“You are so strong.”

“You’re stronger than you know.”

“You have all the strength in the world.”

Words you hear but mean nothing in the moment. In the moment you feel as if the entire weight of the world has buried you. All of your strength, gone, because a piece of you is gone. The day a piece of you goes to heaven, you lose all hope. You lose all faith. You lose all courage. Above all, you lose all strength.

Strength is the unrevealed motive that controls every moment of every day. Strength gives you courage, hope, and faith. Without it, you have nothing. The loss of my boyfriend destroyed me. My strength was nowhere in sight. I could not leave bed, I could not go to school, I could not go to church, and I found it hard to show my face to family and friends because I did not want them to see my pain.

My loss kept me boxed up for months. I wore the same clothing, ate the same food, prayed the same prayer over and over and over again. I was convinced that I had no use in this world because the one thing I accomplished every day could no longer be done. I was no longer able to make my best friend smile and my smile was stripped away from me. I wore a fake smile day in and day out.

I felt weak. Weak because my life had turned into a lie. I lied about my feelings. I lied every time I smiled, and I lied about the heartache I had been feeling.

I felt weak because I cried, because I needed help. I needed to be surrounded by the love my family and friends supplied and that made me feel like a burden on my loved ones. More than anything, I felt weak because I lost my faith.

I questioned what God was doing. I wondered why he would want me to go through this hell.

THIS DID NOT MAKE ME WEAK.

I realize now, that I got out of bed every single day. I got dressed, I went to class, and I managed to study and spend time with the people I love most. I was able to do all of this because of one thing:

I FOUND MY STRENGTH.

I never realized that my strength had never actually gone anywhere. I just stored it in the bottom of my heart beneath all of the pain and heartache I felt. It took time, but the strength in my heart soon became stronger than the pain and heartache I felt.

My real smile slowly returned and I was able to laugh again. I was no longer ashamed to show my face in public, and I learned to brush off the reoccurring question of “How are you doing?”

Most importantly, I found the strength to find my faith. I trust God has my back and has given me more than I could ever thank him for. He gave me strength. He raised me up and I was able to come out a devastating patch in life even stronger than I was before.

STRENGTH IS FOUND WITHIN YOUR HEART, TRUST IT. GOD PUT IT THERE FOR A REASON.

People will compliment your strength. You may not believe them or realize it at the time. It may just be words that come in one ear and out the other. You will realize your own strength when the time is right because “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging,” Psalm 46:1-3.