An Open Letter to You

Dear Friend,
Ever since I got a text the other day about letters on lined paper, I've had you and writing you a letter at the forefront of my mind. Please don't think I'm stupid for sending you this letter.

Friend, my life is a big pile of "I don't know" right now, and I hate it. I feel like I SHOULD know, at least a little bit, what I'm doing and where I'm going and who I am and what my life is. But I don't, and it's awful and terrifying. I'm sure I'm making a bigger deal out of the not-knowing that I "should" but I am SO DONE WITH SHOULD. I am almost convinced it's just a word Satan uses to help me tie myself down.
I SHOULD know...
I SHOULD have...
I SHOULD be...
I SHOULD (your entry here)...

And speaking of tying myself down, I've been doing a lot of it without even realizing.
I want so badly to be known/loved/admired/valuable/unforgettable/astonishing/adequate/worthy/enough/superlative, that I confine myself to others' standards and forget how to live.

I want my words to matter and my life to matter, and I know that is anything but selfless. However, it is honest. I want to know how to be selfless, but I don't know how.

"I don't know what do with a love like that, I don't know how to be a love like that."

I know it hurts, and learning to hurt scares me. I hate hurting. It's so hard to escape. There's just nothing you can do about it but be pathetic and more vulnerable and more hurt, once it starts. And I already feel so very vulnerable and so very pathetic.

I am sorry to write you a letter that is so full of my selfishness.
I am sorry to send you words ebbed forward by tears and focused on none but me.

But I am not sorry to send you a letter so full of weakness and so obviously in need of change and strength. I can only hope that in its many cracks and holes and ruins (in MY cracks and holes and ruins), you will see where God is bringing me to build up the walls, repair the cracked places, and find His strength perfects, completes, and matures my utter weakness.

I hope maybe you will be reminded of experiencing similar things, and how God worked it out to become a side of you that turned into an outward-facing mirror, reflecting Him everywhere. I hope that's possible in my life, too.
I hope I learn to hurt in a way that makes me an outward-facing mirror.