There were things I didn't understand yet.

For much of my life, I thought I was simply doing what I had to do.

I kept going. I adapted. I endured. I figured things out. I learned how to be strong because sometimes there didn't seem to be another choice.

And somewhere along the way, survival became so familiar that I didn't realize I had begun to mistake it for living.

I didn't have the words for that then.

I only knew that I was tired of carrying things I couldn't change, trying to make sense of things that didn't make sense, and wondering if this was simply what life was going to look like.

But something was beginning to change.

I just couldn't see it yet.

I Didn't Know What Was Happening Yet.

For a long time, I thought my life was simply a collection of things I had to get through.

I had learned how to keep moving when life didn't make sense. I learned how to show up when I was tired, how to carry what needed carrying, and how to keep going even when I didn't know what was waiting on the other side.

From the outside, maybe it looked like strength.

And in many ways, it was.

But there is a difference between being strong enough to survive something and believing you were meant to live beyond it.

I didn't understand that distinction yet.

I only knew that something inside me was becoming restless.

I was beginning to question things I had accepted for years.

Was this really all life was supposed to be?

Was I always going to carry the weight of what had happened?

Did my past really get to decide what came next?

I didn't know the answers.

But I was beginning to ask different questions.

And sometimes, I think that's where change begins.

Not with having all the answers.

But with finally being willing to ask a different question.

And that's where the story begins to change.

Looking back now, I can see that change rarely arrives the way we expect it to.

Sometimes it begins quietly.

Sometimes it begins with a question.

Sometimes it begins when we finally become tired enough of the life we're living to wonder if something different might be possible.

I didn't know what was ahead of me.

I didn't know how much of my life would have to be rebuilt.

I didn't know that some of the things I thought had broken me would eventually become part of the message I would carry.

I certainly didn't know that one day I would look back and realize that God had been working in my life long before I understood what He was doing.

But He was.

And slowly, I began to see that my story wasn't simply about what had happened to me.

It was also about what was happening within me.

I was learning that healing doesn't always look like forgetting.

Sometimes it looks like finally being able to look back without letting the past tell you who you are.

I was learning that purpose isn't always something we find.

Sometimes it is something we rediscover.

And I was learning that the parts of our lives we would most like to erase may become the very places where someone else eventually finds hope.

I didn't understand all of that then.

I was simply taking the next step.

And then the next one.

But somewhere along the way, I began to realize something I wish I had understood much earlier:

My story wasn't over.

There was still more ahead.

More healing.

More becoming.

More purpose.

More life.

And maybe that is what I want you to know as you read my story.

You don't have to understand everything yet.

You don't have to know exactly where you're going.

You don't have to have your whole life figured out before you take the next step.

Sometimes all you need is enough hope to believe that there might be something beyond what you can see right now.

Because there was for me.

And if there can be for me...

there can be for you, too.

I was made for more than survival.

And so are you.