I did not need to solve my whole life at once. I just needed the courage to take the next step with God.

I have learned that I cannot continuously give away pieces of who I am to appease other people. The priority has to be, first and foremost, “I am God’s child, God’s prize possession,” and I have to accept who God tells me that I am. The tunnel did not get the final word; God did, and God’s truth became the light that led me forward.

Maybe hope isn’t meant to feel strong all the time. Maybe hope, in its truest form, is quieter than that. Smaller. More stubborn.

My defeats don’t define me; Jesus alone defines me, and he calls me his beloved. Without qualifiers.

I know this much: I have no easy answers. I have nothing to offer on my own. But I do trust that God has something to say about the matter—something worth hearing.

“This awful moment wasn’t going to be the end of my story. When life feels impossibly hard, it’s easy to wonder if things will ever get easier. But in the very place where I fell apart, God began to rebuild something beautiful."

Even at night when my thoughts trouble me, I will bless the Lord… but learning to release control was not as easy as I wanted it to be.

What I thought would be the adventure of a lifetime became a mirror of the shame I had carried for decades.