Ever since the age of twelve, I have had a never ending fear of allowing hope to drive my life and ultimately cause my own pain and misery. "I don't want to get my hopes up" is a sentence my peers have heard from me many times. As long as I downplay my emotions, then logically everything will be just peachy. Right? Yet, there I will be, inside my own head, ticked off that I did it to myself once again. But what is there to be afraid of? Failure... why on Earth should I be afraid of that when it is inevitable to fail? Sometimes the biggest blessings come from the lessons we learn in our failures. Getting hurt... well let's put on our big girl panties and move on. This is harder said than done but with every good thing, comes a risk. Why don't we enjoy the good things before they are gone? Speaking of risks, that's just it. I am most afraid of having something good come into my life just to lose it since most things in my life have been too good to be true.

But there is a beauty in all things because all things teach us some kind of lesson. If you are stubborn like me, you will not acknowledge those lessons until they are staring you right in the face. So what am I wanting to do about this constant fear of having hope? I am giving it to God, that's what. Over the past year and a half, I have severely struggled with my faith in God's plan for me, my loved ones, my future career, my finances, my relationships... you name it and I was stressed about it. But someway, somehow, with no real reason at all, God placed this feeling of peace over my life in every situation I was in. It didn't happen by a spectacular encounter. I didn't just wake up one day and feel invinsible. I just know that as I am sitting here typing this, I feel at peace with who I am and the season I am in right now.

This is a season of transitioning from just a believer in the Lord to committing my whole life to Him. This is a season of finding people that make life so much brighter and never letting them go. This is the time in my life where I am finally focusing on my future career and I am so excited for what is to come. This year, I will replace fear with hope and trust in my God and His promise to fulfill my every need. In time, my prayers will be answered and all of this hope in my heart will be worth it. So let's get our hopes up, put our all into everything we do, and love deeply without limitations. Cheers to 2019 and to the rest of this beautiful life we live. "Hope springs eternal". - Alexander Pope