You're my strength
You're my defender
You're my refuge in the storm
Through these trials
You've always been faithful
You bring healing to my soul

-Kari Jobe

These song lyrics to some may mean nothing, but these words are the only thing that have been able to bring peace in my heart these past couple of days. My whole life I have been the one my friends who lean on, the one who was always the most logical with relationship advice. I have never been the best at showing that at times I am weak because in all my life I have always felt the need to be strong. This has not only hurt me but it has hurt others around me, and for that I am so sorry. I cannot express the love I have for others than I do for my very own self.

Outwardly, I am happy go lucky. I am the girl to be overly sarcastic, sassy, and attitude over the rims. Being that girl, I hold my composure at all costs and the concept of opening my heart to trust anyone is skewed in my mind. Feeling I have to be this girl, my anxiety is skyrocketed and I am not proud of how I have handled myself as the "tough girl." I have realized all I have done in keeping this act up is turned away from God and ran away from my problems. His light began to break through into my life, in bits and little itty bitty pieces, my heart resisted. My heart resisted until my world came crashing down. I realized that my performance in school, my outward appearance, my anything could not compare to the amount of love I was shutting out of my life.

Being able to submit myself at the end to him and his will remains a never ending struggle in my life, but I feel I know where to start. Happiness as I knew it, was a nostalgic state of mind that I could only feel five minutes a time. I am writing this to let people out there know that there is more. You can absolutely not put yourself in a box of how to talk, how to act, and what you are capable of. I put myself in this box based off what I was told growing up. Standardized testing not only determined but my fate for how I would thrive into adulthood. The falsehood of this concept is in epic proportion I can never begin to explain in simply one article.

I was a little girl with speech issues, I could not hold my pencil correctly for the life of me, I never would have looked 13 years from then and imagined being a Biochemistry student pursuing going to graduate school for chemistry. Everybody has a destiny, and I felt mine was so small compared to everyone else. God believed in my destiny, no matter how small and he has been able to bring mine to life. He has been my defender and the healer to my soul all along, I was too blind to see this. I encourage you to listen to my words and to believe that your destiny is so much greater than you believe.