Fifteen

About once a year I blow the dust off.  Turn the pages gently.  Read the scribbled writing.  Remember what it was like to be back in high school.

A few weeks ago I pulled out my old journals.  Usually I read them to remind myself that I have grown and matured since I was fifteen, but this time around it didn't make me feel better where I am at.  Instead I wished there were somethings I could tell fifteen year old me.  I know journeying through life is what makes us great, but here is a letter to Mallory, ten years ago.



Hey Love,


I admire your faith immensely.  How you fell in love with missions just a year ago and want to pursue it for the rest of your life.  Guess what, you make it!  It may seem impossible now, but you do get to live overseas.  It's not in South America, but somewhere so awesome.  It will become like home to you.  But I'm not going to give it away, you gotta wait and see where God takes you.


Ok, girlie, let's talk about boys.  I know they are your entire world right now.  And I know you are going to hate me for saying this, but let go a little bit.  You know some awesome guys right now that will raise your standards for men, be friends with them, but don't be upset when they don't fall head over heels for you.  Get what you can out of their friendship and  be grateful when your lives go different directions. You may think these guys are awesome, but you have no idea who you are going to meet after college.  They will rock your world.  Spoil you.  Teach you what it is like to be respected.  Make you laugh.  Just you wait.


You are going to make some big mistakes in the next few years.  You are going to struggle with failure and not being perfect.  It's ok hun, because you are going to learn some remarkable things about God in the process.  Those mistakes, those failures, are going to be the darkest times of your life, but they will inspire you to change the world around you.  I am not going to tell you how to avoid them, or to power through.  No, you need to hurt.  You need to break.  It is ok.  Cry.  Yell.  Be angry.  You will come out stronger.


I just want you to know that you are loved.  Life is not going to turn out the way you want it to right now.  It will be better because it will be exactly what God wants.  So chill out a little bit.  Put down the imaginary wedding planning.  Go read your Bible.  Don't stress so much about math class, life doesn't depend on getting A's in algebra.  Don't stop dancing.  Love your brothers, they are amazing.


Oh yeah, next summer you are going to work at Camp Id-Ra-Ha-Je again.  One of your coworkers, talk with him, get to know him.  He is going to become an important part of your life down the road.  :-)


You are beautiful and amazing.  Don't forget that.


Love, 25 year old Mallory

Healing

"When a person is evoked for who she is, not who she is not, the most often result will be the inner healing of her heart through the touch of affirmation."  -Brennen Manning, The Furious Longing of God


I cannot fully explain how I felt four months ago. In short, I was hurting, broken...drowning.  Maybe you can see the traces of those feelings in this blog.  Of course I was put together enough to function in the life I had built in Colorado.  I had a job that I just barely squeaked by in, friends of not so great influences,  but mostly a life lived in the shadow of every major heartbreak I experienced in the previous three years.

I think that's why I was drowning.  I finally reached a point where I needed to fly, but I was stuck in the shadow of past hurts. I couldn't move.

All I know is that when I came to Poland 103 days ago I started to see just how broken I was.  Just being here I felt freedom.  Dear God, why did I have to travel this far from home to finally start feeling free?

I just finished Brennen Manning's book The Furious Longing of God. For the most part his verbiage was over my head and I had a hard time following his thoughts, that is until I got to the chapter on healing.

Healing is a response to a crisis in the life of another person.

Yup, my heart was in crisis.  Most people didn't see it, but I felt it.  It was bad, trust me.

But then I got here, and the most amazing thing happened, I was affirmed in who I was.  Not only was I affirmed in who God had created me to be but I was affirmed by people that I respect highly.  Just like that I was able to finally see things in myself, awesome things about who God created me to be and that I was valuable.

I knew that God was doing a tremendous work in my heart here in Poland.  I could feel the healing taking place, but until I read Manning's words I didn't realize what had lit the fire of healing in my heart. Affirmation.

Since arriving in Poland I have been affirmed more than I have in the last two years.

There was no doubt in my mind that I could heal...it was just how.  I tried to heal myself, me and God.  And well, it took a LONG time but I did get somewhere.  But there is just something about another human being letting the holy spirit reach out through their words to touch in affirmation.  And, not just once...but over and over again.

The question is not can we heal? The question, the only question, is will we let the healing power of the risen Jesus flow through us to reach and touch others, so that they may dream and fight and bear and run where the brave dare not go?

We humans need other people.  And we need people over and over again.  The world spews lies at us like a broken record and so we need people who are going to vomit truth right back.  Over and over like a broken record.  Because we will never really get it until we hear it 1,001 times.

I'm still a mess, but God is redeeming me with the help of His followers.  And for the first time in a very long time, all I really want to do is love people.

We all stumble on the way to maturity.  We all look for love in the wrong arms, happiness in the wrong places.  But out of it, you've become real.  You've got a heart of immense compassion for the brokenness of others.  You are utterly incapable of hypocrisy, and I am deeply in love with you. -Don Quixote