Letter To An Author

Letter to the authors of Rachel's Tears describing how this book changed my life. Please give me a lot of feedback- I am entering it in a national contest in a couple weeks.

Dear Beth Nimmo and Darrell Scott,

"Among the diverse is a identical quality
Behind the faces is indistinct frivolity
Plainly, humans throughout the ages
Have made for themselves various little cages
In which they determine who they truly are
While from the outside they desire to appear bizarre
Another metaphor is these actions become vizards
Which block insecurity while acting as wizards
Changing themselves to please the envied man.”

This section of my poem called “Behind the Masks” describes the lives of many young people I see. These masses of young men and women possess the identical quality of focus. These kids are focused, but they are focused on themselves - how they look and compare to others. Such children literally embody the term “shallow”, for their whole world is to them a boundless ocean, but in reality their small selfish world has the depth of a puddle. Yet in the midst of all such young kids, your daughter, Rachel, was different. She was focused, yet she was self-sacrificing. She found the focus that reached outside of her self and took hold of the real world. Rachel was confronted with all the same situations as the rest of these “normal” teenagers, but she looked beyond her own desires and wishes to find her identity. Her purpose was to see the world as it is, dark and incomplete, and bring the glorious light of Jesus to it. Like Rachel, I am a young and passionate Christian, but what encouraged me as I read Rachel’s Tears was her consistent mentality of service for Christ - thinking how all things can be used for God’s kingdom. Rachel’s life of servitude toward family, friend and stranger was such an invigorating picture of a successful life in God. The example she set constantly reminds me of the endurance and charity all Christians should have. Her specific experiences as a teenager are especially relevant to my life because we have similar strengths, faith and joy, and similar weaknesses, confusion and timidity. Overall, the connection I sense with Rachel is in her steadfast commitment to God - even in all of her mistakes and flaws her writings and prayers proved the perseverance of a true saint. Not only did your book encourage me greatly in my walk with Christ, but it also opened my eyes to my daily responsibility to live for Him to the best of my ability. Through your account of Rachel’s life my spiritual understanding of the simplicity and complexity of a life in God soared to greater heights. Her strong attitude of conquering each day, accepting her weaknesses, but going past them to reach the goal of preserving God’s truth and love greatly impacted and inspired me. It astonished me how much meaning and passion Rachel found in God in her very short life. Yet her profound spiritual knowledge in such a short life revealed just how great my relationship with God may become if I strive to be set free from my selfish world and completely give my life spiritually, mentally, and even physically, as Rachel did, as a sacrifice to God and others. Rachel lived out a Christ-like life, but in her death she lived up to what she set forth as her meaning and identity in life. She died for the living faith she had inside her, the Spirit abiding in her. Her life in God and her core beliefs cost her her life, yet through Jesus Christ she overcame death and it was swallowed up in victory. Through her life of love and hope and her death of faith , she impacted the whole world around her, just as Jesus did. She fulfilled the definition of true success, for she lived in and died for Christ, and because of that she is my hero. Rachel left a legacy to all focused young people, inspiring them to really and truly find Focus. Her story compels me to never lose a passionate life for God and to always know that in the midst of many shallow people my identity is found beyond my world in the reality of God’s purpose.