Dear Younger Me, ...

     There's a song out that I really enjoy entitled "Dear Younger Me" by the Contemporary Christian band Mercy Me. If you haven't heard it give it a listen it shares a great message about this crazy life we are all living. The premise of the song goes along with the old saying, "hindsight is always 20/20". I would like to pose a question to each of you reading this message today, "What would you do if you could somehow go back and tell your younger self what mistakes you made and how to avoid those same mistakes as you grow and mature?"
     At first the idea sounds enticing, just as it did to me, yet after listening a little closer to the words of this insightful, musical proverb you might need to rethink your thought process. The idea of going back and redirecting some of the choices we made along the way in life seems like a no lose situation, yet as the song suggests the end result could possibly change who we are today. The lyricist ponders "Do I give some speech about how to get the most out of your life
Or do I go deep
And try to change
The choices that you’ll make cuz they’re choices that made me".
And that is the thought I want to clarify today. If we could go back and coach our younger selves and through that coaching we keep ourselves from going through the adversities, the trials, the wrongs, and even the tragic choices that we made would that change who we are today? Would you be part of the same family? Would you have the same career? Would you have the same opportunities to make a difference that you have today due to the choices that you made along the way?
     I'm pretty sure some of our readers today are saying "Yes that would give me a chance to do things differently and I wouldn't have ended up where I am at today." But what if where you are right now is exactly where you are supposed to be? As the lyrics suggest the choices you make are the choices that make you who you are. If you aren't happy with who you are then it is time for some self reflection.
     I have learned many things in life yet none of them have been more important than understanding that everything that happens to you in life prepares you for what you are to do in this life. What appears to be a terrible page in your life's story, may actually be the precursor to what would amount to your biggest success in life. The trials and tribulations that we endure are actually the lessons we must learn so that we can fulfill what we were created to do in this life. That may be a hard thought to process let along accept, yet when you are capable of looking at adversity as a growth opportunity then you are on the road to becoming who you were created to be!
     At first it sounds very tempting to think that we could go back and change the bumps and barbs that we had to endure in our younger lives, yet just as the story of Joseph from the Bible teaches the adversity we endure is actually what must happen for the good that was intended to take place. Joseph's brother's were jealous of their younger brother and sold him into slavery. Bad time right? Yet Joseph ended up being one of the most powerful leaders in the land and much later in life during a famine Joseph was able to save his family from starvation. The same brothers that sold him into slavery came to him pleading for help, fearful for their lives yet with no where else to turn they came  and here is what Joseph said to them,
"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive." Genesis 50:20 
     That is where we have to get if we want to grow and become all we are meant to be in life. Hard times are just that, hard. Yet if we can trust that those very hard times are essential to who we are and what we are to become then our lives are transformed. How is this possible you ask? How can I use the bad choices I made in the past to make a way for a better future? The answer is found in two simple words FAITH and TRUST. Without those two words it is virtually impossible to see what your true purpose in life is.
     Today's thought goes a little deeper than normal, yet for somebody out there this is the very thing that is holding you back. You were created to do great and wonderful things, don't let the adversity that can catapult you to your purpose be an anchor that weighs you down and causes you to sink. Take the experience and rely on your FAITH that their is a bigger outcome for good designed to come from your experience and TRUST God to see you through!

"Every mountain every valley
Thru each heartache you will see
Every moment brings you closer
To who you were meant to be
Dear younger me, dear younger me"
Mercy Me

Make a difference this week, start with yourself and then go out and find someone that needs help more than you and lend a hand up!
Coach Carter