How I Found My New Meaning of Faith……

I always thought growing up that the word faith meant living a life of religion and church. To me…..it seemed like something you “had to do” as opposed to something "you feel deep within your soul”.

I have heard so many stories through-out my life of people saying they “found their faith” when something really terrible or hard happened to them. I guess I fall into that category.

I know there has always been a spiritual side to me but it didn’t really unleash itself until I hit the depths of despair with my daughter. I always prayed when I needed to, I always went to church when it was appropriate but my spiritual side did not reveal itself in the ways of church or traditional prayer. It revealed itself on the day I made a promise to my daughter that I wasn’t sure I could keep….. or even worse…if the promise I made would ever turn out to be true.

When everything in my life seemed to be falling apart… and I felt the most scared, vulnerable and out of control….my life took the most amazing turn.

Let me paint the picture…

My daughter was buried underneath her covers and I was buried under mine. I had just left her room and our conversation went something like………

“Mom, I can’t do this anymore……I feel nothing and I don’t have the energy to keep doing this day after day.”

“Sara….I PROMISE YOU…..We are going to do something REALLY GOOD one day with something REALLY BAD! You just have to have FAITH that it is GOING TO GET BETTER!

One day you will be living your best life……You will be in college and experiencing all the things you may be missing right now! I PROMISE YOU…… you just need to HOLD ON! Don’t Give Up!”

Tears actually well up as I write that because that was the scariest moment for me……

I believed it as I said it….but when I went back to my own bed and crawled under the covers……I cried heavy, heaving tears because I was SO DAMN scared that it wasn’t going to be true.

I had no idea how we were going to crawl out of this very dark….very deep….very terrifying hole.

I thought to myself…..”What can I do different than I am doing now? We are going to all the right doctors……we are taking the pressure off of physically going to school and doing Homebound Instruction……we are trying medications…….WHAT CAN I DO DIFFERENT?”

At that time in my life….as I laid underneath the blankets covered in tears….my core and my soul were lost and out of control. I felt like a victim…..I felt like Sara was a victim……I could not understand why this was happening to US! We are good people, Sara is a great person……why depression……why her?

This is where FAITH tapped me on the shoulder……

In that moment of fear….. a thought popped into my head….”How can we make something really hard into something really good?”

It’s as if someone whispered in my ear….Tell people your story. Reach out to the world and share what is going on with your family so others don’t feel so alone in the same process.

I went back to Sara’s room and I told her my crazy idea of going LIVE on Facebook and pulling back the curtain on depression. I wanted to tell the world that we look like we “have it all together” but in reality we were drowning and we know others are drowning too. As Sara and I talked this through, I told her that this could be the way that we can help others as we help ourselves. We decided that if sharing our story could help someone else….this would all be worth it.

I went back to my room, sat on my bed and I did the SCARIEST thing I have ever done….I went LIVE on Facebook on what happened to be one of the hardest days of my life.

Through the tears I talked about what our family was going through. I described our pain…..our fear and our HOPE that this reaches somebody out there that was feeling the same exact way we were. I described to everyone what felt like to me as a ”shoulder tap” from something bigger than me, a higher power if you will. As I spoke….little hearts of support starting popping up on my screen. People started commenting that they were going through the same thing and thanking us for speaking out.

That one decision to go LIVE on social media started a trajectory of FAITH that I never saw coming. I knew we needed to sink into our place in life and KNOW without a shadow of a doubt…..we WOULD make it out of the darkness. We were not only going to help ourselves get out….we were going to help others too!

There was no PROOF. There was no CRYSTAL BALL….there was no GUARANTEE!

All Sara and I had was FAITH that we are in this place for a reason and……. FAITH that we would not be here forever.

From that dark day…..we began to tell each other every morning that WE KNOW things will get better! We also knew that from that point going forward…..helping others and advocating for mental health would be our path to the light.

Nothing physically in our situation had changed to make us believe this but something in our soul had shifted. We found purpose in the pain and started to find true peace in the stage of life we were in.✨

It may sound hokey but this new found shift in our souls was our roadmap out of the depths of darkness.

Doctors, therapists, medication, love of family and friends, support from the schools……all of those things were IMPERATIVE to help bring Sara back…….

BUT IF IT WEREN’T FOR THE FORCE OF FAITH….I don’t know where we would be today.

Now…..

4 years later….

The promises that were once declared on the very scary day…have all came true.

Sara is a freshman in college, surrounded by friends and living the best days of her life.

We continue to help people in the same situations that we were in through our support group and our public speaking engagements where we share our story.

I thank God…..The Universe…..The Higher Powers That Be for all of the blessings that have come into our life. I know that someone or something carried us through the hardest days of our lives and I have solid FAITH they will be there through the tough times that may come to us in the future.

May you find your definition of Faith and know that once you believe consistently that it will be OK…….IT WILL BE.✨

Maybe this blog today will serve as your own “shoulder tap” that there is something bigger out there carrying you towards the light…….

Don’t Give Up……Find Your Faith✨

XOXO🦋