought I was a Christian. I was actually really good at following the
rules and acting somewhat like someone who was a Christian. I hated getting in
trouble and was fine with playing the role of a "goody two shoes". It
was not the outward manifestation of a heart who loved Jesus. So when I was
baptized, I continued in my rule following because I didn't know that there was
more to being a Christian. Perhaps someone had talked to me about how much
Jesus loved me and encouraged me to deepen the relationship through prayer and
reading the Bible but I don't remember. Sometimes I wonder whether I would have
been more firm in standing up for what I thought if I had gotten that aspect of
the relationship with Jesus while in high school.
Nothing major happened between 17 and 20 but I had some
stumbles I was afraid to share for a long time because I thought it made me a
bad Christian and I would be judged poorly by other Christians (and considered
a hypocrite by those who didn't believe in Jesus). I allowed the physical
boundaries I had set up for myself to be breached because I feared that if I
stood firm I would be rejected (and I am a recovering people pleaser). At the
time I did not trust that God had plans regarding my relationships and would
provide me with a man who loved God and loved me enough to respect my
boundaries. I sought man's approval over God's. I admit that I blamed others
for taking advantage of my naivety and trust and for manipulating my emotions.
I am learning to see that they are human, too, and were seeking love and
acceptance like the rest of us. I understand now that they were trying to
obtain that love and acceptance in the ways the world told them were right or
normal. I'm not saying that there is not responsibility on all sides, I'm just
saying that I don't think they were trying to purposefully hurt or take
advantage of me.
I share this with you to say that God is trustworthy and
faithful. He knows what you need when you need it and will provide you with it
at just the right time. This includes a loving, respectful relationship. It is
important to remember that God's timing is not your timing. I know several
people who dearly love Jesus and had to wait longer than they wanted to meet
and marry their spouse. It is possible that you may meet your spouse in high
school and college so I'm not going to say that dating during these times is fruitless
but I don't think finding a spouse should be your main objective. I think you
should focus on loving and serving God with your life. If you are pursuing his
purposes, he will provide whatever is needed, including relationships. I
believe that God will provide you with a spouse who respects you and your
boundaries, one who does not put any pressure on you to prove your love for
them. I believe someone who truly loves God and is pursuing Him themselves will
be more concerned with increasing your intimacy with God than increasing your
level of physical intimacy with one another.
Right about the time I started to understand more about what
having an authentic relationship with Jesus meant, I met your father. In one of
our first interactions I attempted to share my faith with him. It turned out he
already knew Jesus, but it was a good start to a potential friendship. God's
timing was perfect. I was seeking to know God more and was quite excited about
what I was learning. As such it was a subject I brought up often and wanted to
discuss with others. In our first few months of getting to know each other I
was praying a lot more and seeking God's guidance. We were friends for about
eight months (part of that time I was dating someone else, the rest was spent
trying not to begin a dating relationship with your father before I studied
abroad for a semester). Our first four months of "dating" were spent
on pay phones using international calling cards and long emails filled with
questions about one another. As hard as it sounds not having any physical
contact for months, it was such a blessing. I feel like we were really able to
spend that time focusing on our individual relationships with God and
encouraging one another in our faiths. It helped secure our relationship to
God, I think. Our dating relationship wasn't perfect (obviously since there was
a break-up along the way - another story for another day) but I know God was in
it with us and helped us become people who encouraged, supported, loved and
were committed to one another. That's what I want for you - a spouse who loves
you and God, supports you, encourages you in your endeavors and faith and is
committed to you and your relationship together.
My precious girl, you are worth the wait. You are worth a
commitment of love and faithfulness. You are worthy of a spouse who loves you
and respects you and encourages you to become the woman God created you to be.
You are lovable just as you are and there is nothing you must do to earn or be
worthy of another's love. Jesus loved us before we loved and knew him. He found
us worthy of love and sacrifice simply because we are God's creation. If
Christ's love has no demands, then neither should man's. Love is something that
is to be freely given without expectation or demand for reciprocation. Remember
that God loves you no matter what and that your father and I will also always
love you. You cannot lose God's love nor ours. It is yours regardless of your
words, thoughts or actions. We love you and desire God's best for you and your
life. We are proud of you and we pray that you will grow into the woman you
were created to be, a woman who loves and serves God and others.
Love, Mom
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