I want to take a moment to express some of my personal thoughts on the comments we keep receiving from others about the depth of faith our family has to take on such an adventure. These thoughts were inspired by a friend and coaching colleague of mine and I felt impressed to share them here with you.

You see, as I have been through the experiences and challenges life as handed to me, I have come to learn for myself that these moments of trial, whether big or small, are an invitation and opportunity for us to live into our true selves, our true identities of who our Heavenly Parents already know us to be.

Every trial and heartache I have experienced has led me closer to my Savior because most of the time I didn’t know where else to turn in the most painful, lonely, and raw moments of my life. I didn’t know of anyone else who could possibly comprehend or understand or would know exactly what I needed and how to give it. He has been the solution to all my trials since I can remember. Through struggling to express my true thoughts and feelings as a young girl, the struggle of finding true friends who weren’t interested in take advantage of me, through betrayal, abuse, and divorce, with all the degrading behaviors that followed. Through struggling as a single mother of two young kids and having no one who would openly offer support. A miscarriage and a stillborn baby, to feeling isolated and out of place where I called my “home”, then selling everything we own to travel out into the world without knowing where we’ll end up. The pattern of turning, leaning, crying, calling, depending, listening, and conversing with the Lord has led me down a path to a deeply rooted relationship of trust and helping me to live into my true identity as a woman of faith.

I am a woman of faith because I have chosen to be so, it has always been part of who I am before I came to earth as I have received blessings testifying to me that I would go through great challenges in my life and the blessings that have unfolded as I’ve remained true to who I am through them, have led me to an opportunity to step into the truth of who I am at a deeper level. Living in faith is not just who I am, it’s what I do.

I’ll admit that I struggle to trust a lot of people, but I’ve also learned that I don’t need to when I choose to first and foremost turn to the Lord and put my faith and trust in Him, in His timing, and in His will. This doesn’t mean I’m always great at it, I like to think that my ideas as just as great as His, except when He likes to show me that His are even greater than what I have imagined for myself (as it always has been).

I can’t say that choosing trust and faith in the Lord through the hard times has been easy, I’ve learned that trusting in the Lord means instead of allowing my experiences to be a reason to doubt myself, I let them be an opportunity to show that I believe in Christ. Because doing so has also rewarded me with a tremendous amount of peace, love, comfort, healing, and growth in the midst of these trials. And that’s a lot of what I feel through all of this. So much peace instead of fear, so much joy instead of loss, and so much love instead of grief. I feel I am right where I belong, where I get to shine the most and truly live into who God has called me to be.

And I encourage any of you who desire to find this same conviction for yourselves, to tune in to what you’re feeling pulled to do and trust that you are meant to do it. Find your strength in the pull and take that first step forward- fearlessly living into who you desire to be. Because from what I’ve come to learn, you are who you desire to be, you’ve just forgotten that’s who you are.