Losing Yourself, It Happens To All Of Us

Have you ever woken up one day and you realize you don't recognize yourself in the mirror anymore? What used to drive you to get out of bed in the morning has suddenly died? The light that used to shine so bright in your eyes is now dim and dull? Me too.

Life can knock you down, break your heart and it can confuse the daylights out of you. You could be going down a straight, clear path and you might even think you know exactly where you're heading, but then suddenly you've turned down a wrong road and you're lost. One of the worst parts about being lost is you find yourself going into this panic-stricken phase because you now realize there are so many things out of control, and you're doing your best to control it but it's all spinning out of proportion and then you just fall down because you can't handle it anymore. The tough thing about falling down? It's so hard to get back up sometimes, and more often than not, you just need a helping hand.

There is a lot of things you could lose yourself in: College, a job, friends, family, significant other, just wondering what your purpose is in general. First of all, college is obnoxiously hard and stressful, can I just get an amen? I mean whoever came up with the idea to have someone pay a ridiculous amount of money to literally cry into a bag of chips at 2 am because you have a million essays, tests and assignments to do in a day, was horribly disturbed and I'm going to file a complaint. It's so easy to lose your way in the midst of trying to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life in just four short years. It's hard getting so engulfed in a job that you find yourself losing sleep, losing time with your friends and family, or even just time with just yourself. Losing yourself to conform to a significant other, friend or family member's needs and wants, is honestly one of the harder ones. We have such a deep love for those people that all we want is for them to be happy, so we might find ourselves leaving behind our morals, values, needs, wants and desires just to please that person; therefore, we end up losing ourselves.

I've lost myself several times during the course of my life so far, and I know one day it'll happen again. It's just a part of life. Feeling lost and losing yourself can be such an empty feeling, because to top it all off, you feel hopeless. Sadly, there's this idea that we have to have everything figured out right now. We have to know exactly what we want to do for the rest of our lives in just a few short years, we have to get married and start a family early on cause you're getting older, you have to conform to someone else because otherwise you'll lose them, and you have to work ridiculous hours because if you don't, you can't pay for anything. The funny part about all of that is, you literally don't have to do any of that. It's your life, your path, your journey and your timeline, but most importantly, it's God's plan for you.

My life has never gone the way I thought it would go when I would dream about my adult-life as a kid, and even though at times, that has been incredibly hard, it's also incredibly beautiful, because in those times where things didn't go how I thought they would or what I had planned for, and when I've lost myself- I ended up finding something more beautiful then I could've ever imagined: the person I was always meant to be, the person God sent me here to be. The amazing, yet scary thing about all of that is, we literally know nothing. We can sit and pray about things and pray for scenarios to go our way, but God doesn't give you an unanswered prayer, it's just sometimes the answer is no. It may hurt like hell at the time, but ultimately, you'll be thankful God picked you up and moved you in a different direction.

For so long I used to think because of these things that I was broken, unfixable and unlovable. But then I realized, all of those broken pieces are a part of me. Every little shattered part comes together beautifully to make me who I am, and you want to know the most beautiful part of all of us who have broken pieces? Light always shines through those cracks. God has formed us perfectly and created every obstacle and trial we face so that the light can shine through the broken parts. It may feel never-ending right now- the pain and confusion of not knowing, but I recently got my favorite verse tattooed on my arm. Its Proverbs 3:5, and it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding." Such a short phrase, but so much power in those words. It's scary, but all we need to do is trust and know that all of these lost moments is just God continuing to build and create us to be the person we're meant to be, and with God, we will always find our way.