It’s my 36th birthday! 🎉 I feel like I’ve lived 10 lives in the 3 years between these 2 photos. It’s included some of the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life. The changes I’ve experienced these past few years have been overwhelming, to say the least. Social media is interesting. We see the one perfectly posed picture out of a dozen that were taken. We hear the single captivating story out of a hundred ordinary moments. We see the “before and after” but conveniently get left out of the messy middle. Maybe sometimes we see more of the raw, real and vulnerable. But at the end of the day, we still only see what people want us to see. You see a lot of “highs” here, like my progress and how much fuller my life is. I do my best to be open about both the ups and downs of my health journey. But there are parts of my life (unrelated to my physical health) I don’t share. Not because I’m trying to hide it, I’ve just learned what I can handle sharing and what I can’t. There have been a lot of “lows” you haven’t seen. I don’t say that for sympathy, I say it to be transparent. And to let you know that even after coming out of one of the hardest seasons of my life last year, the joy you see in me is still real. Even when I didn’t feel hopeful. Even when I didn’t feel happy. How was the joy real even then? Because I know that feelings are temporary. They’re real, but they’re not always truthful. And I know that temporary circumstances don’t have to dim my light unless I let them. Joy isn’t something I wear some days and not others. It’s a part of me. So when I appear happy even on the days I can’t stop crying, it’s not because I’m being fake. It’s because I know who I am even when my current circumstances make it hard to see. My joy and my peace come from choosing to heal through the lows rather than avoiding all that comes with experiencing a painful season of life. Healing sounds delicate, but it’s actually hard work. And it’s work worth doing. Because I’ve learned that a life worth living doesn’t come easy. And true peace comes from doing the work, not avoiding it. So here’s to another year of highs and lows! I wouldn’t be who I am without them both! 🤗