Dear Younger Me

 Dear sweet, innocent Jody,

You are feeling joy in being loved!!  A smart, athletic, good looking guy wants to be your boyfriend.  He’s from a nice family, our parents are friends, we are both golfers.   We have so much in common.  This is going to be great!!!  You will end up dating him all through high school.  You will fall in love with him.  He will break your heart a few times by cheating on you with other girls.  You will take him back until the last time, because you love him and you will think he really loves me now.  Finally you will realize, he doesn’t care for you.  But you will seek love from your next two boyfriends, just like you did with your first boyfriend.  

I desperately want you to know what God will teach you later on.  The love you think you will get from your boyfriend is not the deep love you are longing for.  You are longing for the kind of love, only God can give you.  If you would look inside your heart, you will feel a loneliness you are trying to avoid.  If you would just ask Jesus, He could come and give you the love the deep sense communion you are longing for.   “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”

Revelation 3:20 NIV  

 You are trying to find a good way to live your life.  It seems that if it feels good do it.  But here is the truth.  “There’s a way of life that looks harmless enough; look again—it leads straight to hell. Sure, those people appear to be having a good time, but all that laughter will end in heartbreak.”

Proverbs 14:12-13 MSG

God was always there, reaching out to you.  One precious night, one of your friends who is a believer, will tell you Jesus was going to come back to earth on a cloud!  She will ask you, “Are you ready to meet Him?”  You will look up at the sky, and be afraid.  You will know you are not ready to meet Him.  That moment will change your life.  It would still take 4 years for you to give up trying to find the right answers to life on your own, you thought I am grownup and mature.  But that night, will make you think about Jesus and His return, and will give you pause.  

You will continue following your desires, not the right ones.  You will live with a lot of regret for your choices.  The boyfriends will not love you, like you needed to be loved.  One day you will wish you would’ve asked this question sooner.  “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”

Mark 14:61-62 NIV.  You had no clue, how loved you were by God.  

  

One more thing you will learn later on, it is hard to be married.  You will eventually realize you need help to be a good wife and Mom.  You will realize you are a sinner.  You will ask Jesus to come into your life, and He will change you completely.  You will have joy like you’ve never had before.  But, it is still hard being married to an unbeliever.  You will realize you can’t make your husband believe in Jesus.  You know he loves you, but you won’t be able to agree on much of anything.  You will wish you both would’ve been Christians before you got married.  “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”

2 Corinthians 6:14 NIV.   

God will 12 years later, drawn your husband to accept that he is a sinner and needs a Savior.  There was no guarantee that this would happen.  You will be soooo thankful it did!!