I'll make it to the other side

   I find myself in a dark place again. A dark place I haven't been to before, but with strange familiarities. I don't have time in my life right now to deal with this, but I will. I won't let this control my everyday life. I can't. I'm filled with shame, fear, hurt, confusion, but still I hope. I know I've seen parts of this place before, and I've found my way out, again and again. I know what I need to do, but this takes time. It takes lots of time. As I come back to my life at school it has become harder to shield what I haven't dealt with. I find myself more emotional than I've been in awhile. I feel weak, but I still have my sparks of hope. I know I have so much to look forward to and new things to stumble upon, and its exciting and terrifying. I know other people have been here before, and have gotten through it. Fortunately, so fortunately, I've been learning so much about my Jesus in the past year of my life that this weight seems a little lighter to bear. I don't know when it will get better, or how, but it will. It's okay to hurt through the hope. To feel hope stronger than hurt is a new thing to me. I have the power to be on my knees, but still push through. I can still be sitting here with tears in my eyes and an ache in the depths of my being and still see a little bit of the sun. I know it's there. I know it's because of my faith that I can have this hope through my hurting. I am a conqueror. I am an overcomer. I WILL OVERCOME. I have a new strength in my weakness. I'm going to take in this valley, and use it. I'm going to use it learn about myself, and my God. I'm going to use it to apply the strengths that I've always questioned if I have. I will hope through my hurt. I will overcome.

Intentional

Since It has been forever and a day since my last blog post I thought it would be good to finally get my thoughts in writing again…
    It's been since August that I last wrote on here, and I can't say I'm where I was then, but I'm happy where I am now (finally). I came off my mountain-top from my amazing experience in Seattle quite quickly as school got busy, and with life happening. I started falling back into my pit of doubt, and insecurity with my relationship with God again and just my life in general. However, I have this new mindset in life that I refuse to go back to where I was in life where I let anxiety/depression decide for me if I'm happy, or not. Although I haven't gotten as low as I've been, I can't say I haven't struggled somedays, but just cause the sun isn't shining doesn't mean it isn't right behind the clouds.
     This semester I've started a complete new journey in my life: clean eating. I'm not the person to think of myself as "fat", but I'd like to be happy with what I see when I look in the mirror. With the help of my brother, and a couple of close friends I'm in week twelve of my "diet" and have lost about 15 lbs. I can see some change which makes me super happy, but it's not without a lot of work. I meal prep on Sundays for the entire week, and make sure I get all my lifting/cardio in for the week. Along with that new part of my life, dancing is in full swing for MY Senior Show. I cannot believe this will be my last dance performance in college. I get to finally do a solo, and I'm really excited for all the other dances I get to be a part of. I'm also very happy to officially let the social media world know that I will be returning to Seattle this summer as student staff, and have my practicum placement set at the Minnesota Correctional Facility for Juveniles in Red Wing for the fall as my last semester of school before graduating.
   With all this craziness of eating, dancing, working out, and school I know I NEED to take care of myself. So getting to the title of this post; I've recently been working on being intentional with everything I do. The last two weeks of my life have been very happy because I go into everyday with an attitude that all the interactions, and things I have to do for that day matter. My main thing is intentionally making time for God everyday. Sometimes I feel like it's force because I can always think of something else I "need" to do, but I know if I'm not taking the time for Him, each day would be a struggle. Life is a lot easier when I give Him the weight on my shoulders. I know that getting time for God everyday is what has changed my level of happiness. He literally carries me through each day. I wouldn't be able to handle the dieting, working out, and crazy school schedule without him. Being intentional about everything I do makes life mean more to me, and I won't settle for a mediocre life. This new change in my life will be the growth I need as a person, and as a Christian as I go into the summer and head back to Seattle in a leadership position.