Dear April

I am you circa 1996. The time when your world was young and all the possibilities seemed…well…possible. I know you wonder what happened to those days when God spoke and you just believed. Heck. When God just spoke and you heard his voice with simple ease. Circa 1996 you did not know what you were becoming, but you knew it would be something memorable, something beautiful.

Those were the days before the trials. Pre heartbreak. Pre betrayal. Before the mistakes you thought would never go away. Before the whole world turned gray and it came to you suddenly that perhaps you were not becoming beautiful after all. Perhaps you were fading into the dull, grayness of work, church, society. Filling empty spaces, sure. Helping others of this I am certain, but desperately unfulfilled. And so the question echoed out like a singular voice in a thousand empty halls: What am I doing with my life? And the reverberations of the question itself became its own menacing answer. There was no one else out there. There was no other voice to answer in response.

But maybe, just maybe you have been asking the wrong question of the wrong people and of yourself. Not what am I doing with this life? But WHO am I in this life? Who you are is so much deeper than a profession. Who you are is a calling that starts from deep within. Though malnourished and poorly sustained it uses whatever breath and strength it has to speak. To constantly remind you that what you do must emerge from who you are or else the whole of your life is a mere falsehood, a paper-thin facade destined to blow away.

So who are you?

1. A watchman on the wall.

2. A faithful friend.

3. A doting daughter.

4. A loving sister.

5. An adventurer.

6. A gentle voice.

7. Two good ears.

8. An open door.

9. A dreamer of dreams.

10. Memorable. And yes, beautiful.

Although it may seem that life had in some way stunted your growth or marred your beauty, by Grace you still became and are becoming all that God desires.

Not what you desire.

What God desires.

And people like me, we are blessed because we get to be there. To laugh  at  with you. To sing with you. To mourn with you. To dance with you…or just in your general direction. To celebrate you. To help wipe the dirt off when you fall. To stand with you through the shame and make you laugh at life and yourself. To do all those things, not until you feel better, but until you are better. Until the answers are more than the questions. Until you no longer dread the path ahead of you. Until your faith eyes are open and your spirit man stands up. Tall. Until you take your place.

And even then, when all your greater works are done, we will not leave you.

Surely these things shall be.

-ashley

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