“This Former Foster Youth shares the letter she wrote to her past 17-year-old self about healing and her identity.
Authenticity and Losing Fig Leaves
Someone asked me last week what I would want to tell my 17-year-old self right before I aged out of foster care. I started to answer her question but froze. Tears welled up in my eyes and I couldn’t hold back the weight of what my heart was experiencing. Trauma has a funny way of bringing up a waterfall of emotion and pain sometimes. There are a lot of cliche responses I could have just spouted out, but this moment felt different. A pull to go deeper and really let my thoughts form without filters or fig leaves.
Fig leaves? I heard a talk recently about how the biblical story of Adam and Eve can shed light on our historical inclinations to cover up our true selves. We hide behind defense mechanisms that are no longer working in our favor because we are inherently fearful beings. It’s not something we have to be shameful about. It’s our instincts to want to protect ourselves from greater rejection if we are not found in perfect love. After hearing this talk I have made every effort to have greater authenticity, regardless of how I am perceived.
Being created in perfect love is the greatest source of my identity, not my experience or lack. I am not my story, and most of it isn’t my fault. Letting go of the shame that didn’t belong to me allowed me to start learning who I am. Being connected to the greatest source of love has changed everything inside me.
A Letter of Honesty and Hope to My Younger Self
A week later and I have finally penned my thoughts and wishes to my 17-year-old self.
“Dear almost adult, Remember all those times growing up that you were certain that turning 18 was a magical number? That you would finally have the freedom to go find your healing. Well, we were always right. There is beauty and healing everywhere and you will travel the world to find the deepest layers of it. The mountains of Switzerland and the coasts of Honduras brought you so much joy and connection to God. But it was the breathtaking faces of all the other humans you met that would actually fill you the most.
While aging out of foster care brought a whole new set of challenges and levels of loneliness, you will constantly think back to the young man you met in Ghana that would give everything to have the life you do. You will think of his pain often and pray peace over him, hoping that he found his healing too.
That compassion inside you will be a fire to pull you through unimaginably hard seasons. It reminds you that no matter how empty you may feel, there is always more love available to give. While you will aimlessly volunteer and do all the things to fill your life for the wrong reasons at times. You should be proud that you refused to throw a pity party and will end up doing some good instead. And don’t worry, you will get better at loving people and eventually become a mom and a counselor to be that fills your heart to overflow in purpose.
Unexpected Gifts Ahead
Be warned, there are some seasons ahead that you will be so sure that you can’t survive. It’s okay. While you shouldn’t have to be so tough, you truly are. You will find a way to create beauty from almost anything, and you love sharing it with others. You learn to really love your ADHD and realize that God gave it to you as a superpower. The older version of you never stops moving forward and is able to find energy for joy in the midst of the darkest nights. Those really dark times at 3 am where you are pretty certain you won’t make it to sunrise, God meets you there, I promise. You learn later that fighting well is actually learning to rest well, and lean into the one that loves you best.
One day you will discover that God is actually a perfect father. That he desires a level of intimacy with your heart that will put you back together with a foundation that will never again be wiped away. You experience a level of assurance through his love that fills all the spaces that once seemed to never find healing. You realize that healing isn’t what you think it will be. It’s no longer about the absence of pain, but the addition of comfort that is freely given and joyful in being poured out. This will be the greatest season of your life so far, because you lean into someone that has been leaning into you, your whole life.
Finding Yourself in the Life You Worked so Hard For.
One day you will wake up in a beautiful life that you worked so hard for. It will be full of wonderful community, family, and meaning. You will break the harrowing statistics of foster care that once filled your heart with fear. Then you will create a path forward that brings light and the possibilities of hope for others. You will give away so much and yet be filled with a greater measure in return.
Don’t hold back on keeping your heart open to love. The risk is high, and I won’t lie to you that it doesn’t work in your favor over and over again. But the times that it does, will change your life and those around you. Right now at 17, you feel unloveable, unwanted, and better off for everyone else to be kept unseen. But one day you will be seen and embraced by more people than you can imagine, and it will scare you but also inspire you to keep digging deeper towards truth. To that stubborn hope deeply rooted inside of you, it knows that you are found in love now. It looks to the future with the expectation of even more beauty ahead.
I promise kid, there is way more good ahead than what you are leaving behind in foster care. A whole world of adventure and good ahead.”
Letter from Inspiring Hope to you:
Dear Annonymous,
When I read this post, I could absolutely imagine you reading this to your 17-year-old self who has no idea what the next 10 plus years will be like. I can see why God does not allow us to see into the future. We may not want to go through with our journey if we knew the pain awaiting ahead. It makes me even more appreciative that Jesus came to save us with the constant knowledge of the suffering he would endure to death.
I am rejoicing with you friend. This beautiful life you have found yourself in has seemed to push you deeper towards God’s heart. Thank you for being vulnerable and paving the way for us to shed off our fig leaves so that we can find more authentic healing. I know you are remaining anonymous for safety reasons, but I am sending a giant virtual hug and a thank you for sharing your story.
