2016 has not been easy for me. I am sure it has not been easy for anyone, but I did not expect it to be this hard…

My family is what is most important to me. They are what I hold closest to my heart and I mean that with my entire heart. So when circumstances come our way that hurt them, in turn, it hurts me.

I wrote the sentences preceding this one five days ago. It was a Sunday evening. I had just gotten back to the town I go to college in and was coming to terms with the tidal wave I thought had hit my family. I didn’t finish my thoughts because I was trying to write about the good I found in the situation, but I did not know what good there was to write about… and now, five days later, I know what to write about.

I was struggling on Sunday. My Papa had a heart attack in the middle of the night on Saturday. I got to see him on Sunday morning before I left town, and my 72-year-old grandpa cried. The Papa I knew was the most selfless man I knew. He was the man I had looked up to my whole life. He was the man I had loved and cherished, and he did anything in the world to make me happy. And when I saw him crying, I saw that the bravest man I knew crying in front of his 18-year-old granddaughter - and I was terrified.

I cried off and on the three-hour drive back. I prayed. I listened to the Christian radio. I quoted scripture. I did everything I knew to do to make myself feel better, but I had this awful feeling in my tummy that things were just wrong.

They scheduled my Grandpa to have open heart surgery this Monday - eight days after his heart attack. This should be good news, right? Maybe, but to me, it was not. My Papa had a quadruple bypass back when I was 6 years old, and 12 years later he is having a triple bypass. This increases the risk of the operation. This means his health is worse. This means his recovery time will be longer. This means I have to pray and keep praying till I see for my own self what God is capable of in my Papa.

I tried to distract myself all week. So I went to class, ran errands, went to meetings, watched Netflix… until Tuesday night, when I played in my intramural soccer game and sprained my ankle. Well, the next morning while at the hospital getting it checked out, I had a seizure. This should not be out of the normal, I grew up epileptic… but I have not had a seizure in four years. I outgrew my epilepsy four years ago. Or so I thought. My mom came to town. She took me back to the doctor to get re-evaluated. Turns out I had the same type of seizure that I had had off and on my whole childhood. Turns out I also fractured my ankle. What does this mean? Are my seizures back? I am on crutches and I am now epileptic again?

I still do not know what it means. But what I do know is that it is two days later and I am laying in my bed. I am icing my foot. I feel like myself. I put on makeup today. I talked to my Papa on the phone. And things are looking up considering the circumstances.

I still had bible study yesterday like I do once a week with my mentor - we just moved our meeting place to my apartment instead of Starbucks. We read an article that made me see the good. It did not tell me the positives to these awful occurrences, but it told me how to look for them. The article told you to teach the gospel to yourself daily. If you think about it, whose voice do you hear the most in a day? Your own. So use that to your advantage.

And I have tried. I began thinking about Jesus. I thought about the pain he must have felt emotionally when the people he loved betrayed him. I thought about the pain he felt physically when he had to carry a cross and then was nailed to it. Then I thought about the joy he must have felt when he walked out of the tomb - renewed and whole again. I then thought about God. I thought about the selfless decision he made to give up his son for US. I thought about how he must have felt watching his son being beaten and bleeding to death on an old rugged cross. I thought about how he should have felt toward us for being the cause of such pain that was inflicted on His Son… and then I thought about how he felt toward us instead. I thought about how much he must love us to make that sacrifice. I thought about how we are supposed to be as obedient as his son and we should take the obstacles he gives us to go through and use them to make us better. I thought about how little my problems were when He put them into perspective. I am alive and well. My Papa is alive and well.

This, my friend, is a lesson. The Lord is in the midst of teaching me something incredible. This is a blessing in disguise. He is blessing me with patience. He has granted me courage. He has given me strength. He has placed guidance in my life. He has put people in my life to support me. And he has done so much more that I have yet to even recognize. So the next time I begin to cry, or when Monday morning comes around and my Papa goes into surgery, or when I feel like I am all alone, I will remember how much he loves me. Because his love surpasses any amount of anxiety and fear the devil can put in my path, and I will be alright.