Dear Mackenzie
a letter to my six-year-old self
Dear Mackenzie,
I want so much to be a friend to you. Like an older sister, or even a mother. I want to sit with you, here in your daddy’s garden, put my arm around you, and tell you that you are going to be okay.
You look up at me with those six-year-old eyes and tell me you are afraid, and I say of what, and you say losing everyone you love.
I don’t know what to say.
You are about to lose brothers and sisters to college and marriage. Your happy home will shift itself in natural ways, but you will grieve that people have to grow up and move on. You are afraid that your parents will die and leave you. You cry every day in the school line when Mama drops you off, because you are afraid something will happen and she will never come back.
I wonder if it would it comfort you to know that your mother would live to raise you. I could tell you that she would talk you through growing up, would see you married, through pregnancy and childbirth. She would show you the way to linger around a living room that was full of life and laughter. Would you be glad to know she would see most of your children born? Should I tell you I was there with her when she died? That you were there, too, and you lived through it, and losing her made you love your own children more dearly and fiercely? You are going to be okay.
Would you be relieved to know your father was there for you your whole blossoming life, that he married you and your husband in this very garden, that he had all the right answers to questions about buying houses, planting trees, putting seeds in the ground… Would it comfort you to know that he came to the hospital to see your ninth baby born and celebrated that little life with you? Would you be glad to know that his easy laugh would be the last thing you remember seeing on his face before you saw him that one awful day he was dying? You will be forty-three years old when you have to say you final goodbyes to the man that planted love in the ground all around you. There is still shade underneath the trees he planted along the paths of your life. There are still flowers blooming there. You are going to be okay.
Should I tell you this? Part of me wants to, because I know you are afraid you will lose the people you love today or tomorrow. I can tell you not to be afraid, but I can’t tell you the things you fear won’t happen. We both know this world is a dark forest, howling with wild-eyed fearsome creatures who would like to swallow us whole. If I’m honest, I have to talk myself out of the very same fear now—losing the people I love—even though I have lived through many losses of one sort or another and survived them, and even though I am a grown-up now, a mother, telling my own children not to be afraid.
But sitting here in this beautiful garden, where life blooms with unabashed beauty, I know I can’t tell you our story. You would dread the future. You would see it coming nearer and nearer. You would try to run away from it. You might try to change it, and we all know how those time-travel stories turn out when someone tinkers with the future in order to change the past. The loss is the same, it just takes another form. Telling you the details would only stir up more fears (did you say nine children?!?!). You don’t need to know now. God is gracious enough to allow life to unfold before us. It is hard to stay in the moment that is here and not take on the trouble of what may—and even surely one day will—be.
Sweet child, there is a lot of losing things in this life. But beauty is always there, reaching out like a friend, putting her arm around you, reminding you that this world is not your true home. You were made for life everlasting. Where there is no death or sorrow or pain. We can catch glimpses of it here—in the good, sweet love of those we cherish. In the flowers that burst forth with color and fragrance and then wither and die and cast their seeds to the ground.
I look back into your earnest eyes and tell you the only thing I can say.
You are going to be okay. God will never leave you or forsake you. When you lose the things you most hold dear, His grace will grow around you like a garden. His arms will reach for you, and He will hold you, safe and well and in His will. Don’t worry. Put those sorrows in the ground and see what grows. I can promise you this, because I have been there, and I know: You are going to have a good and beautiful life.
Dear friends,
Sending an arm around your shoulder today.
Love,
Mackenzie
From the Family Archives:
Rosie, age 12 here, joins us on the violin for this one. (((Wait for her beautiful harmony.))) This song was recorded in 2020.
Dear little one,
While you are young
I have to tell you
Life is unkind
One day you’ll find this world will fail you
It breaks my heart
To tell you that life can be so hard…
From the Podcast:
I have dealt with paralyzing fear for much of my life. As a child and a teenager, when I fell in love, became a wife, when I became a mother, when I wanted to follow dreams in my heart that were impractical and deeply rooted in my soul… Every step of the way, fear steadily whispered in my ear how much it was going to cost me. He always offered me an easier way. A safer road. Slowly, season by season, I have learned that I do not like the kind of life that fear offers me. I want a life that is rich and full and is brimming over with the stories of God’s goodness and faithfulness. I have come to see that if I am too busy hiding in a safe, comfortable corner of my life, I will never see the vast beauty around me. If I am too afraid of what could happen if I actually pursue the kind of life that stirs in my soul, I will surely never even catch a glimpse of it. Of all the things I fear, this is the actual tragedy that 100% could have been avoided—missing out on the length and breadth and height and depth of God’s love because I was too afraid to walk out into the light of day. In today’s episode, I share stories about my life, and how God has helped me (and continues to help me) overcome fear with small acts of obedience and faith.
My Book:
Now available in our family shop or wherever you buy books online.
Journal Prompt:
Write a letter to another version of yourself—past or future. There is no right or wrong way to do it. Just sit down and start with Dear (Your-Name-Here), and see where your words take you. Feel free to share it with a friend or burn it to ashes when you are finished.
Today’s post is beautiful!