A few months ago, if you would have told me that the events that felt like they were ruining my life were actually making it so much better, there’s not a chance I would have believed it for a second. Coming back to the country after living abroad for four months, I had figured out a lot about myself, and realized some major changes that needed to be made in my life. I had to change friendships, relationships, habits, priorities and goals. Some of these changes were initiated by me willingly, and some were my decision only after being shown that I had no other choice if I wanted to live peacefully.
Over the course of just one month, my entire life was turned upside down. During that month, I felt like I was treading water endlessly, just trying to keep my head above it. Everything that had become familiar and comfortable to me was gone, and I felt like I was basically starting over. I often felt alone, lost and extremely anxious and unsure about what every day would hold.
Thankfully, difficult times have an awesome way of showing you who and what is truly important. I gained incredible new friends during this hard time of my life, and would never dream of trading them for the comfort of my former life. My self-confidence has skyrocketed, as I’ve had to rely on myself in ways I never had to before. I had to take a hard look at what I truly wanted out of life, and realized those things would only be possible with this difficult transition period. Not to mention, my faith and reliance on God grew to heights I never knew possible. I feel more joyful and alive than I ever thought I could, and it has nothing to do with any of my surroundings. Having the world around me fall apart made the world inside me come to new life.
We spend so much of our time making plans and hoping they’ll fall into place, that when those plans suddenly have no chance of working out, it can feel like our lives no longer have any way of making us feel fulfilled. It is in these moments, when we feel most lost and overwhelmed and heartbroken, that we discover the resilience we contain inside of us.
This resilience, which is so much stronger than we even realize, can pull us through anything we could ever possibly encounter. When we’re lying on the floor, our hearts shattered, our minds spinning with a million different anxious thoughts, the weight of our broken world literally crashing on top of us, we are forced to make a decision. We can either let the weight of the pain and the brokenness of the falling stop us from living our lives, or we can use it as a catapult to throw us into the beautiful unknown that is awaiting us. This unknown is what we were meant for all along. It is the remarkable beauty we’ve been searching for, but were unable to find unless the old us, the things and people we used to cling to and think were right for us, was forced to let go and embrace the new world that was being put together all along.