If I am being honest, I am broken.

I've been trying to hide it because a lot of positive things have been happening in my life recently. For example, I am back on track for nursing school, I have three wonderful animals who fill my heart with joy and peace. I have friends and family who would drop everything for me, and I have a fiance who loves me unconditionally--and when I say unconditionally, I mean unconditionally. While I truly enjoy my life, I am still depressed, and anxious. I am still broken, and I am frustrated because of it.

Oftentimes I get so anxious that my head clouds over, I start to shake, and my eyes cannot focus. Sometimes nothing in particular even brings these symptoms on. Like right now, for example, I'm sitting here writing this article and I am shaking. I can hardly focus, and my eyes are blurred over, and I'm not sure why. I love writing, so it doesn't make sense that I am anxious about it right? Wrong. I am in fact not anxious about writing in particular, but about everything else that is going on in my life.

Last night my 95-year-old grandmother, who calls me her little angel, fell, for the third time in two months. At home, I am continuously stressed because my parents act more like a divorced couple than a married couple. I have been working my ass off to try and save up money, but it seems like I will never be able to save enough, especially now that Micheal and I are trying to plan our wedding. It seems that whatever I do upsets someone close to me, in some way shape or form. Whether it's going to a different church, getting married so young, or getting tattoos and piercings on my own body. With all of this stress and pressure from the world and the stress and pressure I put on myself to please others, especially my family members, I often end up feeling anxious, depressed, and ultimately broken.

And I have finally realized that because I live in a broken world, I am broken. I live in a world where people are still discriminated against for the color of their skin. A world where people shoot others out of rage or fear or just because. A world where being a cop is scary, and being a person of color is even scarier. Our world is so very broken that family members stop talking to one another because they do not agree on which political candidate to vote for. I live in a world that puts so much worth into what a person's body looks like, they forget to look deeper than their skin. I have realized that because this world is broken, so are many of the people who live in it.

I know that it does not matter if someone has a good life because depression does not look at how good someone's life is before it chooses to become a part of their life. I have learned that just because a person seems to have everything under control does not mean that they are never crippled by the weight of anxiety. Ultimately, I have noticed that as I look around, that I am not the only broken one.

But just because I and so many others are broken does not mean we are weak.

I have fought like hell every day to keep going, to stay optimistic, to comply with my meal plan and to breathe. Just like so many others who do the same. While the battle never seems to be linear, sometimes, if I become silent for just a moment--if I sit quietly in my chair at church while the congregation worships God so loudly, I can feel it. I can feel peace. I feel it deep in my heart. It feels like my entire body releases. My shoulders drop and I feel my heart smile. It's as if God is right there next to me, sitting quietly in my presence, smiling ear to ear because although I am broken He loves me regardless. When I feel peace in my heart, I accept myself just as I am, broken and shattered pieces included because God does the same. God accepts me, regardless of my brokenness because He loves me, and he loves you too. Regardless of failures and sins and shattered pieces. He picks all of that up along with us, right where we are, and He welcomes us home.

Sometimes I get so caught up in the brokenness of this world that I forget the peace that being still in the presence of God brings me. In the world, I will always be reminded of my brokenness, but in the palm of God, I hear His quiet whisper that says "come as you are, I am happy you have come home".