I needed to take a break from the world and all of its battles, so I got into my car and drove 30 miles to a seemingly vacant spot with intentions to escape from the pain that overtook me.

When I pulled up to a simple hideaway at the side of the road that contained only a few trees, fading grass and a wooden bench that looked over the Maumee River, I gained absolutely nothing from looking out onto the endless water, and with my mind so lost to me, I almost didn’t notice the small, yellow flower hidden underneath some tough layers of grass.

With the air in Ohio now starting to turn to a bitter winter, it was surprising that something so delicate and bright survived the harsh temperatures.

But quickly, just like that, I realized that it wasn’t solely a beautiful little flower; it was a symbol of hope.

As a better way to comprehend its importance, it's easier to explain that sometimes we are the trees and the grass when the devastation feels inevitable and when the winter feels inescapable, but if we are only willing to dig beneath the surface, dig just alittle bit, there is always a bright flower- a palpable shred of hope amongst the dying.

We feel pain to remind us that we are human, we feel pain because we are still alive.

Even though nature was transforming into a dark time, the flower still managed to creep through the perpetual gloom and find the sunlight. It was a quiet whisper that told me, although the world can be ugly, hideous and broken, there is still beauty, if you're willing to look hard enough to find it.

In that indescribable moment of losing yourself, it's the hidden beauty that allows you to find yourself again, that brings you back to your heart that continues to beat when you feel the rest of yourself shut down.

All you are left with is your almost extinguished fire and the place you are desperate to reach, and sometimes, it's only the shattered that can lead you to the blissfully whole. It's the notion of being perfectly broken that shows you what the most beautiful things are. And it's the beautiful things that make us keep fighting, even when it's hard to breathe.

Finn Butler once wrote in his poem, Saltwater, “nothing is infinite, not even loss. You are made of the sea and the stars, and one day, you are going to find yourself again.”

There are going to be things that make it painful to be alive, but its being in the alive and taking the painful breaths we fight to inhale that make breaking the surface truly worth it.

You are made of the sea and the stars and the beautiful and the broken and the breathtaking and the spectacular and the awful and the hopeful, but you are not alone, and you will find yourself once again.

I promise you will find yourself again.