Dear Younger Me
Wisdom for life, faith, and church ministry that I wish I had received in my 20's.
Welcome to Letters From Heidi, a refuge for truth seekers, deep-feelers, and the homesick searching for Eternity.
I am Heidi, an Asian-Australian woman who writes at the intersection of life, faith, pop culture, and the immigrant family experience. Subscribe to never miss a post.
Dear Reader,
This month I penned an open letter to Younger Me—words of truth and encouragement that I wish I had received in my 20’s from someone more experienced in life, faith, and church ministry. These words are for the overly optimistic version of my former self—the Heidi preparing to move interstate, build a new home, church-plant, navigate the role of a pastor’s wife, and face challenges that would test my faith in God’s goodness. For anyone navigating life transitions and the ups and downs of ministry life, I pray this letter give you hope and helps you feel seen.
Dear Younger Me,
You must be feeling both excited and apprehensive for your big move interstate to church plant with Mikey. Youthful optimism has pushed you both into the deep end in ways that others have described as ‘crazy’ and ‘courageous’, but deep down I know you’re feeling a little nervous for the road ahead. After all, you’re just a 25-year-old, newly married, Bible College graduate. What would Little You know about starting a church, modelling the faith, and being a pastor’s wife?
On a personal note, you are also grieving the reality of leaving loved ones behind—unbelieving family members, your church family, ageing parents, workmates, and friendships spanning decades. You promise to keep in touch, but you know that time and distance will inevitably chip away at intimacy. Things can’t stay the same. It’s a part of life—to regret not being more present for the ‘good old days’, to grow apart, to say goodbye.
Youthful optimism has brought you this far, but this spiritual high you currently feel will wax and wane in the course of your life and ministry. I share this not to squash your enthusiasm, but to remind you that good vibes cannot be the fuel for your ministry. After all, when momentum slows and the work becomes difficult, what will be your motivation to persevere? When following Jesus and serving the church no longer feels good, to who or where will you turn to for joy and hope?
To serve the gospel in any capacity is an immense privilege, but we must not forget that we walk in the footsteps of a King who laid down his life to serve. This means to do His work will at times, come at a cost. As a disciple and pastor’s wife, you will face seasons of highs and lows; joy and heartbreak, but one thing will remain the same: our Big God’s faithfulness to Little You.
Very soon, you will wave a final goodbye to the decaying, lopsided building that became your first home in marriage. To everyone else, it is a collapsing, dated duplex, but I know that for you, it stands as a symbol of God’s good and kind provision. You didn’t have much when you first got married. Your husband was still studying at Sydney Missionary Bible College, so you carried the household’s finances in one of the world’s most expensive cities.
In your second year of marriage, Mikey encouraged you to quit your job to study theology with him—a decision which left you guys pinching at savings and giving up career goals—but one that emboldened your faith, and would enable the next decade of ministry, teaching, writing and discipleship. People will ask how you and Mikey made such risky financial decisions for full-time ministry—were you simply young and dumb, or at a stage in life where you were so in awe of the gospel, that nothing felt like a risk or sacrifice?
The truth is, the time will come when life and ministry challenges will chip away at your awe. You’ll even question the choices you made, and whether church planting was worth the sacrifice. But I can assure you, that those early years of ‘high-risk’ ministry decisions was growing your resilience and training you to walk with child-like faith.
Like a muscle, faith grows with regular stretching and training - when we persevere with making small and intentional steps to trust God beyond our comfort zones. When we pray for greater faith, don’t expect God to simply zap it into us. Instead, expect to be given opportunities to exercise faith and trust, so that we can experience God’s promises of grace and provision.
I have found that many first-world Christians question God’s presence and struggle to experience Him in the day-to-day. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s because our lives are so planned and risk adverse—that in our striving for security and self-sufficiency; comfort and control, we don’t ever want to be in situations where we need to live by faith? Jesus teaches us to pray in faith for daily bread, but is this truly something we need to do if our banks and bellies are more than full? Will our faith muscle ever grow, if in our planning and risk management, we refuse to give God an inch of room to move?
Yes, our God can move mountains, but more often than not, He will choose instead to give us the strength and patience to climb. Don’t be discouraged. In a low-commitment generation of instant gratification and quick fixes, your persevering faith speaks a greater miracle—that even if life doesn’t always make sense or go to plan, you have found peace, security, joy and hope in Christ and not your circumstances.
Heidi, I know you have big dreams for the church plant and what it should become. You envision a multicultural church that will reach the next generation of believers in Brisbane and beyond. You picture a modern and high-tech venue housing multiple ministries and outreach programs. You are committed to doing whatever it takes to grow the church, and to prove yourself capable and competent despite your young age.
You and Mikey have big plans, but the reality is, the church plant will be born out of faith. Very shortly, you will feel the weight of inability, because ministry success and personal glory is far from what God has planned for your life. Your lack of ministry experience will be paired with a lack of resources. You will move to Brisbane with no money, no church building, and no clue as to where you will find people to join you in your ‘crazy’ adventure. Despite your eloquent recruitment efforts, God will give you a small but faithful team of ten people to launch the church in a living room. You will face scepticism and even hostility from people who question your church’s intentions and abilities.
Leadership is a privilege but it is lonely. There will be seasons where you’ll find yourself surrounded by people, but feeling alone. You will attend to every emergency, but won’t always know who to turn to when you face problems of your own. You will face many more goodbyes, as God sends friends and confidants to serve elsewhere. You will grieve when loved ones walk away from the faith. Being in the public eye will make you ‘known’ through gossip and rumours, which of course, is not being known at all. As the pastor’s wife, there will be days where you will simultaneously feel like a leader and a nobody; a stranger and a friend.
But remember what you learned over and over at Bible College: the greatest gift you can give to your church is your personal holiness. As a church leader and pastor’s wife, your character is more important than your competency. Over the next ten years, God will allow circumstances that make you feel little and lonely so that you will grow in godliness. Ministry has a way of revealing and toppling earthly idols, a painful but necessary process that will lead you to the ‘secret of contentment’—a confidence and trust in nothing but Christ alone (Philippians 4:11-13).
Know that God loves you enough to allow for circumstances that will break the cycle of pride, self-sufficiency, and your need for human validation. He cares enough to stop you from believing that you have to carry the weight of the world in your feeble hands. As a daughter saved by grace, you have nothing to earn or prove. God desires your heart, so that what motivates you in ministry isn’t stubborn grit or youthful optimism, but a steadfast and unwavering trust that enables you to “be still” before a God of Providence.
Be still, for God will put you in touch with strangers who will launch the church with you. Be still, for God will provide you with new friends and family in a new city. Be still, for the finances will come, buildings made available, hearts changed and converted, and the church will grow. I won’t share any church stats and attendance numbers because in the end, your faithfulness to God’s calling is the only ‘success’ that matters.
Finally, I want to remind you that though you have been called to care for the flock, you are incapable of being anyone’s saviour - and that’s okay! Ministry will force you to face your flaws and limits. You will experience grief, anxiety, and compassion fatigue. You will face unexpected health problems and a long road of unexplained infertility. You will fail because you are human. You will have to wrestle with a faith crisis. All of this is ok, because it is precisely in your inability that God’s power and promises is magnified.
Remember: “He must increase, I must decrease.” (John 3:30) You don’t have the power to solve everyone’s problems, but you can point them to the One of infinite knowledge and wisdom (Isaiah 40:12-14). You can’t physically be available for everyone 24/7, but in prayer, you can entrust them to the One who is always present by His spirit (Psalm 139:7). You will never satisfy people’s longings for friendship, security, hope and salvation, but you can continue preaching the gospel, and reminding them of the One who can.
Don’t give up on praying for personal holiness for the days and years ahead:
Pray that you will never be broken by inability and that every challenge and disappointment will only grow you in humility, faith, and dependence.
Pray that your awe of God’s providence will only increase with time, so that you will become the type of leader who boasts in Christ’s power alone.
Pray that you will never grow weary of doing good, and that our Saviour’s “well done” will be sufficient in times of loneliness and discouragement.
Pray that you can maintain a child-like faith that’s unafraid of risk and rejection, so that you never lose sight of the fact that your daily bread has come from the Father’s hand.
Serving the gospel can sometimes leave us feeling bruised and battered. We start off sprinting with zeal, only to one day find ourselves limping towards the finish line. But remember, there will be a Day when everything you have ever worked and sacrificed for will make perfect sense. In Eternity, there will be no room for regret.
No matter how you feel right now, fix your eyes on the promises of Eternity. There will be a Day where you will be reunited with our good and loving Father - with a new mind, heart, and body free from grief, pain, and goodbyes. On that Day, you will know with full certainty, that it was all worth it. Today, as you step into the unknown, my prayer is that you never lose sight of our Big God’s faithfulness to Little You.
Blessings,
Heidi
13.10.24
What is one piece of wisdom you would give to Younger You?
Reply to this email or continue the discussion in the comments below.
Providence Church Brisbane Update - 9.5 Years // Then & Now
These retro walls have been home to so many milestones and memories for our church family, but we’ve outgrown the space and it’s time to say goodbye! After a long and arduous search for a new venue (and facing many rejections), God has once again provided for us a new home when things were looking ‘impossible’. Here’s to the next chapter of Providence Church Brisbane as we continue to trust in God’s leading.
Warm & Fuzzies
Thank you (& Ed) and (& Grace) for being long-term patrons of my words and now Founding Members of Letters From Heidi. My heart is so grateful! Thank you also to (SGHS ‘06 represent!!) and for recommending my work on Substack.
Support Letters From Heidi
Letters From Heidi is a reader supported publication. Here’s 3 ways you can enable me to continue writing and to keep this publication free to access:
1) Clicking the ♥️ button and leaving a comment to help more people see this post!
2) Subscribe for free to receive all my posts in your inbox (this reduces the time I have to spend on promoting my work).
3) Upgrade to a paid subscription ($5AUD/month, $50AUD/year, or $80AUD+/year as a Founding Member) to support the ongoing costs of writing. Paid subscribers get full access to all my work and will receive first-access to all published book projects.
Missed A Post?
Catch up on the archives here!
Enjoyed reading this. If I could have told my younger self anything, it would have boiled down to, "you have no idea how hard it will be. And you'd be scared if you knew. But you'll be a different person by then."
I am so grateful for your words of wisdom, dear Heidi. They are so timely for me as a young lady in a season of transition. 🙏🏾