Your #Past Does Not Define Your #Future

I don’t know if you’re happy or if you’re lonely if you’re content. I don’t know if you’re burdened by yesterday or looking forward to tomorrow with open arms. I don’t know if you’re still stuck on someone who walked away, or if you were the one who left and you’re wondering whether you made the right choice.

You are not bound by the things of this world—by the way, you look, the choices you make, the moments you go through. This life is fleeting, so we cannot be forever tied to these short slivers in time, and especially not to the days that buried us, to the brokenness that temporarily weighed down our hearts.

I don’t know the specifics about you—what makes you unique, what you care about, who you are when the lights are off and you’re all alone—but what I do know is that when all the layers are peeled back, we’re not that much different after all.

Pain is a part of being human. Like breathing, like thinking we will face it inevitably, and as much as we try to build ourselves up, keep our chests beating strong and our heads held high, we will crumble from time to time. We will lose our spark. We will wander aimlessly through our days, struggling to find purpose, and passion, and patience.But the pain that we experience will not last forever. Though it might cause chaos in our hearts, it will not make a permanent home.

The heartbreak, the loneliness, the bitterness, the exhaustion—those things are temporary, even when it feels like they are all we know. One day we will steady our breathing, find our footing and step forward again. One day the heaviness will lift and we’ll look up at the sky with a renewed sense of self. One day we won’t think of what we no longer have first, but be filled and encouraged by all that we possess, all that is within us.

And in the moments where you don’t know what else to do, repeat these words over and over until they stick: I am blessed. I am loved. I am strong.

Because you are. You are blessed by air, by lungs, by legs, by light by waking up this morning, by reading through this. You are blessed by people who care for you, even when the wrong ones don’t. You are blessed by nature, by laughter, by art. You are blessed simply by being alive. Don’t take that for granted.

As for love, you will find it. Though the truth is, you already have it beating wildly in your chest. And that heartbeat? That’s strength. Each pulse a reminder of who you are and the places you will go.

So speak only positivity, only courage, only hope to yourself. Know that you are a person worthy of being here, and know that even across oceans, highways, time zones, and computer screens someone else is writing these exact words and rooting for you.