Hey Precious Girl,
(A love letter to 12 year old Teni)
It is you sixteen years from now. You are in the last half of your twenties, and you have started taking more chances and shedding identities that no longer serve you. You realize that who you have been and who others want you to be can change. You write soft, brave things. On paper you are free. You are honest. You are bold. You still love getting lost in stories. You still love to dance-even though it is mostly in your room these days. You are blossoming into who you have been all along. You are learning to stride, to do the work and let God take it from there. You still ask a lot of questions. You want to know why the world works the way it does? Why are we here? You finally realized that mom and dad don’t have the answers either. They are learning and growing and trying to figure out this life thing just as you are. This truth was hard to swallow but it changed everything.
Everyday, you gather the courage to sift through your journals and knit together honest words. You write poems inspired by the time you spent in college searching for hope in tight spaces. You want to share your work more, but it is difficult since no one ever encouraged your creativity as a child. You are embracing your sensitivity and seeing it as a gift from God. You are learning to set appropriate boundaries with yourself and others so you can live fully in your purpose. You have amazing friends and sisters who sharpen you like iron and accept your flaws as glitter.
Girl- you cute! You are slowly coming into your beauty and letting it flow from the inside out. You rub shea butter on your skin everyday, and wash between your toes. You tend to your hair and nails every two weeks. You are taking care of your mental health and taking the bandages off your wounds so they can air out. You still worry a lot. That part of you is taking longer than you want to get past but you are trying and that is more than enough. You are taking baby steps to be anxious for nothing-to stand in the love, power and sound mind that is your birthright.
The best thing about it all is that your journey blesses others. Last week you went to visit your friend and she said your energy brought peace into her home. Girl can you imagine!! Your presence has the power to shift the atmosphere. What a gift it is to slowly settle into the fullness of God's vision of you. You are learning that you are enough-just as you are, and that you do not have to perform or shrink to win people's love. What is for you is already yours.
Some days are heavy, but even on difficult days you have many truths to return home to and that is a blessing. Some days you still feel like you have so much longer to grow. Like you wasted time trying to fit into small boxes that scratched the lotion off your skin revealing ash. Other days you feel at peace, knowing that your journey is yours alone. Everything you are and everything you are not led you to now. You are a sight to behold, a slow but sure manifestation of what God imagined when He said “Angels, let’s make Teni today”.