This is my very first post. I am so very excited to start this project, I didn't know how this would look or where I would be at in my life. Right now things are weird & this change in my life feels awkward and uncomfortable. But I know the heart within my chest beats to love & encourage. I long for my words to mean something and not just be words to fill voids, but words with meaning and depth. I want to be the kind of person who continues to fight through the mucky waters and grasp onto hope, when darkness is all that is in sight. Words have the power to weave something into that empty space between people, in that space our hiding shades start to pour. That space becomes colored with the sorrows, the frustrations, the absolute agony of what it is like to be alive. But with the sorrows, life also contains great joys. I long to create a space to share stories, to see inside each other, unstitch and embody each others intricacies.

Over the past few years of my life I have come to realize the importance of my story and the importance of other people's as well. We have all felt it & each of us at one point or another has been touched by the hand of depression, anxiety, grief, and utter loneliness. We have held on to the lies that bind us, the lies that looked us in the eyes and told us we were not enough & never could be. We let these lies entrap us, we let them define who we were. Many of us have found ourselves in the vicious cycle of trying to please those around us. In our desperation to be found worthy we changed ourselves to be who they wanted us to be, and in the process have been driven deeper into loneliness.

In this desperate search we settle to people please rather than to pursue passions and dreams. Through this blog I want others to be able to stop letting people define their worth. From the moment you left the womb and gasped for your first breath of fresh air you were of infinite value (the secret that you needed to hear a long time ago, is that you still are). Don't listen to those who tell you you can't reach your goals or accomplish your dreams. If you're a dreamer dream. If you're an artist, create. If your a physician, heal the sick. If your a mother love your kids and encourage their pursuits wildly. No matter where you're at and no matter how lost you may feel, you hold a purpose deep within your soul. You are needed. We need you. We need to hear your story, and learn what it is that makes your heart continue to beat & what keeps getting you out of bed every morning. We need to learn from one another. If we keep suppressing our true selves, and continue to hide the heart beneath our unkept flesh we will never be at peace and never grow.

Run from the lies that bind you to mediocrity. When they told you, you were nothing and could never be something...I'm here to say that they were wrong. It's time to head out into this terrifying and breathtaking adventure. The storms of life will come, but together we will hold fast in the night.