To My Younger Self...

First Grade

As I sit in the corner of the classroom, surrounded by a study carrel and immersed in my own imagination... I write.  I am six years old, and Miss Turner is my hero.  While everyone else is working on I Don't Know What, she lets me slip away into a world where I am most at ease.  She encourages me to enter my first writing contest.  Thirty years ago, she recognized a need to differentiate in the classroom before anyone knew the definition of the word.  She is still my hero, and if I could go back and speak to my six year-old self I would want me to know...
1. ...that I need to hug Miss Turner more.
2....that God loves me and has a plan for my life, and that Miss Turner will unknowingly play a vital role in that.

It was sixth grade.
Please pardon the bangs,
pre-braces teeth, Miami Vice collar, etc.

Fast forward a few years, and I am still writing.  Only now, it isn't quite as "cool" to be smart. I will keep it quiet, blend into the crowd a little more. I will have the most amazing sixth grade Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Rydell, pouring into my life. I will begin memorizing scripture, and learning who Jesus is on a weekly basis. I will learn about a God who loves me, will never leave me, and never forsake me...even in my darkest hours. The summer after sixth grade, when I am twelve years old, my grandfather will commit suicide. With one tragic act, I will experience the most unimaginable depths of loss and grief of my young life. Much later, I will write about this experience in a college classroom. If I could, I would tell that uneasy sixth-grader, "God has a plan." Those scriptures I first learned almost 25 years ago are still the easiest to recall in times of both trouble and joy.

Such great memories with this ragtag bunch!

At the age of fourteen I began battling an unknown illness that would plague me for a year.  We would travel to doctors around the nation seeking answers, and I would miss most of my freshman year of high school.  As my condition improved, I emerged much like the caterpillar who enters the cocoon as one creature, but emerges as quite another.  I had wings. I was confident. I learned who my true friends were, the ones who stood by me even when I wasn't very fun to be around. I gained a valuable life lesson on the beauty and fragility of life at an age when most girls were still seeing how high they could tease their bangs. I met a boy who would take me on our first "date" to his church youth group. There, I would hear for the first time that Jesus wanted a personal relationship with me and I would really, truly ask Jesus to come into my heart. If I could go back and speak to that teenager, I would tell myself again, "God has a plan."

In college, I would begin writing again.  I would use written assignments to satisfy my need for creative expression.  I would meet an art professor who recognized a gift that he had no reason to acknowledge. No, I had not excelled in the art studio.  Quite the contrary, unfortunately. I was a hard worker, however, and somehow still earned my "A". One of our final assignments was to write about an aesthetic experience. Hallelujah! I wrote about an experience in Italy the summer before while visiting the castle where the Mona Lisa was supposedly painted.  He stopped me after class to speak to me about my writing. He wrote on my assignment, "You have an amazing gift.  I hope you continue to use it."  All of these years later, I still have that paper. For the longest time, I wasn't exactly certain why I kept it tucked away. Once again, I would tell my college self, "God has a plan."

During my senior year of college, I would learn that the boy who had asked me to his church youth group back in high school... the boy with whom I had experienced a break-up of EPIC proportions... was living in Guatemala and managing medical missions and relief teams.  God would gently nudge me to send him an e-mail... and the rest, as they say, is history.  During our first year of marriage we would visit the internet café in Antigua, Guatemala, where he first received "the" e-mail.  I would tell that college senior, "God has a plan."

He did. And He does.  He led my husband and I to a country thousands of miles away from our own.  A beautiful country filled with lush, fertile soils and mountain peaks shrouded in fog. A country with the tallest corn I have ever seen, and the biggest, strangest insects.  A country whose people dress in every color of the rainbow... all at once. A Mayan culture whose gentle, sweet spirits match their colorful attire. Then, God decided to mess us up.  He showed us "the least of these." Poverty and violence.  Children whose parents were killed in the civil war, and others who were abandoned. Sadness and hopelessness in the midst of some of God's greatest handiwork. Suddenly, we could not ignore the call of Jesus to care for "the least of these."  Through Compassion International, we have sponsored two children from Guatemala (one boy, age 7, and one girl, age 9) for the past two years. When I write to these children, I am often led to Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Delivering vitamins and a Bible story to the beautiful people of
Xepatul, Guatemala,
on my first trip there in 2000

I want them to know that God loves them and that God has a plan. His love is deeper than the deepest oceans and is theirs for the taking. I want them to know that the same God who numbered the stars calls them, His children, by name. I pray that they have a Miss Turner, Mrs. Rydell, Mr. Art Teacher Whose Name I Forgot (gasp!) encouraging their gifts and talents and acting as the hands of Christ in their lives. They deserve it. I want them to know that they are our Creator's masterpieces, exquisitely crafted and worthy of His best. Through Compassion, they have these opportunities. I treasure the letters and photos we receive from them.  My spirits are buoyed by the way I see them growing in their relationships with Christ. The updates we receive from their pastors and the directors of their schools reiterate the fact that Compassion changes lives.

Oh, and guess what?  I'm finally writing again.  This time, as a Compassion Blogger working to find sponsors for as many children as possible.  What you are reading right now is one of those blogs.

 

God has a plan.

 

He is still at work, and He isn't finished with me yet.

He isn't finished with you yet.

And He is just beginning His work in these children.

YOU can be a part of the hope and future of these children! Please share this post and click on the icon or link to become a Compassion International sponsor today!

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