Tag: teenagers

Dear Younger Me: Remember That Life Really Does Have Seasons

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The other day my Mom wrote a blog post titled Dear Younger Me. Something she said struck a cord in me and made me want to write a similar post. She said “Life really does have seasons, and each one will bring its own responsibilities of time and energy, of commitments and interruptions.”

Yes. It’s so true! So with that in mind, here is my letter to a younger me, or anyone who is maybe graduating high school and branching out on his or her own for the first time.

Dear Julie,

I know you’re leaving High School with big plans for the future. The sky’s the limit right? You’ve been told you can do anything you put your mind to, and you aren’t one to give up easily so there must be nothing that’s impossible for you to attain.

If there’s one thing I could say to you before you set off it’s this: Remember that there really are seasons in life. You tend to want to do everything, RIGHT NOW. But in reality that doesn’t always work no matter how much you want it, how much effort you put into it, how many prayers your pray. Ecclesiastes is right – there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. (Eccl 3:1)

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The Day My Life Changed Despite COVID-19

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Two weeks ago today, my life suddenly changed. And I didn’t even know it was coming.

No, it wasn’t a spiritual transformation. But it did have elements of water baptism….let me explain…

Fed up with this COVID quarantine, one afternoon our family snuck over to a friend’s house to have some much needed face to face time with other human beings.

Fifteen minutes after our arrival, the kids all went down to the “swamp” on this friend’s property and the adults stayed up at the house discussing the deep and funny things of life.

Needing some sunshine, the adults decided to walk outside and talk gardens and chickens and tractors. I guess there was a lull in the conversation and my friend had the bright idea to go find the kids. She asked if I was up for it, and naively I said, “Sure! I’d love to see this famous swamp my kids always talk about.”

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How Did We Know This Was It?

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A few weeks ago a friend asked me a thought provoking question. We were talking about dating and relationships among teenagers and she said, “So how did you and Adam KNOW this was it? I mean did you really know the first day that you would get married? What did all that look like?”

Good question right?

Those of you who know our story know that Adam and I met when we were 16 – summer of our sophomore year. We dated the remaining 2 years of high school and then married two months after graduation.

That being more than 20 years ago, I had to blow some dust off the old memory files to properly answer my friend’s question.

How did we know we had something special?

In a way, relationships are like panning for gold. At first glance the gold nuggets look like all the other pebbles around it. It’s not until you shake off some dirt and rinse them off that you discover that little pebble of dirt is really gold!

I hear people say it was love at first sight and I knew from day one we would get married. And maybe they did. But I think some of that is easier to say in hindsight. For me, I didn’t know that first day.

What I did know was: this guy is cute, there’s a twinkle in his eye that says he likes me and I’d like to get to know him more.

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