A New Song to Sing

What is God’s will for your life?  What is your calling? Do these questions stress anyone else out? Goal setting, meticulous planning, dreaming big. All. Of. The. Freaking. Above. (I’m kinda done with). A few months ago (maybe a little more) I found myself stressing.  This is probably not shocking if you know me, but this stood outside of the usual situational and relational stress I usually let mull over and inflate in my head. No, not circumstantial. Stressing over the imaging and branding/re-branding of myself. I was over the moon in setting goals, finding purpose, dreaming big dreams for my life, and so much more. Now this, on a surface level, isn’t wrong. It isn’t wrong to want purpose, plan ahead, make goals or to-do lists, and have dreams for your life. Looking back though, I think all of these pursuits in my life lacked one crucial thing It wasn’t me. I wasn’t trying to be fake. I really wanted to share my life authentically and believed I was d...

Today is #worldmentalhealthday and I wanted to take some time to share part of my own story and follow up with a few things in my last major post.  I think it’s great to have a day like this and to see mental health taken seriously. More and more people are speaking out, and while there is still a stigma apparent in our world, I truly believe we are making progress.  I have always felt the need to minimize my own struggles, while publicly I may seem so open about everything in my life, this is not my nature. Anyone who grew up with me can recall the immense and high walls I would put up around my emotions. I wouldn’t always open up to even my closest friends or family. My point being, I have not always been so ‘confident’ or publicly expressive with who I am or where I’ve come from. It’s taken a choice, the hard choice to go against the voices in my head that tell me to live in fear and silence. I didn’t always know what the words anxiety, depression, suicide, sch...