This piece is motivated by the article "13 Reasons Your Life Matters" by Grace Valentine of Baylor University. (Grace, reading your content helps me further realize the importance of rooting myself in my faith. I love the disciple of Christ that you are and still growing to become. Thank you for your B-U-tiful reminders! - Pun intended).

I thought about committing suicide at this time of my life last year, but with the help of people, and hobbies, listed below, I chose not to go in that direction and I am happy to sit down and write this article for everyone to read.

I love Grace's article of why your life matters especially since it allows me to look at my own life and put a positive spin on it. Without further ado, here are 13 Reasons Why I Am Alive.

1. College Football

During the fall, college football season is in, and it's always an intense race to be part of the playoff four. It's such a joy to watch, especially when the best teams play on national television.

2. Food

I am privileged to share great meals with my family and friends, and I also am privileged to cook for myself whenever the time requires it.

3. Puns, Puns, and More Puns

I want to see others laugh and enjoy themselves, and one of the ways I do this is by telling them puns. It's always better when they are devised on the spot. I love to laugh at them too and laughing is contagious.

4. Nature

Isn't nature beautiful? Especially when it's a calm winter day and walking through the snow wearing a furry coat or a beautiful summer day hiking through the woods, there's a lot to experience and I love to go for walks outside. Also, who doesn't like animals? God created a lovely world!

5. Education

School isn't something that everybody gets to go through, and I have learned a big quality from going to school. It's called work ethic.

6. Family

My family talked me out of committing suicide. I know that they would miss me if I had chosen to die. My mom didn't abort me or my sister when she was pregnant. My father is a great dad who helped me grow up. My mother is a great mom who helped me grow up too. They helped me get through struggles. They held me accountable. They gave me rides to and from school and extracurricular functions. They did activities with me. They stayed poised when I didn't. They told me that they are proud of me. My family is important to me.

7. Growth

If I wasn't alive, I wouldn't be able to make mistakes and learn from them and enable myself to change positively, and I would not be able to ask God to save me from my sin. Growth is learning from mistakes and doing things better the next time, and having fewer and fewer mistakes along the way. I wouldn't be able to express emotions and understand what they mean. Without growth, I wouldn't become a better man and I certainly wouldn't become a better follower of Christ.

8. Music

I grew up playing the piano and the violin, and I play them in worship for H2O Church at BGSU. I really enjoy it too. Taking my own life would have deprived my church of the opportunity to hear elegant sounds from a string and bow or from tickling the ivory. Also, it would have prevented me from being able to appreciate the beauty of music, musical sound, hearing people sing, and hearing various drums, percussion instruments, and rhythms.

9. Health and Fitness

If suicide was what I followed through on, I would no longer be able to get up and work out. It means very much to me to be able to work out and become healthier. I love to be active and to do things like running, swimming, rock climbing, playing football, volleyball, or soccer, and even going bowling, kayaking, or boating. It would be really special to do that for myself, even if I was doing it alone.

10. Friendship

Two reasons I thought about committing suicide were because of loneliness and jealousy. I felt that I was being left out of doing certain activities (i.e. hanging out, having deep conversations) with people that I spend time around at school (specifically church, since I didn't have a single common class with any other churchgoer). Choosing not to commit suicide opened the door for me to build new friendships but move on from outdated and toxic ones. I can enjoy things with them and be myself. It's still a work in progress for me to understand who is a real friend and who is not, but I'm still able to be friends with people since I'm alive to befriend them.

11. Love and Self-Love

Jesus is Love, right? Yes! But in addition, there is human love that is given because we strive to love like He did. If I committed suicide, I would have prevented other people from being able to love me. I would have closed myself off from Jesus too, and because Jesus is Love, I would have closed myself off from love altogether. If I had followed through on my plan to take my own life at the time, I would have put a deep physical cut wound in either my stomach or my thigh, and that is the complete opposite of self-love. I was also depriving myself of self-love when I punched walls and doors out of frustration for things that I can't control. In Grace's article (13 Reasons Your Life Matters), she reminds the reader that "You Matter". It told me the following: I matter to myself. I matter to other people. I matter to God. I can serve God in a bunch of great ways. Especially living out of love.

12. Internship and Full-time Job Opportunities

A third reason I thought about committing suicide was because I wasn't working yet. I was looking for a full-time job since I wanted to feel competent by being able to live on my own without having to depend on others. I wasn't ready at the time, but I still have the opportunity to be ready. I attended an event at my internship on Friday where one of the speakers said, "It's better to be prepared and not have an opportunity than to have an opportunity and not be prepared for it." True words! I'm truly blessed to be in my current internship and I'm really happy to work with my current team and excited to make the most of the opportunity that I currently have. I know that I will get more in the future but every opportunity also awards me the opportunity to prove myself as the obvious choice. God made me one.

13. I Was Put First by God

As mentioned above, God made me an obvious choice. As Valentine describes the reasons in her article, a handful of them stand out, especially the "You are unique" and "You live in a dark world and you have the opportunity to be a light", and even "You are not God". I have my set of gifts, doing data analytics, studying applied statistics, being able to play musical instruments and I love college football. God made me in that variety. In some of my experiences above, I tried to write the story of me instead of letting God do that. I appreciate the story that's been written about me now, but God's writing the next chapter now while He hears my calls and prayers.

These are 13 of the many reasons why, but as you can see, I noticed that there's so much to live for. Christ already died for all of us, He put us first, and he's blessed us with great gifts.

Christ laid his life down for us so we could live our lives to glorify Him. God is writing our future chapters, and He's available for us to talk to and pray to Him, and ask for what we want Him to write in our respective chapters.

I had the fortune of being able to talk to close ones about how I was feeling and I want to be available for anybody who is experiencing these thoughts or feelings and especially for them to feel free to reach out to me. God bless!