This semester has come and gone, and it's brought with it a lot of change. I got promoted, first to Contributing Editor, then Editor-In-Chief. I changed my major from Criminology to Pre-Law to Journalism. I became Cat Mom to a rescue cat with a personality even bigger than mine. I got a best friend, a real one, for the first time in forever. And last week, I closed a chapter of my life and started a new one, and I embarked on this next season of my life, alone; I broke up with my boyfriend of just over a year.

I left behind a year of my life, which, at twenty-one, seems like a sizeable chunk. When you're young, time behaves differently, I think. It's probably why breakups seem like the end of the world. You're just barely an adult, and you thought you'd found The One, and now that it's over, your life feels like it won't be the same ever again. Of course, experience tells me that it will. I will recover, I will heal, and I will grow, but that's not always much help when your heart is hurting and those "what if I die alone" worries start creeping in. But I've done some growing up over the last year, particularly in the last six months, and I'm a different person than I was when I started school in the fall of 2015. Different, yes, but better.

I've learned a lot of things in the last year. For instance, I've learned that I'm not as bad at math as I thought I was (I'm worse). I learned that not everyone will approve of how I raise my cat (a much more heated and controversial topic than I would have expected - apparently, feeding my cat Purina One is, in some circles, heinous). I've learned that it's possible to disagree with your family and still love them (mostly), that it's okay to be sensitive (I've never been to a wedding I didn't cry at), and that sometimes, God has a different plan for me than the one I had, or was hoping for. And that's okay. The most important thing I've learned, particularly over the last few (and very difficult) weeks is that it's imperative to place all of your trust in God's plan. For the first time in my life, I had felt His hand guiding me toward a decision that I knew would bring good things, even if it was an incredibly painful choice, and all throughout the process, I prayed that God would give me the strength and clarity to do what He was asking me to do.

And yeah - it's been hard. It's been really hard. But God asks us to do difficult things not because He wants us to suffer, but because He has a greater plan for us. So when He called me to begin this new journey in my life by myself, I knew that even though there was great pain, God will also bring me great joy. And so, with this, I put my trust in God. It's been a long time since I felt I was able to place myself fully in His grace and guidance. Admittedly, I've been lead astray for a long time, but I have prayed, I have read and reread my favorite verses, and I have asked God to bring me back to where I want to be in my faith.

So where do I go from here?

The answer is easy: anywhere, with God by my side.

My prospects are endless. I've gained more confidence in myself and in my ambitions, and I know, with God's help, I'll go far. I know that if God calls me to marriage, I will find God's match for my soul when I'm ready for it. Until then, I'll be doing my best to keep reaching high, to keep improving myself, and to keep yearning for God, and in times of trouble, I'll always keep in mind one of my favorite verses:

"And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?" - Esther 4:14