An Open Letter to My Newly-Teenaged Sister

Dear Audrey,

Happy 13th Birthday! Once upon a time, not very long ago (but not too short ago either), there was a little tiny family living in a little tiny house on a little tiny island in the middle of the ocean. For three very long years, the youngest of these two children stayed the youngest, and the oldest of these two children stayed the oldest, and there was never any mix up or in-betweens or the long, dripping, sliding colors between the roles of the ages. Everything was neat, and caricatured, and stereotypical, and compartmentalized. (Just the sort of thing that should be avoided in a good story.)

Nearly every single day, these two little children pretended they were three. Every game involved a baby of some sort…..in House, there was the favorite doll in her little doll dresses (the oldest one wasn’t afraid of dolls back then because she was ludicrous). In Mary and Laura, they never forgot to bring in the sweet Baby Carrie. In Steve and Mary (don’t ask!), they never neglected to make a tiny fellow orphan to be found somewhere in a neglected basket beneath the stairs that they had to rescue and look out for and most likely die for in some terribly dramatic way by the end of the story. And if no human baby could feasibly be added to the game, then a baby of some sort would have to do – a dog maybe, or a chipmunk.

Imagine their excitement when their Mom told them that their dream had come true: There was going to be a little baby – a baby to hold and play with and be a mother to – and this baby (joy of Joys!), this baby would be real. 

Every day, for nearly nine months, amid vanilla pudding cups and oranges, a long move across the ocean, excited hands placed on Mommy’s belly, long conversations about which middle name would be cutest, and the meaning behind long, long Hawaiian names, the little family looked the same.

But hovering above all their minds was the same thought every night: the little baby who was real.

And then one day – a very special day – which had seemed to creep up very quietly when they weren’t looking, began like nearly all the others. Not much was going on, except for a family trip to the hospital for a little kid group that had something to do with babies (little families do weird little things like that). But then, when the class was over, and the family walked down the long steps from the hospital, the mom gave this little gasp and put her hand on her belly, and realized she had to turn around and walk right back up those stairs again. God wasn’t going to let her leave the hospital, until the third little baby was in her arms.

There was a rush after that – a rush of grandparents and cars and excitement and last-minute hugs and a speeding drive home. I don’t know if the youngest child was crying, but the oldest one was (and she felt very mature about it too. She figured only mature people cry about happy things.)

The next day, they went to the hospital, and actually held the Baby – the real Baby – the one they had been waiting for.

And I can honestly say, in true story-book language, that that day their lives were changed forever.

Well, you’ve probably figured this out by now, but you were that special baby, born exactly thirteen years ago. One day (I’m not quite sure when it happened), you stopped being a baby. And another day, a while later (still not exactly sure when, but today makes it official), you stopped being a kid.

When I told my manager yesterday evening that I needed to get off work early so I could be home for my little sister’s 13th birthday (thanks by the way – I owe ya one!), he said, in his long, old-person, rambling way: “Wow. Thirteen years old. I’m old enough to be her great-grandfather. That makes me feel so old. She’s a teenager. She must feel so old. You have two, younger teenage sisters. You must feel so old. But I guess it wasn’t very long ago when you were that age.”

Yup. Five years. That’s really not that long at all.

Five years goes by really fast. Soon, not very far from now, you’ll be on the other end of the teenage years. The front porch to adult hood starts now, and its a crazy journey across the threshold, down the hallway, and out the door to the other side. I haven’t quite finished it myself yet, so I get to be here with you for part of the ride, and I’ll be cheering you on the whole way.

Welcome aboard, sis. I’m super proud of you.

I standing here, behind the front desk (I’ve been asked by three different people what book I’m writing), trying to consolidate all the sage advice I surely must have gleaned from my years of experience of being a teenager. I remember writing Maya’s letter, at the age of fifteen, giving a bullet-point blog post of all the things I had learned in two years. I think I felt I had it more together then than I do now. Maybe because now I’m more fully away of all the things I don’t know, rather than the diddly-squat I do. Sometimes I think I felt older when I was thirteen than I do at eighteen.

And from what I’ve heard, life gets crazier the further along you go. God writes some pretty good adventures.

My first year of being a teenager, I read a few books about how teenagers don’t actually exist. The word wasn’t invented until after World War II, so there was no middle stage between child and adult. You were a child yesterday. You were an adult today. One of the first articles that used the word “teen-age” (with a hypen), was in 1944, three years after Pearl Harbor was bombed and America entered the War.

This is how it described the age you have just entered:

“…Teen-age girls live in a world all their own — a lovely, gay, enthusiastic, funny and blissful society almost untouched by the war. It is a world of sweaters and skirts…of hair worn long, of eye-glass rims painted red with nail polish, of high school boys not yet gone to war. It is world still devoted to parents who are pals…. It is a world of Vergil’s Aeneid, second-year French and plane geometry, of class plays…It is a world of slumber parties… of peanut butter and popcorn…Moving through the awkward age, the troubles of growing up, their welter of fads and taboos.”

Not a very pretty start to the teen-age: characterized by an immature, distant cacophony of noise and pretending, before we’re forced out our sugar-coated prison into the blazing sunlight of reality.

But God decides to crash through worlds. He did it once, 2000 years ago in a manger, and 33 years later, on a Cross. He did that for the time you would be here, when He would crash through your world – Audrey’s world – and sing to life a New Creation.

This means you’ve been freed from that other world. You’ve been freed from your oblivion, and your imprisonment, and your little insignificant tale. God didn’t just enter your story. He brought you into His. You are part of a tale where God is the Author and the Main Character.

The ironic thing about when the word teenager came out, was that this world was in the middle of a war. When you’re in a war, the things you care about changes. When children were being sent to concentration camps, teenagers were fighting to set them free. Actual fighting; with guns, and fear, and blood. But those at home, not much younger, had blocked themselves off from the battlefield, oblivious to the danger, the sacrifice, and a million lives so much more real than their own.

Much like we do now.

But there are important things at stake here. Because we are at war. And we are fighting an enemy stronger than Germany and Japan and Italy. Your eternity depends on the victory. Christ has won the war for you, but the battle rages on, every day. And He fights his liberating warfare through Christians, including teenage Christians.

On the inside of your promise ring, is a pledge from your General. He says: “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set an example for the believer in thought, in world, in deed, in truth and in purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12). In other words: You belong to Christ.

So when the battle rages know that He’s already won. When you feel lonely, know that He’s there. When you feel aimless or confused, know that He is directing your life. And He never wastes lives. You’re going somewhere. No matter how windy and crazy and wonderful and terrifying and unbelievably amazing your adventure becomes, you’re on a road heading straight Home. The real story hasn’t begun yet. Never forget that. The teenage years are a time of unbelievable transformation, but there is a greater transformation to come.

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Audrey, for the last 13 years, I have watched God work in your life in amazing ways. Our little, curly-haired, ADORABLE baby that made faces at us at the table grew up pages down the road. You have always been sweet and beautiful and such a blessing to all of us, but now you are growing in the kindness and beauty and maturity of a young woman. I am so amazed by your talents for acting and music and writing, your continuing walk with the Lord, your passion to grow and try exciting new things, your endless giggles, sense of style, and amazing sense of humor. You truly have lived up to your name, bringing joy into every day we are privileged to share with you.

You’re my little sister, yet I admire you. Your joy as you walk with the Lord and serve others is both inspiring and convicting. I know that He will continue to work amazing things through you.

Always remember: the best is yet to come!

Love you and I’m so proud of you, Audrey. Have a wonderful birthday.

Your Big Sis,

Sydney