Dear You…a letter for all of the hard days

D ear you,
Dear Self and me and you and us,
Really, it’s all going to be okay.
You’re going to be okay.

Promise. 
Remember when you were 16 with that ridiculous hair?

And how you’d thought that by the time you got to here, to now, it was going to be good? That by now everything would be all good.

That by now you’d know down in the very marrow of your bones, what it’s like to really live loved. That you’d be known. Fully known. And wholly embraced.

That the Big Dream would have happened, that the peace and the purpose and the Big Point would be under your skin, that the awkward would be gone and that you’d finally fit and that your life made a real difference, you’d made a real mark, and that you really mattered.

You don’t have to worry: We all get to make one unforgettable mark. And every day, with every word, we get to decide: Do we mar the world, or mark the world?

Why in the world disdain the small? It’s always the smallest strokes that add up to the greatest masterpieces.

You’ve got to remember: we don’t know when and how we are leaving the greatest marks on the world. 

The most exquisite marks anyone makes with their life — are the marks done in secret. The mark that no one — but One — will ever see.

I know you’re brave … and you’re scared. Because you keep doing big things that seems so small and you wonder where all this is really going and you only get one life here —
And though you’re weary, you do hard things....So Just For Today — listen: you’ve got to keep going. 

So go get the milk and take out the trash and throw in the laundry and wave giddy to the neighbors because there is a plan and there is a purpose and there is a God in heaven who didn’t just ink you onto the palm of His hands but etched your name right into Himself with nails .

So really — you’ve got to believe it it’s all working out okay.
Because God’s writing your story and He never leaves you alone in your story, and His perfect love absorbs all your fear and His perfect grace carries all your burdens, and your story is a happily ever after because Christ bought your happily ever after so you always know how this story ends:
You’re going to be okay.

Dear Self, tuck this away to read again whenever you need to know it again — and promise me, you’ll laugh and sing and dance a bit today?

Love,
Me

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First Thing

We must make a habit of waking up in the morning with the same question on our lips:   "Lord, how can I bring you glory today?"