DEAR YEAR-AGO-ELLIE

Dear Year-Ago-Ellie,

I don't even know where to start.

I'm not at all a touchy feely person, but man do I wish I could reach back throguh time and give you a hug. I know you'd hate it, but I also know you need it.

The world just crumbled down around you. At least that's how it feels. Your questioning everything. A "loving" Heavenly Father. Your connection to the Spirit. The entire point of your life. Whether the last twenty-seven years have just been mistake after mistake after mistake.

That time has carried mistakes. But the mess ups aren't nearly as bad as you think they are.

I know you hate yourself. Hate yourself for being so weak. Hate yourself for falling for it. Hate yourself for believing the fairytales you painted in your head. Hate yourself for not being strong enough to keep going. To put on a brave face. To move past it. For not being perfect.

Stop it. Right now. You aren't perfect. And with the beauty they call hindsight, I think that might have been the point of it all.

Let yourself have the ice cream. Things are hard right now, and beating yourself up about not being the same size you were in high school isn't going to be helpful. (Or logical. You're supposed to be a different size. It's called growing up.) It's hurting you, not aiding you, to set your expectations so, so high.

Sweet girl, you care so much about what other people think. Why? You constantly sit and fuss and worry about how others percieve you.

Guess what? They have their own lives and their own problems and their own concerns. They are not thinking about you.

They don't notice you've put on weight. They don't notice that you still haven't been published. They don't notice that you are still unmarried.

Ok, that's a lie. They for sure notice that last one. But guess what a second time? That's in God's hands, not their's.

Your whole life you've been striving for perfection, and your whole life, the Lord's been trying to teach you that it's not possible. At least not in this life.

You are not going to get it right all of the time. Things are not going to work out according to that carefully drafted plan you created as a freshman. You are going to mess up. And that's ok.

He never expected you to be perfect, and neither should you.

There is no perfect. This utopia you've created in your head of how your life's supposed to be? It doesn't exist. It's not attainable, and trust me, you wouldn't want it. God has worked MIRACLES in the trials you will endure in the next three hundred and sixty-five days. Would you have asked for trials?

No. Of course not. But you needed them. You needed to hit rock bottom in order to see clearly.

Those hopes you had in your head? They weren't promptings from the Spirit. I'm sorry, they just weren't. They were righteous dreams, but not ones set in stone. And that's okay. Believe me, you don't want them anyway.

That ever-present voice in your head that tells you you're doing everything wrong? That is not the Spirit. It's not Heavenly Father. It's not your Savior. It's not any of the loved ones that surround you.

You are doing so good. So good. With all you've got going on around you, you are making it. And all that effort in praying and fasting and studying that seems like it's all for nothing? It is everything.

You know Him now. You know Him. You recognize His voice. You've been tutored by Him to let go of perfection and treat yourself like a human being. Instead of viewing yourself as a robot that can never malfunction, you are learning to find the beauty in your imperfection. Your Savior loves you this way, all while still helping you to be better. You can learn to love yourself that way, too.

The magazines and social media influences and standards you've set in your head on what beauty is, and what a future spouse will want you to look like? Slowly but surely, you are ridding yourself of these chains. You are finding beauty in who you are as a person, and trusting that when the right one comes along, he'll see it to. You've grown confident in you how you treat your body, not how you see your body.

You are a writer. You know that without a shadow of a doubt now. Not because you've been published, or brought readers to tears, or had an achievement that you finally felt proud to display to those around you.

No, you know you are a writer because of how it makes your soul feel. Of the smile it brings to your face. Of how you can't go more than a couple of weeks without it. Proudly, you declare you are a writer, and actually believe it.

The confidence this year of torture has given you? I'd go back through it all again to gain it.

You live at home, with your parents, at twenty-eight years old. And you love it. Not because you are a mooch, not because you don't want a job, or don't know what to do next in your life. You love it becasue you love your family. You love serving them. You love being with them. You love the members of your congregation and church, and the fierce hugs of the Primary Children. You love your community and friends turned family. You love the dogs. You love cleaning and cooking and writing and grocery shopping.

You know that you are not here because you have screwed it all up and this is your last resort. This is where you are supposed to be.

You've given yourself to Him in a way you never thought possible. All this time, from the stories and the ordinances and the church lessons, you thought you knew who your Savior was. You didnt. You knew of Him. Now you have a relationship with Him.

I know, it feels like turning to Him is so pointless. Nothing is being resolved. The hardship is still there. You can't see through the trees to the horizon, and you are beginning to worry you never will.

That's because you think this whole thing is you getting off track. Another mess up you've made to ruin your whole life. Do you really think you have that kind of power?

This is needed. This whole year of garbage? You needed it bad. In those moments when you feel you've truly lost it all, your Savior shows you that you've finally started to gain it all. To see things as they really are. To understand what is expected of you. To understand that repentance is a joy, not a burden. To understand what true Christlike love is. To be so grateful for a Savior who paid for your sins, because you have them. That is ineveitable, it's what happens, it's why the plan was created in the first place.

There is no shame in needing it. There is joy and hope and solace in needing it. You get to try agian and again and again. It is not the consequnce of another mistake, but a beautiful gift by the one who loves you the very most.

You are loved, Ellie. Just as you are. By your family, by your friends, by your Savior and Heavenly Father. Just as you are, flaws and all.

No one is expecting you to have it all together all the time. No one is judging you for where you think you lack. That is just you. Let that go, and watch your life finally blossom.

I wish I could take this hard year away from you. I wish I could transport what I have learned into your brain, saving you from the pain and anguish. But you need this. I promise you do.

This heartache, this despair forces you to turn to Him. To really turn to Him. And with all my heart, I hope you never turn away again.

Give yourself the grace that He is freely offering you. Love yourself like He does. Ask to see yourself and others as He does. Trust the process. Believe in the strength this will give your testimony. Trust that the promises He makes are sure, just not always sure in the way we expect.

I'm so grateful to you for enduring this twenty-seventh year. All those little things that you didn't believe would work? God magnified them into a power you could not imagine. Your testimony has grown beyond what you ever hoped it could be. It's all worth it, I promise. Just keeping hanging on, and keeping turning to Him, even when it seems foolish.

You've got this.

Love, Almost-Twenty-Eight-Year-Old-Ellie