Dear Future Me

Some years ago the group MercyMe released a song called “Dear Younger Me.” It is pretty much what it sounds like, a personal letter to a younger version of the writer. The song came back to my remembrance this morning because during a Bible study, “I Do Hard Things,” I was tasked with writing a letter to the future me. Author, Havilah Cunnington, said we should imagine writing to the person we hope to be five years from now – what would I say or hope to be? What goals would I want to have achieved and what actions would I have to take now to be that person I’m writing to?  Here is my response to this challenge. May it challenge you to examine yourself and maybe write the future you.

Dear Future Me,

I’m writing to you from the year 2020 with a heart of hope and expectation. I’m writing from a place of faith in the true and living God – my savior and my Lord. I’m writing because I’m making a decision that when you read this letter in 2025, you will know that I made some hard choices in order for you to be the best version of you that you can be – a better version of the current me.

            At the time of this writing, I’ve finally begun to identify myself as an author and speaker versus a housewife. No, I’m not making any money as an author or speaker – yet – but that’s who I believe God says I am so, I am. This means that I have finally committed to spending a greater amount of time before the throne of God learning from Him and learning of Him than I do on Facebook learning how desperately people need Him.

            I have also determined that you, the future me, will be a physically stronger and healthier version of the current me. In as much as I am able (barring physiological obstacles that make it not difficult but impossible) I will do the work I know to do to make this temple the best it can be. This is not for vanity but for practical purposes. I need this body to last until the work God created me to do has been done and done well. I need it to last until I have, like King David, served God’s purposes in my own generation. (See Acts 13:36.)

            You see future me, I am learning that the choices I make today will be what make you. God has set before me life and death, blessings and curses. I choose life so that I (and you) and my children may live. (See Deuteronomy 30:19.) I'm learning my choices now will not only determine who you will be, but they will also play a part in determining the futures of my daughters and others around me. What are they seeing in me and how is it affecting their own choices?

            But I suppose what I want most for you future me, is what I want most for the current me; to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. (See Matthew 22:37.) I want us to be able to sincerely confess the words Paul penned in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

            You are going to be great and do great things, future me. God has already given you a tongue of the learned so that you can speak a word in season to one who is weary. (Isaiah 50:4) He has given us a new heart and put a new spirit in us. He has removed from us our heart of stone and given us a heart of flesh. He has put His Spirit in us and moves us to follow his decrees. (See Ezekiel 36:26-27) You are going to be great because He which has begun a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (See Philippians 1:6.)

            I’m excited for all I know you shall be and accomplish for the glory of God and the good of all who meet you!

Love always,

Dutchess of 2020