Sunday, June 8, 2014

Blogging seems to be a popular way to occupy time among my friends, so I thought that I would give this a try. When the idea first came to me while laying in my bed this afternoon, I honestly laughed at myself. I am not an English major like many of my other talented friends and I am not a self-proclaimed writer. So forgive me in advance for any grammatical errors or if my words are all over the place. I am just a girl who loves to express her thoughts through writing.

Most of you may not know that I am part Italian. And yes, I have the dark features and the sassy attitude. It runs in the family. That is why when thinking of a title for this blog, I thought of the Italian phrase "Continua ad andare avant" which means to "keep moving forward". This has basically been my motto for the past year now, and I am certain it will remain a constant reminder for the rest of my life.

For some of us, myself included, life after high school is a confusing time. For others, like many of my friends and classmates, everything falls into place perfectly and I admit that I am often jealous of that. In the two years that I have been out of high school, I have: transferred colleges and can honestly say that I still haven't found a college that is the right fit for me, found out the hard way that a lot of college guys are still not "grown men" as we wish they would be by now, gained so-called "friends" and have lost real ones, experienced what it is like to be B R O K E, and most recently, have been battling anxiety and depression. Now don't get me wrong, none of this is me complaining. I know that many of you have experienced at least one of the things mentioned above or maybe worse.

I choose to tell you about this confusing time in my life because through all the madness, I have learned something. I spent many nights crying out to God asking "God, You say You 'know the plans You have for me, plans to prosper and not harm me' so why am I going through all of this?" Those nights were the ones that I considered giving up everything. The truth is, for a long time now I have left out the most important part of that verse. Jeremiah 29:11 says "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Often we are so focused on the "bad" things that happen in our life, we forget what we have learned because of each experience. By no means has any of the above "harmed" me. I have learned to praise God for the trials in my life because through them I have become a stronger Christian and a stronger woman. It is because of the trials that I have hope for my future.

I read back over this first blog and I apologize for the mini sermon (I am a preacher's daughter after all). Consider this first post as a long "about me". I have learned a lot after graduating high school and the transition into this new phase of my life. The main lesson that I have learned thus far is no matter how big the trial, no matter how many times you are knocked down, no matter what you are going through this exact moment: God promises us hope for our future. And because of that hope, we can keep moving forward.