I remember the day like it was yesterday.

I walked up the cold rainy stairs and into the dark, and even colder hallway that I had come to know so well. I was back for another appointment with the doctor. My symptoms had gotten worse and had landed me in the ER the weekend before.

After another scare and spending my Friday night in the ER, I was turned away with the words, "We couldn't find anything. We think you may have anxiety. Follow up with your primary care physician next week." I knew that I had been stressed. Who wouldn't be after breaking off an engagement, moving to a big city, starting a new job, living a new life? I also knew that I was an internalizer and that rarely worked in my favor, but I wasn't convinced that that's what was happening to my body.

So there I was, back in the waiting room and back in the waiting game. As I sat there, the panic started sinking in. I heard my named called and followed the nurse back. The doctor looked over test results from the hospital and handed me a sheet that I had filled out a few months prior. She looked over my answers and told me very bluntly, "You are suffering from what I believe is anxiety and panic attacks. I'm going to bring in the physiologist and we are putting you on medicine."

Those are the very words that I had feared the most. And this was the very day that I made my mind up to never let a diagnosis define me.

You see, as important as a diagnosis is, it does not define who you are or determine the course of your steps. The doctors don't get to slap a diagnosis on you and tell you how you need to live your life in order to thrive. Doctors are indeed put on this earth for a reason and to help us survive, but it's how we choose to live that allows us to thrive.

It is not doctors who are there in the hard moments when we feel like we are failing because we cannot get out of bed in the morning. It is not doctors who are there when we are alone and can't bring ourselves to go into a store because we have gotten our mind so worked up that our body is following suit. It is not the doctors who hold our hand when we are falling apart piece by broken piece.

It is our families, our friends, and our God. Those are the ones who are there, holding our hands, reminding us to breathe and put one foot in front of the other. They are the ones who listen to each and every fear and wipe the tears that are sure to follow. The things that make up our lives are these trials, these people, this faith. It's the putting one foot in front of the other, taking each day and moment as it comes, that defines us. There is no better way to discover who you are then in the thick of the battle.

But is it the battle that you want to share with the world? As important as the story of our battle is, when I share my story I don't want it to be all about the doctor's visits and what they have told me. I don't want it to be all about the moments where I couldn't go into stores, or sit through dinner at a restaurant, or how I couldn't handle even looking at certain textures or hearing certain noises. I want it to be about the people that God has placed in my life. About the strength that I have because I am His child and He is good -- even in the pain and in the moments of struggling and crying out. I want it to be about victory and overcoming despite what the doctors have told me. Despite the diagnosis that I have and the ones I may get.

My God is bigger than any diagnosis. My God is what defines me, and that is who I am choosing to hold on to each and every day.

Tell me, what are letting define you? The doctors? Your Illness? Your diagnosis? Step away from those things today and into the freedom of knowing that they hold no power or victory over your life. And after you step away start surrounding yourself with people who will love you in the moments you have to cancel plans because you can't do life that day. Surround yourself with people who will love you regardless of what your diagnosis is. Surround yourself with people who understand, but don't completely shut out people who don't. Because those relationships and those people will help shape you. They will help you grow, and they will help you put one foot in front of the other. Living life together one day, one moment, and one breath at a time.