Five Years.

I like getting sentimental sometimes. I also like marking anniversaries of big changes and other important dates to remember their significance, and reflect on the growth that has occurred since then, or through those trials.

Five years ago this week, I had my first panic attack. Sometimes I feel like I tell this story tirelessly, and that maybe I sound like one of those annoying social media activists or internet social justice warriors. That's never been my intent.

Before anxiety, my ego was enormous. I was the smartest, most well-rounded person to ever grace the face of the planet, and I implicitly pushed that agenda on nearly everyone I met. I was obsessed with making a first impression of omniscience and unparalleled experience to potential new friends, professors, strangers, and people I knew I didn't like. Those things are what makes a person cool (read: massively insecure), right? In my mind, I had to be the best at everything to give myself a chance at being noticed or liked.

Then I learned what it's like to have your body go into overdrive for no reason, without warning, for hours at a time. Your brain says stop while your body says go and the messages get so lost in the confusion and mistranslation that the only response that makes sense to bring back some semblance of control is to hit yourself until your legs are purple, or bite your fingers until you draw blood, and you cry the whole time, not because it hurts, but because you don't know how to make it stop, or how things got so bad, or if life will ever be different, or if it's even worth it to go on living.

Living that life broke me in ways I could never imagine, and wouldn't have known how to have planned for. Living that life showed me that it is impossible, and unethical, for me to judge a person by what I perceive from their outward persona. Living that life taught me about people who yearn for and deserve justice, who scream out for it, yet are silenced by the murmurs of the loudest voices of Western society who determine what is most important to all of us: business, productivity, bureaucracy, capitalism, government, the rat race…

Living that life allowed me to see what true, pure, unconditional love looks like, and where it comes from. It incited me getting the help I need to heal broken and distorted images of what I thought I needed to be in order to be loved, accepted, and heard.

The vast brokenness of this world never ceases to leave me completely baffled (and if you spend much time around me, you've likely heard me let out an "ugh, humans!" or two in frustration). We fall victim to the brokenness of ourselves and others all the time. There is a restorer, a healer, a comforter, a redeemer, who is working on our behalf to make us whole, only because he loves us too much to leave us alone in our mess.

What does that restoration look like? For me, it's been finding joy in the simple things of life--getting together to laugh and chat and be vulnerable with friends; sipping an Americano in a crowded café, or listening to music on the subway as I feel calm, warm, and safe in the arms of Jesus while watching the world go bustling by; feeling like I can be my real, true self in conversations without having to project a certain image in order to be accepted by myself and others; drinking in the beauty of the seasons, and marveling at how God has intricately and intentionally created all that is, and foreknown how they will all interact and come together.

There is freedom in knowing that we are not meant to achieve wholeness on this earth, and that it is not our responsibility to orchestrate our own restoration plan for ourselves or others.

We just have to be.

When Jesus was baptized, before he began his ministry, his Father called him his beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased. Through him, we have access to the title of beloved children of God as well.

We need only be.

The last five years have been unspeakably difficult. They've also been typified by unparalleled growth and reward. Beauty rises from ashes. We are still approaching the day when there will be no more death, mourning, crying or pain, but in the meantime, there is joy to be found in the visible progress of the restoration that is taking place. For this, I am thankful.