ymoore4health

Today (March 30, 2024) is my 70th birthday!! I praise God not only for longevity but for the good health I am blessed to have. To celebrate this milestone, I am publishing an excerpt from my soon to be released autobiographical book of devotional readings, Giving Birth To Hope. It is a letter to my 14 year old self and I pray that it will convey the hope we can all have in a relationship with God.

Dear Yvonne,

I saw you at Bellevue Jr High a couple of times this week. The first time I saw one of your friends walk up to you and give you a hug while calling you “Charmin” because you are so squeezably soft. You laughed it off but I could tell it hurt your feelings. The second time I saw you bluff your way out of a confrontation with the tough girl in your class by telling her that all you had to do was to sit on her to shut her up so she really didn’t want to mess with you. I saw you repeatedly use self-deprecating humor to mask your unhappiness. You may be one of the smartest girls in the class but you only see yourself as the fat girl who had to special order gym clothes because they did not come in your size. I want you to know that in the future you will lose the weight and no longer be defined by your size. Believe it or not there will be a time in your life when you will come to love exercise and healthy eating and will help others to become their healthiest selves.

You will be chosen to work on the junior high school newspaper and you will fall in love with writing. You will decide to become a writer/journalist. That ambition would have to wait because you will not be chosen for the high school newspaper staff. You will be very disappointed but God has a different plan for your life.

You will be accepted at Washington University in St. Louis where you will go with the intent to become a physical therapist. You will forever be an avid sports fan, especially of your beloved St. Louis Cardinals. You will actually get to go see them play in the World Series, not once but twice!

Having been a good little church girl your entire life, you will use your freedom in college to try to become a bad girl. You will do a lot of things you will live to regret. You will experience a lot of guilt during those times but you will also have a lot of fun.

God’s plan for your life will take you to medical school instead of physical therapy school and into a career as an ObGyn physician. You will deliver hundreds of babies and perform hundreds of operations over a career that will span over 40 years.

I know you think you don’t want kids but you will get married after residency and later give birth to a wonderful daughter and son and you will LOVE being a mom. Because of their father’s job you will travel to many places including England, France and the Netherlands. Your marriage will end after 15 years and you will be devastated but you will survive. You, like many others in a crisis, will find your way back to the close relationship with God that you had abandoned in college. It will be the strength that you draw from God that will sustain you during your season as a divorced single parent.

Even though you will be determined to never get married again, marry you will. Your last marriage will be to a restaurant owner who also happens to be a minister. You will bond over loving God, studying scripture and a mutual love for sports and for travel. You will find a wonderful church to serve in. The people there will become like family to you. You will see each other through unspeakable tragedies and loss which will only make you closer. You will attend multiple sporting events, including those two World Series, an NBA Finals game and a Super Bowl. You will be supportive of his golf addiction and he will travel with you to most of your races as you chase the goal of completing a half marathon in every state. No, seriously, I know it is hard for your little chubby self to believe it but you really will accomplish this but you won’t even get started down that path until well into your 50’s. You will prove to many that it is never too late.

Even though your parents chose to let Ma Dear raise you, you will make your peace and grow to love them in spite of the resentment you feel right now. You will be able to help all three of them navigate the illnesses they experience at the end of their lives and will be blessed by doing so.

Like all of the women in your family, you will ultimately become a widow but not before experiencing the joy of a Godly marriage. In the midst of your grief you will make the most of your season of widowhood by continuing to practice medicine part time into your seventies and you will continue to do races, travel, attend concerts and sporting events and to serve the Lord by serving others. You are even going to finally become the writer you always dreamed of being, first as a blogger and then as a published author!

I am sure that what I am telling you seems impossible to you. Even if you don’t believe me, the one thing that I want you to know is that your life will prove that “with God all things are possible.”

Be Blessed,
Yvonne Moore

“Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit.”
‭‭3 John‬ ‭1:2‬ ‭NLT‬‬