There’s a song on the radio by MercyMe called “Dear Younger Me” (here’s the link to the official YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l70C3ePyIQ). The first verse goes like this:

Dear younger me
Where do I start
If I could tell you everything that I have learned so far
Then you could be
One step ahead
Of all the painful memories still running thru my head
I wonder how much different things would be
Dear younger me,

Everytime I hear it on the radio, I want to tell Little Me, Catherine Belinda, a number of things that she needed to hear back then when she and the rest of my alters were being so savagely abused by Harry, and my mother, and the people in the cult.

I want to tell her not to give up, because she’s not alone. Even though she feels alone, she’s not. God is with her every second of every day. There is hope.

Harry didn’t steal all your hope, Catherine Belinda. It just felt like he did. As long as God is with you, you have hope.

Harry told her that he had to abuse her because God hated her, but that’s not true! That’s a lie! God doesn’t hate her. In fact, quite the opposite is true. God loves her.

God LOVES you, Catherine Belinda!! God loves you so much that Jesus died on the cross for you!

Harry also told her that she was as ugly as if someone had thrown acid in her face. That’s also a lie. God is bigger and more powerful and smarter than Harry ever thought of being, and God thinks she’s beautiful.

God thinks you’re beautiful, Catherine Belinda! And if God thinks you’re beautiful, then you MUST be beautiful, because God created you, and God doesn’t make ugly things.

Harry told you all those lies because that’s how he felt about himself, Catherine Belinda, and he wanted you to feel as bad as he did, so he projected his bad feelings about himself onto you. But remember what I said, Catherine Belinda. Everything he told you was a lie. Everything. Was. A. LIE!! God doesn’t hate you, He loves you. You aren’t alone, because God is with you, so you have hope. And you aren’t ugly. You’re beautiful, because God made you and He doesn’t made ugly things, and He thinks you’re beautiful!

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t be impressed by his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. God does not view things the way men do. People look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” ~ 1 Samuel 16:7, NET.

So, Catherine Belinda, what that verse is saying is that you have a beautiful heart, and that’s the most important part of all. I would rather have a beautiful heart than a beautiful face any time. God created us in His image and after His likeness, and since God doesn’t have a human form, but rather is a Spirit, I believe He created us in the image and after the likeness of His heart, or His spirit.

For God is Spirit, so those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. ~ John 4:24, NLT.

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ~ Genesis 1:26-27, NLT.

The last thing I want to say to Catherine Belinda has to do with the lying we had to do throughout our childhood because Harry forced us to do so, but that will be the subject of my next post, Younger Me Gets Wiser, Part 2. I’m going to publish both posts at the same time, so please be sure to read both of them, my faithful followers!