The One

Someone posted this picture of me on Facebook yesterday.

My first thought in seeing it was, “Oh my! Who is that girl and where was her mother when she walked out the door of her house?” Yes, it’s a scary sight, friends. But give grace, ok? It was the early 90’s!

And that was BEFORE hair extensions. :)

But after adjusting to the sight of my former self (I don’t ever remember being that skinny, by the way!), I thought about something I asked my Bible Study girlfriends to do not long ago that turned out to be a powerful exercise.

We were going through my first book (co-authored with my mother, Kathie Reimer), The 7 Hardest Things God Asks a Woman to Do, and we were at chapter five: God Asks a Woman to Hold On/Let Go. It’s a chapter my mother wrote, and for me, it is one of the most powerful chapters in the entire book, as it talks about some very specific things we need to hold on to in our walk and those things we need to let go of in order to live out in freedom! In a study setting, it always brings out lots of great discussion and provokes many personal feelings and thoughts.

This night was no exception. Women were open and sharing from their heart about how God spoke to them in what they had read. We were just about to pray and close when I asked them to do something that brought on a whole new wave of emotions in all of us.

Prior to arriving, I had asked the women to bring a picture with them from the year they graduated from high school. I asked them to bring it out, hold it in their hands, and look at it -- to look at that young woman in the photo and in the quietness of her heart, silently tell her some things. I asked them to tell her, based on what the woman sitting there today knew and the experiences she’d gone through since that picture was taken, what that young woman in the picture would need to let go of in those 10 or 15 or 20 years between. And then I asked her to tell that young woman in the picture what she would need to hold onto in those years in between, as well.

The exercise made quite an impact. It brought many tears to many eyes. It brought back strong feelings and deep emotions. Including some of my own.

As a tear rolled down my cheek, I looked at that young smiling woman in the picture with her royal blue cap and gown on, and gave her some advice she probably never would have wanted to hear and hoped to never need to know. That young woman, so full of life, probably never knew how much she would need to let go of or hold onto. After all, she was much too busy dreaming big dreams and planning big things. She never knew what the next nearly 20 years would mean for her. She wasn’t supposed to know.

She didn’t know how important it would be for her to let go of…
…those bad decisions she made on graduation night, just 24 hours later.
…those ideals of perfection she was sure she could achieve if she tried hard enough.
…those feelings of inadequacy that made her look for love in all the wrong places.
…those misconceptions in her head that caused her to confuse the truth with a lie.
…those college days, laced with temporary fun, loaded with tons of regret.
…those past mistakes…so they wouldn’t rule or ruin her life or relationships and eat away at her soul.

She also didn’t know about some of the things she would need to hold onto in those nearly 20 years...like...
…her strong upbringing in the church.
...her childlike faith.
…a healthy sense of self and healthy fear of God.
…the importance of respect and character, for herself and toward others.
…the priority of marriage, even when it wasn't the fantasty life she expected it to be.
…the gifts from God, in whatever form they came, and not take them for granted.
…an awareness of what this life -- her life -- is really all about and for what purpose she was made.

And yesterday, when I saw that picture on Facebook, of the same girl I talked to in my graduation picture, I thought about this holding on and letting go thing all over, again. I looked at her with love, and I looked at her with care.

And I gave her grace. She couldn’t have known those things at the time. Life had not afforded her that wisdom or experience at that point. But she now knows. And how her life looks the next 10-15-20 years largely depends on what she does with what she now knows.

...what she now holds onto and what she now lets go of.

And whether she has big hair, short hair, post-baby hips or really young girl thin ones, she is still that same girl in the picture. She is still born to do the same things she was born to do in a Houston hospital in the early 70’s. She is still created with the same DNA make-up she had at birth. Her physical make-up may have changed from 1990 to 2008, but that is only a matter of preference and the natural aging process. It has nothing to do with who she really is.

And so…though I may cringe over the styles in this picture of me from 1990, I also have to see it with the eyes of my Creator and know that the girl in that picture was and is now on a journey that will have many ups and downs. Many twists and turns. Many high moments and many really, really low ones.

But in every up and down…twist and turn…high and low moment…one thing remains the same.

My beautiful Jesus.

The One to hold onto.

And it gives me a new thing to tell that young woman in the picture.

P.S. After posting this today, I realized that this is my 100th post. I never realized it when I wrote it, and I always thought about trying to post something clever for my 100th to mark that milestone. Funny...I think this turned out to be the best way I never thought of. :)