Dear Future Me,

It’s been a year now. I pray you are doing amazing as you sit in 2020 reading this again. The last 4 years of our life have been the hardest darkest road we have ever walked. I have to say I am proud of how we held to the light, to love, to any happiness that you could find in the middle of the valley that had become so every day, so normal, so…everywhere. Today, as I write this, I feel a change happening in the very air around us. Something big is coming, something amazing. Something healing, something finite in truth, in strength, in certainty. I can’t see the future, but I know that today, a year from now, you are reading this and remembering the very day the change happened. The day it came crashing into our life’s and swept us up in fresh hope and faith. The day that every struggle of the past 4 years, every time we felt like we were drowning, every time we felt hopeless, worthless, empty, came to an erupting beautiful end. The strength that was hidden, that was buried under the soot of hardship grew forth like a wild rose bush and pushed every vine away. The day the light shone brighter, truer, and more vibrant than we could ever remember.

I wish that day was today. But it will be soon. And soon I will remember the years before it as wisdom creating years, years of growth instead of pain. I will look back with eyes of learning, eyes of understanding, and a heart of truth. For each day creates in us a chance to grow, to learn, to become wise. Wisdom and knowledge are riches unmeasured. I have come to the quiet of learn, instead of the rush of fix.

And as the gray fog begins to give way to a new tomorrow, I cannot wait to hear our story 365 days from now.

So future self, it is ok to be proud of surviving. It is ok to be proud of the learning, it is ok to feel pain at the failures, but pride in the growing, it is ok to love the “we” that has become out of all of this. It is ok for us to shine bright. Remember our motto….

Don’t make yourself small for anyone. Just because they can’t handle your glow, doesn’t mean that shine is bad. Shine bright girl, SHINE bright.