3 Words I'd Tell My 13-Year-Old Self
This is what I'd say, and how it would have changed my life
Today, notthebee.com challenged me to a thought experiment that had gone viral on Reddit:
The answers on Reddit ranged from the predictive to the profound:
Bitcoin hits 50k
Don’t date ___
Invest Amazon 2003
Hug Dad more
Don’t. Do. Heroin.
When I thought about my 3 words, various things came to mind, like “Life WILL improve.” But ultimately, I settled for the most important thing I could think of and that I wish someone would have told my 13-year-old self back then:
Hold onto Jesus.
If I had known this and adhered to it throughout my teens and beyond, maybe I wouldn’t have looked for love and attention in all the wrong places. Maybe I would have looked to the Cross as I suffered through bullying, humiliation, sexual harassment, unrequited love, betrayal, and all the other small and large traumas of my childhood. Maybe I could have offered up my ordeals and assigned them value and meaning that way.
From the age of about 10 to 15, Jesus was like my big brother. Having grown up in a family of CEO (Christmas and Easter only) Protestants, I found Jesus one summer at a tent mission that opened its flaps in the field across from our house. I still remember the delicious scent of warm hay, flip charts with illustrated Bible stories, gentle people who always had a kind word for me, and sing-alongs with Guitar Guy, a nameless, long-haired, bearded 20-something who looked like a super-cool Jesus himself.
I took to religion like a fish to water. I was heartbroken when the tent mission left at the end of the summer, but determined for more. I joined the CVJM, the German equivalent of the YMCA, and became an ardent believer. But then life happened, some good things and some terrible things, and hormones, and boys, on top of my disillusionment with the Church and the people who called themselves Christians.
I only once set foot in a Catholic Church, when I picked up one of my friends from choir practice. When I opened the door, I was awestruck by the richness of the interior, the smells, the colors, the light. As I entered, I heard voices singing, Magnificat, magnificat, magnificat, anima mea dominum; magnificat, magnificat, magnificat, anima mea. They kept repeating that same line, and then it was picked up by a second group of voices, and then by a third, weaving into and out of each other and harmonizing in ways that made me tear up. I thought I’d never heard anything so beautiful in my life. I kept that melody in my heart and repeated it often when I was by myself, even though I had no idea where it came from and what it meant. I can sing it to this day.
Of course, I never even thought of becoming a Catholic. “Switching sides” was unthinkable and would have been the equivalent of being a traitor to your country. You were born into your religion; you died in your religion.
In the end, around the age of 15, I left the YMCA because that God—that vengeful, self-absorbed, needy, jealous God the Church and the Old Testament laid out for me—was not my God as I had come to know Him, loving and kind and forgiving. I wish I’d had someone like Fr. Mike Schmitz explain the hard chapters of the Bible to me back then… the stuff that could make anyone doubt their faith. The massacres and wars and the evil, sinful people whom God chose to be His champions (He couldn’t find anyone better?). The torching of whole cities and the drowning of everyone and the turning of people into pillars of salt just for taking a peek.
By the time I was 21, I was deeply steeped in the paranormal and the occult, if mostly in theory. I loved watching horror movies and had the same morbid fascination for dark and scary real-life things.
Of course, all of this wild experimentation ultimately came with a price. After listening to a paranormal radio show, I attempted to “contact the dead” and inadvertently opened the door to an evil entity that started haunting my apartment (today I’d call it a demon, but back then I bought into the myth that there were good, neutral, and bad spirits floating around on the “astral plane,” and you just had to get in touch with the right ones).
For weeks, I felt watched from behind and suffered horrendous nightmares, which I could only stave off by hiding under the covers and reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over until daybreak. One night, the specter manifested in my room as an undulating black smoke that hovered below the ceiling like a coiled snake and then proceeded to viciously attack me. As I watched in horror, I remembered Jesus just in time and just long enough to cry out to Him and St. Michael the Archangel to get rid of the demon for me… and they did.
Maybe, if my 13-year-old self had heard those words, “Hold onto Jesus,” my 21-year-old self would have remembered and learned from its mistakes. But despite my terrifying experience—which wouldn’t be the last of its kind—the thrill of the preternatural kept me going. Compared to the realm of magic, ordinary life just seemed so… ordinary. And so began my 30-plus-year career in the New Age community.
The word “career” is not entirely false because even though it was never my main job, there were times when I made money with my special knowledge: I worked as a professional Tarot reader, gave Reiki healing sessions and attunements, and facilitated Law of Attraction workshops. I got so skilled that my friends in Sedona started calling me the “manifestation queen.” I’d simply think of something, and it would happen… within weeks, sometimes days. Once, I was invited to teach people how to manifest at a spiritual conference in Myrtle Beach, working alongside famous New Age teachers like Jean Houston.
I still loved God and felt very close to Him, even though I could only see Him through the warped and tarnished mirror of New Age spirituality. I thought I’d find Him in channeled cult classics like A Course in Miracles and Conversations with God, oblivious to the truth that those were satanic mockeries of the real King of the Universe.
I thought He was this formless, all-knowing, all-accepting, non-judgmental love energy that appeared in different forms to different cultures—as the Great Spirit of the Native Americans, as the Buddhist goddess Tara, or as the Celtic gods and goddesses of Ireland. I thought it didn’t matter how you worshipped Him/Her/It, although I always felt most comfortable with the Father God of my childhood.
Once, when a couple of JW ladies in Sedona implored me to read the Bible to know God’s will for me, I smugly replied, “I already know God’s will for me… we play it by ear.”
What I didn’t notice was that in all my divine chumminess, Jesus Christ—the Son, the Savior, the Redeemer—fell more and more by the wayside. Ultimately, I felt I didn’t need Him since God and I were such good buddies. What a mistake. I thought I was so smart and yet fell head-first into Satan’s trap.
I didn’t completely abandon Jesus… at least not then. But I also didn’t pay all that much attention to Him—except at times when I was in danger and afraid and desperately needed saving. And yet, He came to my rescue, again and again and again.
When I said I didn’t abandon Him then… well, that came a few years later when my husband and I moved away from Sedona and, upon hearing of my spiritual adventures, two “loving” Christian ladies in New Jersey let me know in no uncertain terms that I was clearly in league with the devil. One of them handed me a pamphlet that said in large print, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
I was so shocked and hurt that I swore off Christianity altogether—which naturally included praying to Jesus Christ. For years after that incident, thinking of those Christians and their cruel accusations filled me with wordless rage.
But even though I’d given up on Him, He never gave up on me. Undeterred, He searched for me, the one lost sheep, asking me to come back to Him… until I finally did. Until I was, at last, ready to fully commit to Him. By that time, I was middle-aged, divorced, and already had a lifetime of fruitless searching behind me.
Maybe, if my 13-year-old self had heard those three little words—”Hold onto Jesus”—I wouldn’t have all my life looked for meaning and purpose where there was none to be found. Maybe I would have turned to my best friend in the world and let Him save me sooner.
At least, my sweet Jesus, I’m doing my best to make up for it now. I’m holding onto you and won’t let go. Thank you for everything. Love, Shannara.