A letter to Megan

Megan is the lithe and truly beautiful teenage daughter of my friend, Patti.  She is navigating the thrilling, fast-flowing waters of a new high school with poise, but teenager terrain is no walk in the park, as we all can well remember!  


Hi Megan,

I've been keeping up with you via your mom on all our crazy runs, swims and bike rides of late.  She is really proud of the way you are handling all these new seasons in your life.  I am too.   


It's hard to see now, but unfamiliar and unsettled times are the best teachers and coaches in our lives.  Getting nudged out of the nest forces our wobbly wings to work!  For example, when I was about your age, I moved from Zimbabwe (Africa) to a suburb of Chicago.  Talk about needing to flap my wings hard! 

I grew up in a sweet, farming town in a warm culture and a sunny climate.  Despite a civil war for a good part of my youth, my parents made sure my childhood was happy and carefree.  I went to community schools and loved friends, family and country.  Then my parents announced, sadly, that our family was moving to the U.S.A.

Dropped into a huge public school bustling with smart, hip, well-dressed and savvy young people, it dawned on me that I was the farthest thing from hip or savvy and my wings grew very tired from all the flapping.  


The Illinois weather was overcast, windy, and frigid most of the year.  The bone-chilling winter temps matched my desolate spirit and I was out of my natural and preferred element in every imaginable way.  Misery with no company.

While I survived academically, my fashion sense and ability to appear attractive according to local standards was really....um...not developed.  Pining and homesick, I recall lots of tears soaking the pillow each night.  Aching for the way things used to be, I struggled that year to find the silver lining anywhere.  I felt out of sorts, like I had lost myself.  I missed me. 

Your mom knows I love a good story, and my favorite is one you probably know well.


In the beginning, God made Adam and Eve with exquisite care and placed them in a stunning garden.  Their job?  Care for God's handiwork, tend it, and enjoy it all. The awesome thing about God is that he doesn't do things once and then quit.  His very nature is to continually create new life and new beauty.  It's in his DNA.

God, even today, carefully and lovingly makes (and remakes) you and me and places us in our own part of his amazing world.  He also gives us unique and special gifts so we can tend to our garden really well.   Some of these gifts we are born with, and some are developed through the experiences and people we encounter in our various gardens. 

Just like Adam and Eve, where we find ourselves at various points in life is not random.  The family we are born into, the partners we marry, the friendships we make, the children we may have....all of these new situations and scenery has been especially created for us by our Maker.  We are placed in them to be good caretakers of all he wishes to accomplish in the world through us.  It's called "showing his glory".

So, God saw fit to take me out of my beautiful and beloved Africa garden and thrust me squarely into the cold, hard dirt of a dreary Chicago "garden".  It sure didn't feel like a garden, but that difficult year helped shape and define how I am today.  

Because I was once the complete outsider, I have developed great compassion and empathy for the outsider, or the uncomfortable one, in every group.  Since I remember well the knot in my stomach as I walked to the lunch table alone, it's now important to me that others always feel warmly welcomed, waved over, and included.   Most importantly, I discovered that everyone has a story if you are willing and patient to hear it.  It was a hard year, but I know now that God used that time to shape me for a useful life of service to him.

Megan, God has given you a new garden.  Look around and see where you can tend to it, care for it.  Who needs a friend, a defender, a smile, or a listening ear?  You may not know who, or what, God is preparing for you this year, but he is undoubtably doing so each day.  He has lovingly placed you in this new dirt.  He plans to grow you and for you to bear much fruit and has planted you exactly where he wants you.


PS.  I only tell you this next part of the story because I think it's funny and ironic, not because it's the main point of my letter to you.   My senior year, I was the unlikely and very surprised homecoming queen.  Crowned in my polyester volleyball jersey and stinky knee-pads at the school assembly, I wasn't the typical HQ choice to be sure.  While it was nice and made my dear mom cry, it's just the teeniest, weeniest part of my bigger story.  I have a million other moments that surpass that one...I'm sure your mom will hear about them on one of our early runs, soon!