More often than I care to admit, I need a pep talk. It’s easy for me to calculate the losses in my life and fail to sit with the wins. I have always wanted to be a person whose starting point was gratitude. Since I know my tendency toward a half-empty outlook, pep talks are the way I adjust my perspective.

Not long ago, I was challenged to write a letter of encouragement to myself. Before you think this is cheesy, let me explain. The directions were simple. I was to craft a letter to my current self from the perspective of the 20-year older me. What sounded easy required an honest look at my current story and discerning my greatest need in this season. Here’s what I wrote…

Dear Alyssa,
You’ve seen God move mountains and make a way where you saw no way possible. It has been easy for you to lose sight of past provision because fear bullied you into keeping inventory of what you lacked.

A good home and upbringing doesn’t qualify you. Holding it altogether and getting it right can’t qualify you. You were qualified when your Creator knit you together in your mother’s womb. Your life wasn’t and isn’t accidental.

You were never meant to cut a pathway through your pain, but you settled for lesser things to avoid future hurt. This outlook kept you from taking risks. You once dreamed of being a lawyer, but you thought it was too far outside your reach. You settled on something easier to imagine and make happen.

Stop trusting your own resources. You are done living a mediocre life, girl. Stop settling for boring. Status quo is NOT the abundance you were created for. You are content with scraps when storehouses of treasures await you.

Let yourself go in your relationships. Remove the fence of failure, your life vest, and all the safeguards you’ve set in place. Jump in. Splash around in the goodness of the lives entrusted to you. Make passion, not pessimism, your pursuit. Love hard and big without the prospect of return on investment.

Hope is your driver, so let the car out of park and get going. Your ideas are not silly. The world needs your brand of creative kindness. Don’t be content sitting in silence.

That blog post…share it.

That kindness project…invite others to join you.

That story…tell it.

Don’t spend any more time proving yourself. You are already approved. There’s no one or anything else you need. Please believe this.

Your husband and children want the best version of you. They don’t profit from the silent, shrinking back you. Share your bold faith with them. Fill the house with your prayers. Flood their hearts with the affirmations of hope.

You are free to color outside the lines and pursue your creative interests. Just don’t forget to write the story. ALL of it.

You matter, Alyssa.

Always.

Writing this letter was hard. Tears accompanied the drafting and rereading of it. I knew what I needed to hear. Writing it out made it tangible and unavoidable.

I’ve returned to this letter of encouragement several times since crafting it. It confronts my tendency toward recalling losses and how I avoid dreaming outside a perceived safe zone [that which appears attainable].

If you were to write a letter to yourself, what would it say? Maybe you don’t have the bandwidth to write yourself an entire letter-I get it. If you wrote yourself one line of advice/encouragement, what would it say? Why not go ahead and do it?

Don’t wait for others to call out the best in you. Take an honest look inward and then risk it all by writing out one line of encouragement. That pep talk you’ve given others-turn it on yourself.

Be as intentional with yourself as you are with others. You might find this changes your current outlook and influences your future hope.

#momentoftruthmonday #peptalk #encouragement #perspectiveadjustment

#lifelessons #sowkindintoyourself