What God has Taught Me Through Quarantine and Turning 25

If you haven't seen my Facebook, you'll see that today is my birthday. My 25th birthday to be exact. It's a big one. I feel like this one is a much bigger birthday than my 16th, 18th, or even my 21st. I also feel like the quarantine ties really well into how I have learned so much in just the last three or so months.

Over the 25 years that I have been blessed to live in this beautiful mess of what I call my life, I have gone through so much that so many people my age have not gone through. I've seen just how cruel this world could be and have almost been completely broken by it, but I won't go into any details about it. But I've also been able to see the beauty of the world we live in and what life can offer. In the last 10 years from when I became a Christian, I have grown into this very strong and independent God-fearing woman, and God has always been my rock during those 10 years. I honestly feel comfortable in my own skin now and have been truly embracing all the parts of me that make me who I am. That includes the happy, the sad, the beautiful, the broken, and the restored. I am not ashamed of who I am because God wouldn't have shaped me to be the woman I am if I wasn't who I was supposed to be.

Growing up almost every year I've been asked, "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" If you asked me 10 years ago where I'd be, I would never say I'd see myself here. 15-year-old Marilyn would have told you without a doubt she would be married by now and raising her own baby or two. That leads me to a question I should answer. Do I regret it? Or would I change anything? My answer is absolutely not. I realized that I love where I am in life. I am technically debt-free as of May (which happens to be one of my New Year's goals) but have not dumped the money because time right now is very volatile with everything that has happened in the last three or so months. I still have my remote job but I want to be wise and not dump the money without having a better emergency fund stashed during this crazy time in case I do happen to lose my job. Since government student loan interest has been put on hold until October, I don't plan to officially pay off my loans until the middle of September right before the interest kicks back in. I will have a fully-funded 6-month emergency fund then as well.

Even though I love where I am in life, that doesn't mean I don't want to grow or look forward to the next thing to come in my life. I've really been relying on God what I should do about certain aspects of my life, such as traveling, my career, and dating, and praying for the boldness I need to find those healthy opportunities. I also realized that I wasn't really putting myself out there as I could have been by expecting God to plop these opportunities in my lap. I have become more diligent putting myself out there and finding opportunities to continue growing and traveling.

Finally, I've recently truly realized the position I am currently in and what a blessing this season of life I am in. I have so much freedom that I didn't realize I had and have even more with loans paid. I am going to take this time I have right now to serve others and develop stronger relationships with my current friends and family as well as travel. I already have a trip planned to Hawaii and am currently planning a Europe trip (mostly likely to France) for next summer.

Despite spending the whole or most of the day alone, I don't feel alone at all and have already felt so much love today that I have been moved to tears.

Here's to being 25 and not despairing about hitting this milestone but embracing the fact that I made it to this milestone and the woman I am, the woman that I will become, and where God will take me next.

Mental Health Month: Hitting a Major Mental Health Milestone! (May 2020)

Many of you know that I have struggled with anxiety and depression for a long time. I actually struggled with both for almost 10 years. I mostly dealt with it on my own because I didn’t know what was happening until I was so deep in that dark pit. Once I figured out what was happening, I didn’t know how to reach out for help, but I also didn’t want to burden others with the things I struggled with. I ended up carrying this heavy burden that kept getting heavier before it became so very unbearable to carry on my own.

It has affected my health, my relationships, and my view of the world, but most of all it affected my view of God...I barely slept. I gained back almost all the weight I lost almost 10 years ago. I left home to live across the country leaving family who were hurt and concerned about why I left and what will come to my life. I was always on edge because my experiences showed me how cruel the world can be. I kept feeling like God was being cruel to me and wondered why all that was happening to me was happening, but I quickly figured out that this was Satan’s way to turn my heart hard and away from God.

Whenever I felt like I was about to spiral, I threw myself into any kind of work I could find to distract myself from the pain, such as school and work, but it was only always temporary. Just seeing a person associated with that pain would trigger me into an internal anxiety attack as I’m trying to act as if everything is okay. I thought a new place would be the best way to remove myself from all the pain I was dealing with at home in Pennsylvania. That only helped about 25%.

I had the opportunity to move across the country to Washington so I took it because I didn’t know when I’ll have a chance like that again. The way I moved across the country was not a good way because it was wrong and it hurt so many people, especially my family. I am not saying it wasn’t a good move, just done the wrong way. I think my family would agree that I needed to be away to heal. The reason I moved the way I did was I believed I couldn’t do a move like this on my own. I never even traveled to places on my own that weren’t familiar to me, which may surprise many of you because I love to travel.

After moving to Washington, I felt myself unravel very quickly but not in a good sense. I thought I left the worst in Pennsylvania, but I was very wrong. Things got so much worse before they got better. (I won’t go into details here because this is supposed to be a post of healing rather than pain. If you ask me through Facebook or in person, I will tell you.) I completely removed myself from the small support system I had and was learning how to create a new support system where I had no one immediately of a short driving distance. I was blessed to find the church I attend because I truly don’t know where I’d be if God didn’t put me there very soon after I moved to Washington. I created a strong community and support system within a year that has helped me gut out everything that I was dealing with in the last 10 years.

Slowly in the last year, I have healed far more quickly than I thought I would. This healing process has been far from easy. I went through months of counseling where I learned I had to face the things and people that have caused me such pain and anxiety. I’ve had to cut ties, and rely on people despite my apprehension to let people help me carry this overbearing burden.

There are aspects of my painful past that still linger, but I try to take them day-by-day. I can now separate what is real from the anxiety and fear in my head. I have a feeling that the hardest part of this painful process is yet to come, but I am slowly building the strength to face that. I get closer every day to feeling able to completely face that and be fully healed and restored.

I replied to a comment on this Facebook profile picture saying that it was monumental for me. I didn’t know it until after I looked at it. In every picture I have taken in the last 10 years, I could see the darkness of anxiety and depression in my eyes. This is the first picture where I don’t see an ounce of darkness and depression in them, and I can see the healed me rather than the person who was trying to put on a brave face so that she wouldn’t be a burden to others. I actually cried when I realized this. I never thought I’d ever get to this point in my life again because it’s been so long.

I didn’t want to be insensitive during such a hard time for people who will struggle with anxiety and depression as I had for many years. But now that it is over, I wanted to share the hope of healing. In all honesty, if the quarantine happened a year ago, I don’t know how I would have faired because that was when I was dealing with the worst of it. But by the grace of God, I survived that and managed to survive the quarantine this year as well.

I believe the quarantine was something I needed in order to get to this milestone for my mental health, but I have been seeing changes more recently. I am no longer on edge and anxious thinking that someone might come up and attack me. Despite my refusal to weigh myself, I see the changes in my body. I may weigh the same, but my body is far more toned and healthy than it has in my adult life. I can sleep and feel well-rested when I get up. My relationships with my family and friends are better and, in some ways, so much better than I ever thought they could be. I see the world with people who work together and care for each other rather than being cruel. But most of all, I see God as a loving Father who is with me through all the pain and suffering where I can rely on him.

I will share with you the verses that brought me to Christ and helped me throughout the suffering that I endured over the years as a Christian.

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."  - Romans 5:1-5