Elijah said, "I want to die." The Father said, "I'll help you survive."

Don't break. Don't you dare show the world that you're breaking. We're all trying to be strong, even when we're our weakest, we're telling them they're wrong. They say, "it'll be okay." Will it be okay? And what if it won't? Have we failed ourselves when we become weak and vulnerable? We lock up our hearts behind these walls, too thick to be invaded; and yet we want desperately for someone to invade them. And that's just it. We just want someone to feel affectionately towards us. We want someone to care about us. But we're always disappointed because everyone only thinks of themselves and they forget about others.

This world, it has become heavy upon my shoulders. My soul longs for the place where I belong. Where judgments aren't passed... where hurt is nonexistent and pain is a foreign concept. Pain, something I feel nearly every day... foreign? The thought is unreal. It is apparent that this place is not our home. This filthy, broken place is not where we are meant to be. This earth, plagued with depression, hatred, and fear where people kill themselves and others, hurt themselves and others, and rob themselves as well as others. And yet, people still don't believe there is hope elsewhere? If not, how can they even continue to live? If there is no hope beyond this sinful, empty world-- what is there to look forward to? Why then, are we here? To merely exist? To bury ourselves in want?

I like to believe I'm here for so much more. For so much more than a husband or a family or even an education or occupation. Because if life was just about having a beautiful house or boasting in our successes, why would homeless people and drug addicts, who have lost everything, still choose to live? I like to believe they believe it, too: that we're all a part of this beautiful struggle for so much more. We are here to love, to laugh, to inspire the one's we love and the one's we don't even know. It is so easy to become bitter about life's disappointments, about our setbacks... but I am glad. I'm honored. Because maybe after my life is long gone, someone will revel on it and come across the realization that maybe there's so much more. That, if she still chose life after all of the pain and hardships in her life, maybe I can. Right here, right now I don't know. But if there's just a slight chance that my life might inspire someone to continue to live theirs, then I choose to live. I choose to fall down seven times and get back up eight. I choose the daily battle of depression and anxiety and I choose the nearly impossible lesson of learning to love myself despite the hateful words of others. I believe in tearing down the walls barricading my heart and allowing love to enter in. I believe in boasting in my weaknesses, in being real about the hell that life can sometimes bring so that maybe just one person will choose not to kill themselves. So that maybe one person will be inspired to get back up and love life again. I believe in living because I have been granted a life full of so many blessings. Because I truly believe that life is beautiful even when there is so much pain.

"He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. 'I have had enough, Lord,' he said. 'Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.' Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

All at once an angel touched him and said, 'Get up and eat.' He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, 'Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.' So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night." -1 Kings 19:4-9 

It feels bad now, but it's gonna get better.

You peel yourself from your bed. You look in the mirror. The bags under your eyes seem permanent. The pain behind your eyes seems to be spilling out, so much so that you're worried people might actually notice. Might actually realize how broken you really are, no matter how hard you try to piece yourself together before you go outside. And at the end of the day, you pull the mask off. You let yourself fall onto the futon, curl up in the comfort of your room. All you want is comfort, a hug, someone to rub your back and tell you, "you're doing fine." But no one sees you, the pain you hold inside so that it physically wears you down, the nightmares of your depression slowly defeating you... and the next day you do it all again. The faces you see as you walk to class are strangers. And even the people you do know that smile and say hello- they don't know the battle you're facing; they hardly know you at all. You look in the mirror and wonder how they cannot see it as it stares you blindly in the face: the broken pieces you put together in the mornings, the fear, the loneliness, the inability to merely get up in the mornings-- you wonder how did I get here?

How do you rebuild yourself from the lowest point you've ever been? Your muffled voice attempts prayers, but your heart is heavy and it is too soon. Surely this is not the Lord's will for you. But you are literally breaking and you cannot bear this anymore. The thoughts that have always invaded your mind find a way back into it, "You will never measure up. You will never be able to make the ones you love proud. You are a failure. You are not good enough. You are selfish. You are hopeless. You have no friends." The scars of old wounds stare back at you.

It's not easy and it's not fair but you're going to have to pick yourself up and push yourself. I know you're young and you shouldn't have to face all this by yourself but God has given you this to face because He knows you are strong enough to. Admitting that you're not okay does not mean that you are weak. Admitting weakness makes you strong. You have to learn to look in the mirror and love yourself. You have to love yourself, you have to take care of yourself; don't be so hard on yourself.

You get up the next morning, brew a cup of coffee, open the blinds and smile. Just a small grin, but a grin nonetheless. You watch the wind bustle through the tress and you know that there is hope.