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July came and I had what felt like the worst week of my life. My dog died, I got broken up with, I had problems with housing and while all of this was happening I felt like I was becoming a shelf for everyone's problems around me.

I didn’t expect to do anything but work and hang out with friends the summer going into my junior year. I just had some significant life changes at the end of the spring semester and needed rest.

Yet, I was moving from my childhood home, I lived there for the past eighteen years of my life, and now where was I supposed to go?

I found it difficult to say goodbye. I lashed out at my loved ones, I became a person I didn’t even want to be around. I was losing what felt like all sense of stability in my life and even the Lord couldn’t carry me through it.

I was able to pull myself through the month of May and June came with some repercussions but it was okay. I was picking up my feet and creating a new rhythm for my life but I still felt empty.

I finally had to call it quits. I isolated myself for a week and let my tears wash away whatever they could but I still didn’t feel satisfied. How silly of me to think the Lord would help with just my tears right?

On one of my lowest nights, I reflected on what happened two years ago. I had just gotten out of the most toxic and nearly abusive relationship of my life. I didn’t know who I was without this person in my life. I revolved my life around someone's every move I never created a space for myself.

That September I didn’t want to be alive anymore. 

I thought my existence had no meaning and that the Lord left this lamb behind. I prayed on that last day of September that with the end of the month the lord would take away all my sadness and bring me new opportunities in October.

I woke up on October first and for the first time in three months, I didn’t cry. I remembered that the Lord accounts for every lamb, even me.

This summer, I said the same prayer.

I got on my knees and asked the Lord to open doors for me, to allow me to have an open mind, an open heart, and a soul willing to be on display.

I was going to be okay.

I felt guilty for not crying over my break up but why should I feel guilty for the way I process it?

I felt the best I had in the past four years of my life. I felt free. I still do.

I never understood the idea of “a summer glow up” I felt that even changing my appearance the slightest bit wouldn’t make me feel like I changed but it wasn’t physical that I needed. It was spiritual.

I began to meditate and remember the deserving person I am. It was then that I started to see the change because accepting my physical appearance made me love how I looked more. I was reminded of how I was created in the Lord’s image and that finally felt true.

Summer doesn’t just have to be about taking cute vacation pictures, going to camp, and only working, it can be about self-discovery. It can be a journey to loving yourself when you can’t distract yourself from classes.

We must be buried to grow. So I put myself what felt like six feet under to be the best version of myself. 

You don’t have to hit rock bottom to get back to the top, that just was just the case for me. Everyone has their own journey, I encourage you to fully open yourself up to yours.