I think we all can agree, being a full-time student in college is no walk in the park. Add some dysfunctional family problems and relationship drama and suddenly the best four years of your life quickly begin to feel like the worst.

Freshman year started pretty strong for me - I knew people from high school going to my school and other people from summer classes. I immediately had a network of friends I could turn to night or day. Life was going well, and hell was nowhere in sight.

Less than two weeks into the fall semester, my friends and I were already growing apart with different schedules and new friends each of us were making and hanging out with on our own. My best friend disappeared from my life overnight and my once solid social network was gone in the blink of an eye.

The next six months were by far the worst six months of my life and I can honestly say I was going through absolute hell. Eating disorders, sexual assault, attempted suicide and left homeless by mother, life really could not have gotten me any lower than I already was and I saw no hope for myself or my future.

How did I pick myself back up? How did I find happiness after my health, my home, my friends, and my sense of security had been stripped away from me? I prayed. After having my back turned to God for so many years, I went running back to him and begged him to save me because no one else was there too, not even me.

By attending Church regularly, joining my school's Christian youth organization and embarking on a mission trip, I found myself welcomed right back into God’s good graces and surrounded by a community of people who love and cherish not only God but me too.

All of the people and things I had lost over the past six months were replaced by God and the people he brought into my life and I could not be more thankful. Not only am I in a better place both mentally and physically, but I am spiritually at peace too.

For the first time in years, I feel that no matter what happens, I will be OK because I will never have to handle it alone and that feeling of knowing someone is always looking out for you and your best interest is the most comforting and reassuring in the world and one that I will never turn my back on again.