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

Touch of Destiny

There is an epidemic taking hold of my generation.  Like a cancer growing slowly in the hearts of young people.  The disease is stealing dreams and hope.  Causing confusion and depression.  I see it in my friends.  I see it in me.  We have lost our identity.

I think its a response to how our parent's raised us, taking us to church and feeling like they are shoving their beliefs down our throat.  My generation sees the older generation as close minded and intolerant of anything different.  So we have swung the other way, we are open to everything.  You cannot take a stand for anything without getting burned, you have to be tolerant of everything to survive.  Sometimes it makes me feel more stifled than free.

We have become so tolerant of everything we have lost our identity in anything bigger than ourselves.

This weekend I was at a conference in Barcelona and one of the speakers spoke about the relationship between identity and destiny.

I cannot tell you how many conversations I have had with friends and other young people about destiny and purpose.  They want to make a difference on the world, they are craving destiny. A heart cry for their place in this world, something made just for them.  Why can't they seem to find it?  Where is their destiny?

Our destiny is lost because our identity is lost.

The cancer of lost identity has taken such a hold on our hearts that we no longer know who we are.  We are lost somewhere in our heads trying to figure the world out...but we don't know we really are.  We don't know, especially, what our identity in God is.

So here is the natural question.  If we don't know who we are, how can we even start to know what we are to do?

Finding your identity is a lifetime journey, its a process.  As you move and discover your deeper and true identity your destiny becomes more clear.  As you dig back into the dark moments of your past and deal with the aftermath your identity starts to take shape.  Destiny will start to unfold, but only as you discover who God created you to be.

He did create you.  He put you on this earth for a reason.  He's not hiding it from you.  He just desires you to know who you are in Him first.

This place where you are right now, God circled on a map just for you.

-Hafiz, 14th Century Persian Mystic

You have a touch of destiny about you. 

-Tia Dalma

Photo courtesy of Victor Mui

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