During the fall of 2015, I experienced the most difficult semester of my entire college career. I was twenty years old, fresh off an internship in a new city, returning back to my college town for my final semester before graduation. I knew the months ahead of me would be daunting: I was taking twenty hours, working as an intern with the baseball team, working part time as an athletic tutor, and writing five research papers, each ranging from 30-70 pages. I had to maintain a 3.5 GPA or I wouldn't be allowed to graduate with honors program accolades, which was something I had worked towards since my freshman year. Needless to say, the pressure was on from the moment I drove up to campus to move in for the last time.

I remember when it first happened. I was sitting at our local coffee shop, working on one of my research papers. It was the evening of August 31st. I had been on campus for less than two weeks. Overwhelmed by all the work I had to do, I pulled up my calendar to count the number of weeks until I was done. Sixteen weeks. If I could make it through sixteen weeks of hard work and little sleep, I would graduate, go home, and celebrate Christmas with my family.

Christmas. It's always been my favorite time of year. My parents worked hard to make Christmas a happy occasion--it was never about us getting everything that was on our lists, but we always had more than enough. Most importantly, we were together. It was the one time of year we could guarantee that we'd all be home. I was always taking classes or working, and my brother played college baseball, so between the two of us, our family unit was rarely together as a whole. But we were always home for Christmas.

Christmas represented a break. My family was always my safe place, and being with them was a long-awaited salve that my soul had spent all year searching for. I knew that semester was going to be a living hell. So, in that coffee shop on August 31st, I played the first of many Christmas songs that would follow me all semester:

It was what got me through; looking to the finish line.

Looking to Christmas gets me through troubles today, as well. I've been having a rough time of it lately. My life has been deconstructing itself in ways that have challenged my resilience and, most importantly, my faith. To say the least, these last few months have been trying. I've broken in places I didn't think could ever be shattered. It's okay, though. I know Christmas is just a few months away.

See, in my life, Christmas is a safe haven. I'm home, I'm with the people I love most in the world, and everything is okay. I'm reminded of the sacrifice that was made for me in a manger 2,000 years ago, when God sent His Son to live and die for me. Because of that sacrifice, and because of my family, Christmas is always good. Everything is always okay during Christmas.

Sometimes, life gets us down. It's an inevitability. We are going to encounter hardships and trials. I've found the key is looking towards a foreseeable time in the future where we know it's going to be okay. For me, that's always Christmas.

So, yeah, I'm that girl listening to Christmas music in July. It helps me make it through. I look towards Christmas, and I know I'm going to be okay. No matter what happens between now and then, I'm going to be okay. I just have to make it there.

Merry Christmas, y'all. We're almost there.

We're almost home.