Thrive In Gratitude: To My Younger Self

Thrive In Gratitude: To My Younger Self: Dear You, Sometimes things hurt so bad that you lose your breath when you cry. In your teenage years, this will rear it's ugly head...

To My Younger Self

Dear You,

Sometimes things hurt so bad that you lose your breath when you cry. In your teenage years, this will rear it's ugly head because of boys. It will definitely spring up after the breakup with your first real boyfriend. Funny thing about that is you will continue to have sweet, caring dreams about him, possibly for the rest of your life. Of all the relationships in your life, this is true only for him. Your first, 7th grade, love. This pain of course is temporary and not the worst you will feel when it comes to all the dating and relationships you have in front of you. But for you, around this event, it will feel catastrophic. It feels that way because you haven't had any kind of pain like it before.

You will play some pretty heartbreaking basketball and volleyball games but the pain involving lost sporting events feels different. It's an agony of "if only" and there is no way to know if that only would have actually made a difference, which is why I think it's a more fleeting pain.  

All in all, things will be good for you. Growing into the mid to late teens, a very serious relationship comes along. He's a great guy and you will love him more than you thought was possible. In your age difference, him being 9 years older, it will be very easy to get intimate with him. There will be pressure, in your mind, to be mature and grown up, to want nothing more than to please him in all things. I want to warn you. Making the decision to have sex for the first time should be a much longer talk in high school or even at home. It's not like the movies. It is more like crashing your first car. There's adrenaline and from my experience it was over pretty quickly. You will regret the decision, but not for many, many, many years. You'll regret it when you come to the realization that your self-worth is far above the feeling that you have to have sex with someone so they love you. When you have the ah-ha moment that your role on a date should be about getting to know the guy and if he has qualities that you admire. Unfortunately you will spend many years being yourself- fun and easy going, interesting, and more often than not wearing more makeup than required. These things aren't bad- it's the fact that you only worry if you are good enough for him. Not if he is good enough for you. 

You will get the wanderlust for travel the summer before your 3rd year of college. Your tour of France lays the groundwork for your confidence to live your life doing things you want regardless if there is anyone around to join. This may be one of your most underrated characteristics. Growing up you would spend more time at home then with your 2 sisters staying and Grandma and Grandpa's. There will come a time though when this becomes a curse. 

It's in your mid twenties, after your first divorce that doesn't have any real lasting impact on your life per se, that something shifts inside of your mind. Your inner voice becomes an enemy. This is where I want to bring up your beliefs about God. You will have become Catholic your first year of college so that you would be a part of your older boyfriend's family, and could get married in a Catholic Church. Your concept of God is less than the Clif's notes version. He's the good guy and his 10 commandments are meant to be followed, the end. You begin to form opinions around religion that probably stem from the science of evolution. The general hypocrisy seen in the Christians that you interact with as you grow more into adult hood. In turn, it continues to reinforce negative opinions you develop because of events like the genocide in Rwanda, the wars in the Middle East. And of course, sex abuse cases against Priests put the final nail in that coffin. One book, written by Gary Zukav- The Seat of the Soul, will be the most positive influence on your spiritual beliefs. It will be based on karma and will give you a more balanced view of life. But this spiritual awakening isn't really significant. It will be a small point of reference when various topics come up, such as medical ethics, federal laws, etc. It will have a purely passive effect on your life. 

Two big things happen towards the end of your twenties. You will become the proud owner of a Bernese Mountain Dog named Beetle and over 10 years later, having her euthanized will be one of the hardest and most painful experiences you will have had. The second thing is the feeling of rejection that you will get when the man that you have been with for 3 years and with whom you lived with for one, shows very clear signs that he doesn't really have marriage on the mind. You will become very insecure and the anxiety around being that vulnerable will lead you to dissect the relationship into unrecognizable pieces, which then influences your decisions to break up with him. This pain and heartbreak is unlike any others at this point. It is a pain of not being good enough. This belief is in your mind. It was built on and reinforced by your enemy's voice in your thoughts. There isn't anything that you have in your mental arsenal to answer that enemy. When the enemy speaks, you believe it without question. 

This starts you on anti-depressants for the first time. In your 30's, you will struggle with depression. There will be 4 major episodes of depression, with two requiring hospitalization. These episodes will be triggered by ideas of being inadequate, unlovable, unattractive, and the grip that you allow them to have on you would break your skin if it were a literal object. You marry a man, that you deeply love. He will have two children that will bring about some minor stress. He will slowly, almost imperceptibly, shred your entire self-esteem. He will manipulate you on a cellular level. You will have your first hospitalization for wanting to commit suicide and this event will be the tidal wave of realization that leads you two to divorce. He will not let you say goodbye to his children and you feel a sense of immense sadness because of that. During all this you and he will be living in Las Vegas. You stay in Vegas and he goes back to Phoenix. You start a warm up of self-destruction for the first year and then it accelerates to a major depressive episode that influences your decision to move back home and living in Indianapolis. The self-destruction will start again. You push down the feelings of failure, loneliness, apathy, and shame. Sleeping, working, and drinking will be your life for another 2 years. Ultimately leading to your second hospitalization. More failure, more pain. The pain of depression is like a full body cast weighing 500 pounds. The idea of getting up and moving sincerely feels like an absolutely impossible task. Some will describe depression as an emptiness, which is partly true. As you get closer to suicidal, the pain has an added emotion. It fills your entire being with hatred for your very own soul and everything about it.  "Death would be kinder" is all you will think of at this time in your life. You will hit the lowest of all lows. You will not have one speck of hope in your mind that things will get better. A month and a few days after getting discharged from the psych ward, you will create your master plan for the perfect suicide. There is no one that will be able to help you and there will be no one to bring you back from the ledge of your master plan.

You make your plan, get off the ground and yell "What fucking good are you? If not now, when?" This is directed toward God. You will have attended 4 Sundays of church and will have attempted to read in the bible. At this moment- your thought is that God doesn't care about you. Which is wonderful for the reason that it means that you still believe he exists, even if it is on a very thin thread of belief. You fall asleep 30 minutes later. 

At precisely 1:00 am, you will sit bolt upright in bed, as if someone blew a bullhorn in the apartment. It will only take half of a breath for you to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God took it all from you. You will even dance and jump up and down. Then you will get on your knees, bow your head, and say "God, I love you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I am yours."

You will study the bible, pray diligently, and attend church. On August 16, 2015, you will be baptized at the Redemption Christian Church in Jasper (formerly Christian Church of Jasper) and you will be born again. 

It won't be easy at first to believe fully in God and all that goes along with that belief. You will read books for skeptics, watch documentaries, and pray for wisdom. He then calls you to go to Greece in January to aid the Syrian Refugees.You actually heard a voice in your head to "Just go." He delivers all that you need and you will be changed forever from that experience. You will grow in your Christian life, quite beautifully actually. Prayer for close friends and family, God's work in your own life, and a 4 day weekend attending the Walk to Emmaus, gives God his permanent resting place in your heart. You have a vision of him visiting you in the middle of the night. You see your Grandparents clearly in your mind while listening to the room sing How Great Thou Art. They will be laughing and smiling, even waving at you. 

You will want to tell everyone you know the story. You will want to plead with them to believe you because all you want is for them to experience a world filled with God's blessings for them. Like being given an envelope with $9 zillion dollars in it and not opening the envelope because they don't believe it's in there. Not even their curiosity will get them to open the envelope (their mind to the contemplation of God being real and that there is a chance that their lives will be so wonderfully moved if they would seek in earnest honesty the truth of God.)

Your faith and wondrous gratitude will be continually fueled by your choices that uphold God's standards for living righteously. You will be shocked everyday that this "God" thing is really, real. You will pray to have your heart broken for what breaks his. You will ask for the strength, love and wisdom to be his hands and feet. You will hear that evil enemy's voice begin to speak, but it will never get two words in edge wise. I promise you dear Brooke that your journey through the first 40 years of your life will be a testimony of just how much grace there is when you give your heart to God. 

Talk to you soon,

You as me.

This is truth whether you choose to believe it or not.

I never wanted to believe in God. All those rules and restrictions on my life, I would be a constant sinner and would most likely burn in hell. Surely there had to be something a little more "believable" then the Mr. Know it all, See it all. I grew up with very little religious influence, so I'm not sure where I came to think that there were all these "rules and restrictions." I mean at most there were 10.

When I was in high school, I knew the rules I was expected to live by and they went something like this: no bubble gum in class, no lying, no dating until I was 16, no drinking, smoking, drugs, or sex. My curfew was 11:00 pm. Trust me when I tell you that I was keenly aware of every rule I broke and ended up being anxious about being found out. Yes, there were a few times I didn't find a way to "break the rules" to my advantage. I would pout a little, maybe a lot. Do you know what happened?  I got good grades and was voted most athletic in my class. I had friends and after I graduated, I attended college with three of them. 

I did not cause "trouble" in school. I wasn't rebellious, angry, flippant or brooding. My mother worked from home and I had breakfast made for me and my sisters every morning. I had so many reasons to be set up for success and I feel blessed that I had it easy. So, so many children do not.

When God answered my yells of anger, rage even, interrupting my self-absorbed, self-centered endless talk in my head about my worthlessness and agony of depression, from the bottom of that pit I grabbed onto His hand without even thinking that there were "rules and restrictions" attached. I didn't even take a full breath before I realized I had new life in me. And isn't that just the cheesiest thing you've ever heard? We've heard the stories, met the eyes of others in unified exasperation for the 'holy roller' that found the guts to speak about God or Jesus or even just commenting on something that had happened in church. Freaking gullible nerd. I'm guessing you've been there right? I know now that the joke is on me. I don't ask you to not roll your eyes at this or ignore the voice in your head saying "here she goes again." All I ask is that you follow me through this analogy.

That half breath made me a believer in God. So I read, a lot. I prayed for understanding and forgiveness. Shoot, I prayed to be taught how to pray! I just couldn't think of any other way to say thank you for saving my life. How does one do that? I attended church and read the bible. I bought books and I felt the accepting and loving energy during service. Guess what- those rules and restrictions? Whether you believe in God or not, you know in your gut when you are doing something that probably isn't right. Maybe to you it isn't a sin, but whatever you call it, you carry with you a speck of knowledge that there was probably a better choice. So we respond to the rights and wrongs of our hearts whether we believe in God or not. The difference between me believing in God and you not believing in God, is that I sin, but still get God's blessings in my life. I have a loving person who knows that I will sin and knows that I am not perfect. A person who's words are written down for all to see that tell of a Father's love of a Son and of His creation. His blueprint for living the happiest, most loving life are right there. My Father has set me up for success. He has fed me, helped me grow, protected me,steered me when I have been lost, and loved me through my weakness to temptation. To not know this love, to not feel the holy spirit inside of you, is like growing up with absolutely no rules and possibly no one to care if you broke them. For some that may look like dropping out of school, partying and getting started into drugs that you just couldn't get yourself out of, or maybe a pregnancy that definitely wasn't part of the plan. It could be that your home life left you hurt, angry and confused. You might never have had breakfast made for you. You may never have really known what it felt like to be truly loved.

Maybe all is well. You go about your life, doing what you want- good, bad or indifferent. You have no wants, needs, or desires that you can't fulfill for yourself. Maybe you are restless to get going in life- to start adulting like grown folks. You find a good job, good friends, but yet, you just know you aren't where you are supposed to be. You meditate and do yoga- you may think to yourself that you are not good at meditation because surely if you were then the effects would be like you read about or saw on TV. Maybe you even had the thought cross your mind that if you did like Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love- devoting a month in an ashram to find your inner peace, then you'd have it. You reach for that something out there, even berating yourself because you aren't thin enough, good looking enough, tall enough, or make enough money. You actually strive for those things because you believe that's what is missing.  Maybe your marriage has left you both feeling lost not knowing how to possibly reconcile all that has come to stand between you. Maybe you have a revolving door of temporary relationships and can't figure out what is going on with you and why you can't find the one. Finances that flop, big dreams that come and go with the tide and apathy and frustration are your sidekicks. 

(I'm speaking from experience with a lot of these, so hear me out.)

I need to tell you that the answer is there. That something that is missing and you are sure it isn't God- is God. It is the bond to the world you search for and it is the peace you have been practicing but never find. It is the one who knows your heart and has been waiting to comfort you when it breaks. It is the near miss of a car accident or the saving breath that kept you alive when no person should have ever lived through it. You can bring up the wars, the terror, the killing done for this God I speak of and you can be bitter about how organized religion has only been a hiding ground for hypocrites. You smirk that there could be no God with the senseless deaths of children, or the ravages of cancer. Say it, believe it, accept it as it has been laid out to you. Be angry about it. Tell me to fuck off this very instant. Tell me no thank you I'm not drinking the Kool-aid. All I can ask you is to consider that all of that exists because there is a God. The word of God has been used for evil, misconstrued for personal, political, monetary gain. There is no end to God's goodness that can be used by anyone for, or against, something to their benefit. How else does one elevate their dark and twisted soul but to use the best of the best, the Holiest of Holies? Do you think that there could be such evil in this world without a God? You say "ah-ha" you just worked yourself into a corner. Without God then the world would be a better place. Maybe your line of thinking wanders further on and you say that you live a good life, don't hurt others, and help the needy, the sick, the orphaned. You've never killed anyone or profited from the murder of someone, and maybe if everyone was like you the world would be rainbows and unicorns. I say, great- if you are living your life like that then is your life rainbows and unicorns? Probably not. Why? Because the population of the world isn't one. It's over 7 billion. But giving yourself the permission to believe in the possibility of God is one step closer.

One of my arguments was always that I was spiritual but not religious. I look back now and see a vision of that in my mind- spiritual but not religious looks like the walking dead. For you can not know the great magnificence of life if you don't believe in the one who created it. It can only be revealed to the believing mind. Until you come to your demise or to the end of the very last thread of your being, or hopefully in that moment when you feel the spirit stir in your soul and you seek to give it room to grow, it is then that you get it. 

Ask the universe to give you wisdom for truth. Ask the universe to show you the way. Ask the universe for anything. Just know in your heart that the answer is coming and believe it when it does. 

Or pray. Pray "God if you are real, I'm willing to let you show me."