Sincerely, Who You Will Become

Dear Charity,

Right now you should be anxiously staring up at your ceiling; it’s late at night, sometime in July of last summer. Your breathing is heavy, and your mind is running wild.  I say “you” – I could refer to you as “me”, but we aren’t the same person. You will slowly turn into me, but I won’t ever be you again. You’re scared, but you haven’t experienced what it is to be afraid, not truly. You haven’t experienced what it is to be wholly consumed by your own mind, your own feelings and thoughts. But you will.  

You will meet people, lovely, unparalleled, romantic people. These people, so alluring in their words, their ideas, their beliefs, will be your safety, your bridge by which you must cross over the dark and deep waters. But your bridge will fall, and your safety will crumble around you, leaving you desperately gasping for air as you sink further and further into the dark river that is your mind. Anger will be the friend that never leaves your side; hurt and frail vulnerability will be your family that always stay with you, no matter how hard you try to get them to abandon you. I know, this might sound drastic. It is. But it will start as something much smaller.

First, you will slowly turn away from everything you know, everything you believe. You will become different, care about things you didn’t used to, and stop caring about things you do now. You’ll be seduced by your own romantic notions, falling into a pit of morality that no longer is.  You will experience more hurt, fear, loneliness and anxiety than you know is possible.

And yet, some light will come out of the darkness that your life spirals into; you will explore your love of beautiful things, poetry, art, music. And though most every friendship in your life will fall away inexplicably, a few will stay, blossom, and grow into something so wonderful and glorious that it almost makes all the melancholy worth it.  

You can stop all this, but I’m not asking you to, because we both know you won’t. You don’t like to be challenged, questioned, told you’re wrong. That much will always remain the same. I wish for this to give you hope, encouragement, to let you know that through the overwhelming sound of the criticism you hear in your brain, there will be silence, stillness even. Through the feeling of love and that love being torn away from you, there will be something so bright, so delicately beautiful it’s almost ethereal.

Every experience you have will lead to where I am now, and where you will be. You will be beautiful, stunning; you’re going to find a way to love yourself, to be satisfied with who you are, not to turn back to your old religion, your old self, but to find a new self and a new way of looking at life. Yes, you’ll have faith, but this faith is real, and it will be yours to own and be proud of completely, but not to force other people to own. You are going to be worn, fragile, broken, and absolutely perfect. Flawlessly fragmented. You will be able to find ways to love through a Savior, to get out of your darkness, even when it tries to overcome you. You will forgive many times, and be forgiven hundreds of times more. This is who you will become, and this is who I am.

Yes, that is my hope: that you will find peace in the fact that you will become somebody you never thought you would. Somebody who loves, because she was first loved, somebody who craves justice, somebody who is indefinitely a sinner, but through Christ is redeemed. You will become something so beautiful it quiets the anger in your soul. You will become a new creation, a flower, precious to your creator, white as snow, cleansed by blood shed for you. A simple cross will completely change your life: who you are and how you see things around you.

So please, hold on to that hope. The hope that soon, you will be ok.

Sincerely,

Who You Will Become