Dear Tracey

Dear Tracey,

      Hi. When you’re reading this again, you’ve hopefully finished Grade 8 already. You have had joy, tears, happiness and fear in the past 300 days.

I wish you will try your best on everything. Your sister always says to try something three times before giving up. You should be like that. Do not give up easily because things can turn out great if you have faith and courage. However, even if things don’t turn out as you wished, you just got to try harder next time because there will always be opportunities for you.

      Tracey, do not be proud when you have done something better than the others. You should always tell yourself the glory is of the Father’s. If the Father in the heavens never helped you, you would have achieved nothing. To the contrary, you need to glorify the Father.

      You need to set a goal. It can be a short-term goal or a long-term goal. Or maybe you should set several goals. When you read this again after finishing Grade 8, you should compare yourself in Grade 8 with yourself in Grade 7.

Do you think you should use your free time properly? I know you’ll have a lot of free time, but that free time is for you to use properly. If you’re a bad student, you will be playing video games, watching movies whenever you’re ‘off-leashed’. However, I know you good enough that you will never do that. If you’re an average, you will finish your homework before doing anything else. However, if you’re a good student, you will study hard, concentrate on school work, read books, prepare for exams and only be on Facebook on the weekends. You want to be an average-good student, don’t you? Then you got to put in your effort. Efforts lead to results.

      Tracey, I know you have always been a little addicted to Facebook, but will you try controlling yourself to stay away from it as much as possible? I know Facebook is harmless, but it is very meaningless as well. Facebook is just a waste of time. You don’t want to waste your precious time, technically your life, in some kind of a ‘fake’ world right? You had opportunities at school to chat with your friends, right? You had chances to share your thoughts in class right? Facebook is just so unreal and pointless. I know you knew that very well, but it is just so hard to get rid of it completely from your head right? So you should consider putting it into your ‘goal list’, or make yourself a schedule and stick with that schedule.

      You need to sleep early. You always waste your time in front of the mirror before going to bed. That’s what girls do right? And I also know you get hyper before going to bed. Yeah, I totally understand that. You can be so exhausted in the day. However, when you get into your bathroom, you’re the sleeping beauty finally waking up ---- you become wide awake. It might be because of the really bright lights or something that gets you all excited… I don’t know… but anyway, my point is, you need to sleep. Get ready quickly and go to bed already. You’re growing right now and you need very good sleep. So, if you want to grow tall and pretty, like you have always wanted to, you need to get rid of your habit of doing your hair and stuff in front of the mirror before bed. Also, I don’t see the point of that because it’ll be all gone when you wake up anyway.

      Dear Tracey, you have to love the Lord. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Pray to Him when you have troubles. Sing His hymns when you’re upset. Read His words when you feel empty. You should go to the young people meeting and the Lord’s Day meeting every week so that you may gain Him and receive His life.

      Well, Tracey, this will be a hard year, but you will have a lot of fun as you grow up. So, please keep it up, and do your best. May the Lord be with me throughout this year. Amen. J

Love, Tracey