Dear younger me

Dear younger me,

I want to tell you a few things that I've come to see through the years...because Time reveals everything.  Time will reveal that a sweater you once loved eventually becomes out of style and ugly to the same eyes that once saw it as awesome.  Time reveals that milk tastes good when you first buy it, but after some Time it gets rotten and disgusting.  Time will also do great things like heal cuts and bruises.  Time will reveal that some painful wounds in one moment will eventually get better and you might even forget it ever happened--though in that moment you will feel the fury of it.  

So Time does such things.  Time is what reveals our choices too.  If at one time you put a quarter in your piggy bank, and you do this everyday for a year then by the last day you will have $91.25--it may not be much but it's just what happens in Time. 

So younger self I don't think there's much I can say to change you but I'm going to write it anyway, because it might be interesting.  I know, younger self, that you are stubborn and you won't listen, but I still want to say a few things because its the truth.  I'm living proof, haha.  I'm from the Time of greater revealing...so I'll tell you what's been revealed on my side of Time.  

So, here on my side of Time you will eventually find out that you know a lot less than what you once thought was so right or felt so sure about.  That mistakes are inevitable, and not what you should be scared about.  There are plenty of things to be scared about, but mistakes are not really in the top 10 list.  They're more like vitamins, because in time mistakes turn into blessings for your well being.  Lots of mistakes can lead to lots of growth in time.  So don't fret the coming mistakes, they will happen and if you try and fight it you'll be in battle all your life--on the losing side...constantly fighting.  Accept it.  I have, and it's not so bad.  It's not so bad.  

But I should also say this disclaimer--you will never really stop worrying about mistakes--but it's good to be reminded that you're gonna be just fine when that fear creeps up.  Some days the reminder will help, but other days you'll forget and all hell will break lose in your mind and heart...but you'll be fine.  I mean I don't know if you'll be fine, but if you end up fine it will be a miracle from God, a grace that you can add to your jar of "proofs" that God is looking out for you.  

Also, younger self, I would say that it would do you a great service in Time if you invested in solitude to know yourself well.  To think about what bothers you and why.  To question the things you don't understand and wrestle the confusion NOT to have an answer but to get more and more accustomed to realizing that you don't know a lot.  In Time this is to help you avoid delusion and keep your pride from gorging on lies that puff up your ego.  A big ego is also like a drug--a hallucination drug that makes you see all kinds of things that are not actually there.  This is a very powerful trick that will be extremely painful to stop.  Weaning yourself off of your ego will probably be one of the greatest pains of your life.  But don't worry, after some Time the pain will subside and in its place will be something real.  Whatever you think now, no matter what, being real is always better than being not real.  It's kind of like imagining food, and then imagine a toy version of that food made out of plastic.  One is real food and one looks like food but it's actually plastic.   Your ability to tell the difference is not very good younger self, because your eyes are broken.  But in Time, you'll be able to see more clearly.  

Younger self, I would also say...life is going to hurt you a lot.  There's nothing I could do or say to prevent you from this awful and inevitable truth, because a long Time ago, at the beginning of all Time in fact, a serpent lied to the first couple and they messed up.  (Which reminds me, choose your friends wisely younger self!  They will influence your most important choices.  Find friends who you think will still matter to you when the looks fade and their money is gone, and all they have is whatever is left when those are gone: ...a friend who you would die for).  

As I was saying, the first human couple made a mistake, but this wasn't just any mistake--this was THE mistake.  The mistake that broke us.  By broke I mean like broken from what we were made to be.  So from that Time on we were never the same, but broken--all of us, because they were first and everyone after them were a result of the Time they had.  Just as we have our Time on earth that will lead to results for the people after us, their Time lead to results for everyone after them.  It might not sound good or fair to you, but that's just what happen with Time.  You'll see.  As you use your Time, you'll see.  I know you're so sorry, and it's okay...because I forgive you. 

Then God stepped into Time and Jesus came.  

When Jesus came He broke Himself to be like one of us and opened a way for us to be new...through Him. He was like a door for us.  Anyone who went through Him was new again, but being new meant being different than everyone else who didn't go through Him.  We looked completely different, because He changed us.  However, this change was not without Time, but in Time the transformation was showing more and more.  The end result was shown though.  Jesus showed us what the end result would be, which was a resurrection of our bodies after death, but in Time we were getting there, but not there yet.  Time would make us more and more different than the people in the world who didn't go through the door--through Jesus. 

“If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. 

However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, 

the world hates you.”

John 15:19

Younger self, the world is going to hate you as you start changing in Time, and the more that Time passes and you continue to be transformed, the more it will hate you.  This is going to hurt.  Some days it will hurt a lot.  This is just what's going to happen.  What will also hurt is when you start hating the change because you will want to be liked by the world again.  Being liked by the world feels sooooo good.  It's like a drug.  

But younger self, when you hate the pain and you want to feel good, that's where we can begin to transcend Time and meet.  You and me.  

The desire for pain to go away never stops--not even in Time.  Because even though we are broken we still represent something that once was.  We were once naked and it didn't embarrass us.  This was because being naked revealed our perfection, and we were perfect. 

This is not perfect the way you think of perfect where you get everything your way, but this was the perfection of how we worked before we got broken.  Like a piano that plays every key in tune.  You can still bang the keys and make a cacophony, but the piano is perfect.  It works perfectly for what it was made to do.  This perfection is about purpose.  

We were once perfect in that we were fully capable of our purpose.  We were once living.  

"then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." 

-Gen. 2:7

This life was not the life that meant you had a heartbeat.  That is life in one sense, a biological sense, but it's incomplete. 

This was life that included everything like when you hear people say "this is the life!" Or "I'm the life of the party!" Or "live a little!"  

This was also "life" that people mention when they say "life after death."

Yea, it's all of that when it says "life."

We lost that "life."

But it means that when we broke and lost that, we will always want it back.  We will always want that back because it's what we were made for. 

So, younger self, I still want it just as much as you do.  That doesn't change over time.  That may seem sad, but it's just what happened.  No amount of time will change that, no matter what you do with your Time.  But one day, Time will no longer really exist as we know it--the thing that runs out--but it will never run out.  Is that still called Time?  Who knows.  But the bible calls it eternity.  And when eternity is upon us we will see with unbroken eyes and hear with unbroken ears, and love with unbroken hearts.  And that is just what it means to be in Jesus, you get what He has--all of it.  You get Life: the breath of God on your face.  

Love, 

Older you. 

Jmegrey