Depression – The Will to Wake Up

Promises to Remember

For the hard days ❤

Today’s just been one of those days. The kind that wraps you up in its stickiness until you feel like you’re suffocating, barely able to remember days when you felt free. When you felt fully alive.

On days like today, it’s important to remember that this will not last forever.

You may feel stuck, as if nothing could get better. But you aren’t stuck. You are growing, right where you are. And that’s a beautiful thing.

Think back to the last time you felt this way. Perhaps not yesterday, but maybe a year ago, or even five years ago.

You may not have thought you could make it to today, but you did. And I’m so glad you did.

When it feels like nothing is going right, hold onto the promises of God.

He will never leave you, nor forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6).

Even if everyone else walks away, you will never be alone.

You as precious and perfect in His sight (1 Corinthians 1:8).

A bad test score, a discouraging word, or even a painful mistake can’t separate you from God’s love.

He will use you to do amazing things for the greater good (Romans 8:28).

Your life matters. You were created for a reason. Even if the small things you do each day don’t feel significant, they truly mean the world to someone else. Most of all, God sees you and honors the way you choose to listen to Him.

So today may have been just a rotten, nasty, terrible day. Or maybe it was a day when you fully embraced God’s promises and felt lifted up.

Either way, there will always be tomorrow. Another chance for God’s grace. Another opportunity to make someone smile. Another day that God loves you and wants you to really believe it.

You belong here. Never forget that. ❤

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yetno one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11

An Endless Journey Towards Healing

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, I will be sharing my personal story to encourage you on your journey ❤

It was like a flip of the switch. Suddenly, the easygoing, joyful young girl I used to recognize was gone. In her place came an overbearing, extremely sensitive, critical little monster.

And that monster was me.

Though a series of difficult events were unfolding in my life, I can’t pinpoint any of them as the root cause of this change. It just…happened.

For a long time, I saw myself as this monster. This person who couldn’t be pleased, who drowned in her own misery when alone. This person who thought nobody wanted to be her friend, when really there were people around who just didn’t notice. And there were some who did notice, but she couldn’t seem to see them at the time.

I look at the past like another lifetime. Another person acting out my life.

And it’s true that much has changed, both in the way I see the world now, and the world itself. But we can’t completely separate ourselves from previous parts of our journey. Pretending like those things don’t bother us anymore is just a disservice to everybody.

Last summer, many of the challenges I faced at the start of my mental health journey resurfaced. But instead of working through them, I pushed them down.

“I’m not the weak, pathetic person I used to be,” I told myself. “I’m over all that.”

But acting like that person was weak and pathetic only caused me further harm. It made me think that I had to be those negative attributes if I was struggling mentally.

I wasn’t weak; I was worn-out and tired. I wasn’t pathetic; I was hungry for the satisfaction and healing that only God can bring.

That was me then, at age 15. That was me last summer. And that is still me today.

When you don’t deal with something, it comes back to face you sooner or later. Sure enough, after being in an unhealthy environment in the fall, I had to remove myself from that community in order to find the deeper healing I needed.

But I can’t say that’s the end of my story.

Sometimes it feels endless, searching for healing. As one thing is resolved, another comes up. But what if we look at each day as a new chance for more than just stress and anxiety?

Every day is a new chance for healing. For grace. For peace.

That also means that every day can be a challenge of trying to accept those gifts from God. It means not feeling worthy of them. It means fighting with my thoughts while trying to focus on the things that actually matter to me.

And it means making healing matter to me.

Mental health can’t be something we push off to tomorrow. You know this. Your mind won’t let you forget it.

Let today be the day that you start to take care of yourself, no matter what others think.

Not everyone will understand. That’s something I had to learn as I’ve begun to take steps towards taking care of myself this year.

But that’s okay. Not everyone needs to understand.

God understands. He designed you, after all, and He will use your story for great things.

It may be hard to see now, but you are growing. You are beautiful, with all your broken pieces. You don’t need to fix yourself. You just need to let the ultimate Healer restore you. ❤

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and I encourage you to share your story with others. It doesn’t have to be on a big platform or even in public. You can share it with a friend or another loved one. Someone who wants the best for you.

Our stories matter. Sure, they don’t reflect every person’s story. No single story can, and we don’t need to burden ourselves with that great of a task.

Just sharing your story is enough to inspire and empower people. To help them know that they are not alone.

You are not alone. ❤

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.
Mark 12:30-31

To The Indifferent American Teen

An open letter to GenZers.

Dear Indifferent American Teen,

Struggling to get up. Lacking motivation. Scrolling for hours. Feeling like a failure. Looking to your elders. Regretting your short life. You fight a battle too. I feel you.

You Indifferent American Teen.

You say “I don’t care”. Your shrug and your smirk confirm it.

But your “I don’t cares” are your cries for help. Your cries tell me that you do care.

You care until your insides ache and you can barely swallow your pride. You care until your face blemishes and your eyes are forced to turn aside. You care and you care and you care until all you care about is yourself. And that kills you the most.

Indifference is the mask you have been taught to wear. Only this type of mask doesn’t protect you. It pulls you back. It holds you captive. You are stuck in a web of lies.

I think you care. People say you don’t, but I know you. I am you. I feel you.

I think you care the most.

Every time your heart breaks, you must evaluate how someone will react. Will you lose a friend? Will you be cancelled? Will life ever be the same?

Every time a new issue pops up, it feels too far away to be real. Yet you don’t want to be left behind. But grasping in the dark for something steady to support you is an endless battle that will tear you apart until you become as empty as your spirit after a tough night.

You are in a sea of emotions. You are drowning and the only thing you can use as a lifesaver is indifference.

Indifference makes you sarcastic and pathetic. Indifference makes you hard and distant. Indifference makes you laugh when you know it stings the soul of a fellow human being who stares at you until the laughter dissolves into a tidal wave of tears.

Indifference is the deepest feeling of all.

You have been hurt. Your wounds are deep. But you can’t blame a war or a movement or a lack of knowledge. Instead, you blame yourself.

But you don’t want to be weak. You are supposed to be strong. Strong and independent. Proving your worth. That’s who you are. You can’t change. That’s what they say, anyway.

Even though you’re young with a full life ahead of you. Even though you’re bright and you aren’t your parents. Even though you’re special and precious and loved. Even though all these things…who are you?

I’m sitting beside you. I won’t tell you to cry or to feel or to trust me. Trust, that’s something in short supply. What I’ll tell you is this: You aren’t alone. Staring out at the starry night sky, there is someone–thousands of someones–who are just like you. And they don’t know who that person is either.

I don’t know you. Maybe you don’t want me to. Maybe the only thing keeping you going is keeping your identity a mystery. All yours, no one else’s.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but someone does know you. Someone cares about you. That Someone wants you. Needs you. Trusts you. Values you.

That Someone will love you the way your heart longs to be loved as your eyes linger a little too long on the one that broke your heart. It wasn’t their love that you needed. It was Someone’s.

I’ll venture to say, it was God’s.

So when you feel indifferent, tell Someone that. Tell Him and wait. You might just get a feeling.

I know I did.

Sincerely,

Your Fellow American Teen, who isn’t so indifferent anymore

You Are Essential

You are needed here, no matter what you have done.

Let’s be honest. We’re all sick of that word, but it’s still there, used to distinguish between the people who “help” and who don’t.

But what if I told you that you are essential, just by being here?

Maybe you haven’t solved the most recent medical crisis or participated in a noteworthy act of kindness.

Maybe you forget to hold the door open or don’t smile at a kid waving at you. Maybe you don’t go the extra mile for others.

Maybe you’ve done things so terrible that your heart aches just thinking about them.

But what if I told you that even with all those things, you are still needed here?

It’s not a question. It’s really a statement.

You. Are. Needed. Here.

Why? Well, glad you asked.

Maybe you’ve messed up. Big time. But that doesn’t mean those choices have to dictate the rest of your life.

Today could be the day you step out and say:

I am worth it.

I do make an impact.

I can use the love I’ve felt to motive me to love others.

And maybe all those things feel like catchphrases that slip in one ear and out the other. Fake. Not in your heart. Mindless.

But what if simple, yet profound phrases actually sink deeper into your heart? What if you allow yourself to believe that those things are really true?

Today you can make a difference. You can reach out and see how that quiet friend is doing. You can bury your pride and check in on a relative. You can welcome rest and grace into all your relationships, including with yourself.

How can we live with such assurance of our purpose? Because we know that God made us for a reason. While things don’t always make sense, God has a greater plan, and will use our gifts for His glory. The little things you do each day will add up, and looking back, you’ll realize how many people you’ve helped.

But the best part is, the more you accept God’s love for you, the more that love will extend to others. That’s the most beautiful thing of all. ❤

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:7-8

Holding Onto Hope

Don’t let anyone steal the hope you have in Jesus.

Have you ever been overwhelmed with disappointment and discouragement, maybe even to the point of despair?

The closest I’ve come to despair was last summer. It felt like one disappointment after another kept hitting me on the head. The final straw was losing a close friend over a petty argument and regretting everything. But it was too late. Nothing I could do would solve this catastrophe.

Disappointment is often tied to two things: our inadequacies and lack of control.

When we fixate on what we can’t do, we are left feeling helpless and afraid. Afraid because we are faced with the sharp reality that we can’t dodge pain. We will never be unbreakable. We are, in fact, fallible.

And when we realize we aren’t perfect, we must admit that even if we were in control, things wouldn’t work out the way they were meant to. We weren’t created to be in control. Now that’s a hard pill to swallow.

I bet Jesus’ followers were in despair when they saw Him on the cross. They had faced constant persecution from an oppressive government, but they finally found a Savior. They finally had hope.

Disappointment requires a dashing of hope. That glimmer of light fading into nothingness.

And then, to see their only hope dying a humiliating death…reminding them that we are all breakable…well, that would just feel like the end, wouldn’t it?

But Jesus isn’t fallible. Jesus is perfect. Whole. In control.

And that’s why, three days later, their hopes would never be dashed again. Jesus’ resurrection makes all things new. All things alive, even our hopes and dreams.

Sure, their earthly desires wouldn’t often come to pass. They may have lost many close friends, regretted misspoken words or deeds, and suffered great losses.

But in the end, they could still have hope, and so can we. Hope that we have someone watching over us who loves us so much that He was willing to die for us.

Don’t lose hope. Something greater is coming. In fact, He’s already here. ❤

Happy Easter! He is risen! He is risen, indeed!

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:25-26

Behind You, Beside You, Before You

Is your calling from God difficult to understand?

I’ve always seen the value in honesty, and while this blog is dedicated to encouragement, I need to be real with you about my struggles as well as my joys and past lessons learned. It’s really easy finding the morals in the stories that are so far off, they no longer feel like real life, but merely distant history. But perhaps, as we journey together, we can find hope within the current hardships.

Over the past four months, I have really struggled with my mental health. At first, it was related to triggering events over the summer that left me feeling hopeless. I was looking forward to college as an escape from the issues burdening me over the summer. However, college was definitely not what I thought it would be at all.

I want to highlight that I have made many incredible friends who have truly shown God’s love to me and I would never want to undermine the impact they, as well as understanding professors, have lent me during this time.

Yet many of the things I had eagerly anticipated fell through the cracks. A certain friendship that I had hoped would bring joy and encouragement ended up causing me to experience anxiety attacks and many sleepless nights. I began to feel unsafe, unsure of what to do from here.

Lately, I’ve been reading through the book of Isaiah, which I shared on a previous post. I always associate Isaiah with the idea of being “sent” by God.

I love the verse, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8)

I believe that we all have a calling and that God wants to work through whoever is willing. But what I have struggled to comprehend is the fact that God does not always send us to places where we feel fulfilled or loved or worthy. God does not always send us to people who want to embrace us and accept the gifts we bring.

For Isaiah, his calling was incredibly unpleasant. He had to warn the people of the impending destruction of their entire way of life. No one would like him after that. No one would want to listen to him either.

However, Isaiah was willing, and God worked through him to bring forth many miracles.

Later on, Isaiah is given another message, the exciting news of the promised Messiah! But it took sharing the bad news before Isaiah could share the good news.

Not every single one of your callings will be uncomfortable. We can have hope in that. God will never leave us stranded.

As I’ve been trying to comprehend why the past few months have felt like a never-ending rollercoaster of surprising misfortunes, I came across this verse in Isaiah chapter 8: “Devise a plan; it will fail. Make a prediction; it will not happen. For God is with us.” (Isaiah 8:10)

One of my biggest reasons for feeling discouraged during this season is because so many of the things I truly believed would be huge blessings have ended up exactly the opposite of what I had anticipated. Yet this verse tells us that we can find hope when our plans and predictions don’t follow through. God’s presence is enough to make all things right and sustain us when we feel like we can’t take another step step further.

Later on in this passage, God instructs Isaiah to tell the people to not fear what the world fears. The world fears an effaced reputation, a loss in self-confidence, and ultimate desolation. But we know that our strength, our confidence, our identity, and our future is in God’s hands. We have nothing to fear.

Today, let God’s words to you resonate in your soul. God loves you so much and His plan is far greater than any battle you are fighting. He will go above you, before you, behind you, and beside you. ❤

I will wait for the Lord,
who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob.
I will wait for Him.
Isaiah 8:17