If there is anything that I have learned in the past year, it is this – you never quite give yourself credit for how well you are doing in life. Let’s admit it – life is TOUGH. This is the reason why God has equipped us with many of His promises to take care of us in the Bible because He knows that life on this world is crazy, chaotic, and often times painful. As a young idealist, I thought that if you pray enough life would just stop being imperfect and while life with God is definitely safer and richer as opposed to a life without Him, you just can’t deny that life is still life and it is imperfect.
As I turn 31 (my goodness, I can still vividly recall my cool Steps party when I turned 10), I have come to the realization that the biggest gift I can give to myself is to stop trying to control life with my mind. A recent podcast on Goop debunked myths from the popular book “The Secret”, we cannot simply cannot ‘think’ things into reality.

And I find that to be true – I believe we manifest the life we want by continually working on it and never giving up. The lives we want happen to us because we work hard on it – there is no secret formula, for me personally it has been a lot of prayers, a lot of tears, and a never throwing in the towel. It’s persevering when the world tells you you can’t and accepting the fact that you do deserve what you want in life. It comes with a quiet sense of humility  – showing up for the life you want isn’t loud, it’s a simple assurance that you have inside of you that you know you deserve all the good things you wished for as a child.

It’s a different kind confidence, it’s not teetering on anxiety but rather a quiet rest inside of your soul knowing that with God on your side, you will get through any obstacle victoriously. It comes with growing up I guess, the idea of not wanting to prove yourself to anyone, of picking your battles, and being firm with the nos you give out as well as the man yes-es. It took me years to understand but now I do, when you love and value yourself, the rest of the world will too. When you speak up for yourself by knowing what you can and can’t take, you become less resentful of the world because the world rises up to love you the way you love yourself.

And all of these I learned because life was easy, I learned this when I was on my knees and dealing with all the hurt that I have experienced and I myself have caused. There’s so much freedom in knowing that life is imperfect but I’ve got what it takes to win.

My relationship with God has gone through a lot of questions as well – while some of them are still unanswered and while my faith has changed in the past year, it hasn’t left. I still know that God has gotten me through life’s toughest seasons and daily He protects me and the ones I love and yet, I have also come to the full understanding that sometimes life doesn’t turn out okay but I know and trust in Romans 8:28 – that it all works together.

So today, on the day before I turn 31, I throw my hands up in the air with gratitude, God has been so good to me, the fact that I am here writing this is a testament of how wonderful God has been. I have wanted to give up so many times but in His gentle way, He reminds me that life is still worth living and there is more life and love to experience ahead. What I went through also proved that I should give myself more credit for the things I have survived and this is why I am toasting to my 30th year because God always knew I had what it takes it just took awhile for me to realize it as well.