The Letter I Am Still Writing
As Saturday rolls around and my week comes to a close at the Gold Coast University Hospital, I find myself thinking about something I have not been able to shake all week.
A letter.
Not just any letter.
A letter I wrote years ago to a younger version of myself.
At the end of my memoir Kissed by Death, I wrote a letter addressed to the boy I once was.
The boy who had no idea what was waiting for him.
The boy who would eventually find himself fighting for his life.
The boy who would carry wounds nobody else could see.
The boy who would spend years asking questions that seemed to have no answers.
The boy who often felt invisible.
The boy who did not yet know that he would survive.
For some reason, that letter has been sitting heavily on my heart lately.
Maybe it is because life has changed so much recently.
Maybe it is because I have been reflecting on where I have come from.
Maybe it is because some chapters have unexpectedly closed while new ones are opening.
Or maybe it is simply because age has a way of changing how we view our own story.
Whatever the reason, I keep finding myself thinking about that younger version of me.
Not the version people see in photographs.
The real version.
The version that existed behind closed doors.
The version carrying fears he never spoke about.
The version desperately trying to fit into a world that often felt confusing and painful.
When I wrote that letter in my memoir, I thought I understood what I wanted to say.
But the older I get, the more I realise there are things I would add.
Things I understand now that I could never have understood back then.
Things experience teaches that words alone cannot.
It is strange reflecting on your own life.
Because when you are living it, you rarely realise which moments will become important.
You rarely recognise the chapters that will shape you.
You certainly do not recognise the moments that will one day become stories.
You simply live them.
One day at a time.
One challenge at a time.
One disappointment at a time.
One victory at a time.
Only later do you look back and see the connections.
Only later do you begin recognising how God was working in places where you could not see Him.
I think about the little boy born with cranial atresia.
The little boy who would undergo operation after operation.
The little boy whose life began inside hospitals.
The little boy that felt like he was invisible.
If I could sit across from him now, what would I say?
Would I tell him life gets easier?
No.
Because that would not be a devastating lie.
Life does not necessarily get easier.
It gets deeper.
Would I tell him there will be no pain?
No.
Because that would not be true either.
Pain arrives in different forms throughout life.
Sometimes physical.
Sometimes emotional.
Sometimes spiritual.
Sometimes all three at once.
Would I tell him he will understand everything one day?
Again, no.
Because there are still questions I carry today.
There are still mysteries.
There are still moments that make no sense to me.
There are still chapters I cannot fully explain.
Some days hold more questions than answers.
But perhaps that is not the point.
Perhaps understanding everything was never the goal.
Perhaps becoming someone through it all was.
That is something I could never have understood as a child.
When we are young, we often think life is about arriving somewhere.
A destination.
A goal.
A finish line.
But the older I get, the more I realise life is largely about becoming.
Becoming more compassionate.
More patient.
More understanding.
More resilient.
More loving.
More aware of God.
More aware of other people.
More aware of how precious every day really is.
I think about the eighteen-year-old version of myself.
The young man lying in a hospital bed battling meningococcal disease.
The young man whose life hung in the balance
The young man who did not know whether he would survive.
That version of me could never have imagined this life.
That version of me could never have imagined the roads that I would eventually walk down.
Could never have imagined writing books.
Could never have imagined publishing.
Could never have imagined speaking openly about faith.
Could never have imagined standing where I stand today.
At the time, survival was enough.
Getting through the day was enough.
Breathing was enough.
And perhaps that is why I become emotional when I think about these things.
Because hindsight has a way of revealing miracles we missed while they were happening.
We often imagine miracles as dramatic moments.
Lightning from heaven.
Instant answers.
Spectacular interventions.
Sometimes they are.
But often they are quieter.
A miracle can be surviving.
A miracle can be healing.
A miracle can be remaining standing when everything inside you wants to collapse.
A miracle can be simply continuing.
I think about addiction.
There was a season where addiction felt stronger than me.
A season where shame seemed impossible to escape.
A season where I genuinely questioned whether freedom was possible.
If I could sit across from that version of myself now, I would not lecture him.
I would not condemn him.
I would not shame him.
Life had already done enough of that.
Instead, I think I would simply sit beside him.
I would tell him to keep going.
I would tell him that failure is not final.
I would tell him that freedom arrives one day at a time.
I would tell him that the story is not over.
I would tell him that he is seen.
Most importantly, I would tell him that God has not abandoned him.
Because that was the lie I believed for far too long.
Not intellectually.
Spiritually.
Emotionally.
Deep down.
I knew the theology.
I knew the verses.
I knew the sermons.
But knowing something and believing it are not always the same thing.
And if I am honest, there were years where I wondered where God was.
Years where His silence felt louder than His voice.
Years where disappointment felt easier to see than faithfulness.
Years where questions multiplied faster than answers.
Yet somehow He remained.
Looking back now, I can see that.
I can see Him in places I completely missed at the time.
The friendships He provided.
The opportunities He opened.
The protection I never noticed.
The guidance I could only recognise years later.
It reminds me of something I have been thinking about recently.
We often evaluate God's faithfulness based on our current circumstances.
If things are going well, we see His faithfulness.
If things are difficult, we question it.
But perhaps His faithfulness was never dependent upon our circumstances in the first place.
Perhaps it exists independently of them.
Perhaps it remains constant whether we recognise it or not.
That thought has brought me comfort recently.
Especially over the last few weeks.
Because life has felt uncertain.
Bible college ended unexpectedly.
Questions remain unanswered.
The future feels less predictable than it did not long ago.
And if I am completely honest, there are moments where that frustrates me.
I like plans.
I like clarity.
I like understanding where I am heading.
I like seeing the blueprint.
God rarely seems interested in giving me the blueprint.
Instead, He gives me the next step.
Just the next step.
And sometimes I wish He would give me more.
Yet looking back over my life, perhaps that has always been enough.
One step led to another.
One chapter led to another.
One season led to another.
Not because I understood the destination.
Because I kept moving.
Because God kept leading.
Because somehow grace kept showing up.
The strange thing about writing a memoir is that it forces you to revisit your own life.
You spend months sitting inside memories.
Months revisiting old pain.
Months reflecting on chapters you thought were finished.
It can be exhausting.
It can be heartbreaking and traumatic.
It can also be healing.
Because sometimes we do not truly understand our own story until we write it down.
That happened to me.
Kissed by Death taught me things about my own life.
Not because the facts changed.
Because perspective did.
Writing the memoir forced me to step back and view my story as a whole.
It forced me to sit with things that for years I had buried them in the sands of time.
And what I discovered surprised me.
The dominant theme was not suffering.
It was survival.
Not trauma.
Not suffering.
Not death.
Life.
Not my strength.
God's faithfulness.
That perspective changed everything.
Because for years I defined myself by what happened to me.
The surgeries.
The illness.
The addiction.
The heartbreak.
The disappointments.
The losses and failures.
Those things were real.
They mattered.
But they were never the entire story.
They were chapters.
Not the book.
That distinction matters.
Because many people spend their lives trapped inside old chapters.
Unable to move forward because they continue reading the same pages over and over again.
I understand that temptation.
I really do.
Some memories are difficult to release.
Some wounds take years to heal.
Some losses stay with us forever.
But life keeps moving.
And eventually we have to decide whether we will remain inside old chapters or continue writing new ones.
That is something I have been learning again recently.
New chapters rarely arrive the way we expect.
Sometimes they arrive through opportunity.
Sometimes through necessity.
Sometimes through loss.
Sometimes through disappointment and heartbreak.
Sometimes through doors closing.
Yet they arrive all the same.
A month ago I was beginning my journey with Queensland Health.
Today it already feels familiar.
Strange how quickly life changes.
A few weeks ago I was still imagining Bible college as part of my future.
Now that chapter has ended.
Life changes quickly.
Faster than we expect.
Faster than we often like.
But perhaps that is why gratitude matters.
Because gratitude forces us to notice what remains.
Faith remains.
Hope remains.
Purpose remains.
God remains.
Even when circumstances change.
Even when plans collapse.
Even when answers refuse to arrive.
Even when we feel lost.
He remains.
And maybe that is what I would tell every younger version of myself if given the opportunity.
Not that life will be easy.
Not that suffering will disappear.
Not that every dream will unfold exactly as planned.
I would tell him something simpler.
I would tell him God remains.
Through every surgery.
Every heartbreak.
Every failure.
Every addiction.
Every recovery.
Every disappointment.
Every success.
Every beginning.
Every ending and closed chapter.
Every season.
God remains.
As I sit here waiting for my weekend to startI find myself grateful for that truth.
Not because I have everything figured out.
I do not far from it.
Not because all my questions have been answered.
They have not.
Not because life suddenly makes perfect sense.
It does not.
But because I have lived long enough to recognise a pattern.
A pattern of grace.
A pattern of faithfulness.
A pattern of God carrying me through seasons I was certain would break me.
And perhaps that is why the letter at the end of my memoir still matters to me.
Because in many ways, I am still writing it.
Life keeps adding paragraphs.
New experiences.
New lessons.
New chapters.
New perspectives and positive mindsets.
The conversation between who I was and who I am continues.
And maybe it always will.
Perhaps that is part of growing older.
Learning to view your younger self with compassion.
Learning to appreciate how far you have come.
Learning to forgive mistakes.
Learning to honour the battles nobody else saw.
Learning to recognise that survival itself is often an achievement.
Most of all, learning that God was present long before you realised it.
If I could write one final sentence to the younger version of myself tonight, it might simply be this:
You do not know it yet, but the chapters that feel like they will destroy you will eventually become the chapters that teach you who God is.
And one day, many years from now, you will sit quietly at the end of a hospital shift, reflecting on a life that has been messy, painful, beautiful, complicated, and redeemed.
And despite everything that happened, you will still be here.
Still writing and publishing.
Still believing and dreaming.
Still learning.
Still growing.
Still grateful.
And perhaps that is miracle enough.
About the Author
Dylan Verdun Sullivan is the founder of Refined by Fire Press and an Australian author indexed in the National Library of Australia. As a Level 7 Local Guide with over 3.9 million views on Google Maps, he documents the intersection of faith, recovery, and the light found in ordinary places.
- Read the Memoir: Kissed by Death on Amazon
- Explore the Journey: Follow Dylan on Google Maps
- Connect on Instagram: @porkysparadise
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