Have you ever heard of The Red Zone? According to metoomvmt.org, “The Red Zone is the time spanning the start of the fall semester through Thanksgiving break when more than 50% of all college sexual assaults are statistically found to occur.”. The beginning of college is exciting and new. You are away from your family, you start to go to parties, and may experiment with drinking. With all of these precipitating factors, it begins a time of statistically heightened instances of sexual assault that happen. 1 out of every 5 American women have been a victim of attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. According to rainn.org, out of every 1000 sexual assaults, 975 perpetrators will walk free. The 25 that do not walk free will likely spend a short amount of time in jail or simply on probation. According to RAINN, only 5 out of every 1,000 rapes committed—that’s 0.5 percent—ends in a felony conviction.

Four years ago today, I became part of that statistic. I am one out of the five. It is easier for society to look at a statistic and think “oh my, that is so sad.”. It is more difficult for society to actually put a face to the statistic. The word “rape” makes people uncomfortable. I often see it labeled as “sexual assault”, but to me that term does not do it justice. I was not simply sexually assaulted. I was raped. I was forced, as a virgin, to be held down in the back seat of my own car and have a penis brutally penetrated into my anus and partially my vagina. I could not move. I could not put pressure on my seat as I drove home. I had to hold myself up off the seat with one arm resting on the door and the other on the middle console while still maintaining the wheel. I bled so heavily that the whole toilet was covered and filled with blood . I was not sexually assaulted. I was raped.

I say that I became a part of a statistic, but I am not just the sad one out of five statistic, I am also the 0.5% statistic whose trial ended in a felony conviction. Two years after the rape, I won. And now, four years later, I am still winning. Yes, there are days that I think about it more than others. There are nights that I have nightmares of it all happening again. But the majority of my days are good. In my impact statement at the sentencing, I said “I get to go on living my life. I get to get married. I get to have children someday. Yes, I have to deal with the emotional scars that this left me with, but I will know that he does not have the same privileges as me. I get to know that he will not have a family, that he will not know the joy of having children. I get to know that he is paying for what he did to me and so many other women.” And that is exactly what I did. I am married, I will have children someday, and he will not.

As I think back to the tragedy I experienced this time four years ago, I commend myself for the strength I have gained. I stand up for myself more. I do not let anyone treat me poorly or walk all over me. I have become more independent and strong willed. I have grown in my faith and have been able to share that over several news outlets. Yes, I am 1 out of the 5, but that does not define me. My strength and my God define me.

Today was the first time since the trial that someone has used the term “he said she said” to me regarding my case. Since the beginning of the Me Too movement, I never expected another woman to use this old school term again, yet here we are.

I have spent the past four years of my life defending and standing up for myself and it is absolutely exhausting. I know that I should not let the insignificant people who don’t believe my story bother me, because I know the truth of what happened that night and the jury decided that beyond a reasonable doubt, they know what happened too. But when I have someone say to me that they do not know the full story because they were not there, it enrages me beyond belief. Of course no one else was there, because if they were, I probably would not have been raped. And my goodness do I wish someone else would have been there to stop it from happening.

For someone at this point to say they do not believe me bothers me less than it would have four years ago, but you have to understand, no matter what it still causes me to go into a panic. I would not have sat on that stand for eight hours straight if I was lying. I would not take all the medications for anxiety, depression, and PTSD that I do now if I was lying. I would not have frequent night terrors that replay that night in my head if I was lying. I gave so much of myself and my time up to this trial, and would I have put myself through all of that if I was lying?

If this was a case about anything other than a sexual crime, it would never be referred to as a he said she said. The only reason it is referred to as that, is because society gives so much more to the perpetrator than they do the victim. I had to sit on that stand and prove to everyone that he did rape me, while all he had to do is say he didn’t. I had to give the evidence that it did happen, and all he had to do is say that I was lying. I had to sit on the stand and cry as I looked at pictures of the car that he raped me in, and all he had to do was say that it wasn’t true. This was never a case of he said she said. This was a case of she said, because I won. The defense used the same argument that this was a he said she said, yet the jury decided beyond a reasonable doubt that no, that was not the case. Of course no one else was there when it happened, but when is anyone else ever present while someone is being raped? That is never a valid argument to say that it did not happen.

With all of this, I guess my point is that whether or not your belief is that it is a he said she said case, never say that to a rape victim. The last thing they need to hear is that they are not believed. I have to live the rest of my life with the scars that he left me with, so whether you think your opinion needs to be heard or not, leave it to the jury to decide. As a rape victim, I have gone through enough already. I know that God and the people who matter are on my side and that is all that counts. Thank you to everyone who believes me and has loved me so well over the past four years. Your continued support even today is something that I will always need.

Today is April first, the first day of sexual assault awareness month. There’s no better way to start this month of awareness than to have night terrors and sleep paralysis the night before, right? Well thanks to my PTSD, that’s exactly how it started for me.

Before the assault, I had never had a night terror or been in sleep paralysis before. I even hardly ever had nightmares. But since the night of October 7th, 2018, I have nightmares around 2-4 times a week. Now these nightmares aren’t always about the assault and they do not always lead to sleep paralysis, but they always wake me up in a panic drenched in sweat from head to toe. I have started to find a pattern in the nights that I do experience the night terrors. It usually follows a day worth of stress and anxiety. Yesterday I spent the majority of my day constantly thinking about my upcoming exam and how badly I need to study. Then that lead me to thinking about failing again. Then that lead me to think about not becoming a nurse. And down the rabbit hole I went.

The strangest part of having a night terror is the aura or sensations I get before I go to bed that indicate that I am in fact going to have a night terror that night. I will literally tell my parents “I am going to have a night terror tonight”. It’s almost like the aura someone would get before a seizure or a migraine. It begins as a very minimal pain in my head. Then as it continues, I will start to feel very lightheaded or dizzy while lying down. Whether I am fully awake and laying down or I am drifting off to sleep, I start to get a buzzing sensation that starts at the top of my head and works it’s way down my face, and if it is very severe, it will work it’s way down my whole body. You know the snowy channel on TV and the sensation you get when your foot has fallen asleep? That is the exact feeling I get in my head, rather it is more like a pulsing feeling that makes my eyes shoot open and my body slightly convulse. I will change my positioning to try and make it stop, but it continues to occur about every 30 seconds.

I tried everything I could to prevent myself from having this night terror. I tried to change up my routine before going to bed just to trick my mind into keeping this impending terror away. I opened my window to have a cool breeze falling in on me, I braided my hair thinking that a different feeling than normal might work, I wore clothes to bed that I don’t normally wear, I laid on the opposite side that I normally do, and I kept my door open. Regardless of all of the changes, it happened.

This particular episode was slightly different than the others. As I fell asleep, my body did its normal convulsing and buzzing that it does, but when my eyes opened, I saw the figure of a man in my room right in front of me. I told myself it wasn’t real because I couldn’t move as the paralysis had set in. My eyes closed once again and yet another 30 seconds later, I was awoken by that dreaded buzz in my head and shock wave down my body to see the same figure standing above me. At this point I am yelling out for my sister (or so I thought) to come help me. I tend to dream that I am yelling for someone to help me as I simultaneously seeing this dark figure and feeling it pull me off my bed. Once again my eyes open and nothing is there and when I try to speak or move, I am stuck. It is a vicious cycle that continues for what feels like hours, but actually only happens over the course of about 30 minutes. Once I finally break out of it and am able to sit up and wake myself up, I feel an intense amount of emotion. I sob uncontrollably and scream for help while my body shakes and I gasp for air. Scary, right?

Tonight’s episode was different. Instead of crying like normal, I felt empty. I felt like an empty shell of myself. Sort of like I was watching myself from an outsiders perspective. I hardly remember walking to my sisters room and climbing into bed with her. While in bed with her, any slight movement I felt awoke me in a panic. Every time Harper moved, I jumped. Following all of this, this morning I felt drained. I am frustrated that I have to go through this. I am frustrated that this is my reality. Even when my mind is shut off and I should be sleeping and dreaming, I still experience such an effect of the assault.

I don’t know if this will ever go away. I feel like it is going to be a lifelong occurrence for me. It’s almost like I spend so much time shutting out and disassociating from the reality of the assault I endured, that my mind is attacking me at my most vulnerable. Most days I don’t think about him and what he did to me. I feel like I have moved past it, but then my dreams remind me that I am no where near past it. Will I ever fully recover from the emotional trauma I endured? Will I ever feel fully rested again?

This post is going to be difficult for me to write, because as much as I like to think that I have been able to maintain a consistent and fairly normal life these past three years, that has proven to not be quite as true as I thought it was.

This past spring semester was the most difficult one I have had so far. Along with having two of the most difficult classes in the same semester, I was dealing with consistent night terrors, PTSD, and personal relationship issues. My trial began in August 2020. During that semester I received my first ever C in a class. I have always been an A/B student, so getting a C in a class was very disheartening to me. I was so upset with myself for my grade in the class. I blamed myself and called myself stupid more times than I can count. Never did I take into account that I had just gone through a traumatic trial and was constantly distracted from my school work, all I did was blame myself.

I have not had a normal semester of college. I was raped the first semester of my freshman year, which means that I have gone through nursing school while dealing with one of the most traumatic and distracting things one could. I am thankful that I have made it as far as I have. After the trial, I started to have consistent night terrors. I will wake up in a sleep paralysis state and feel as if my chest is caving in. Sometimes I even see Chase in my room and I am not able to wake myself up from this horrible night terror. Since October of 2018, I was working towards a conviction. After the trial in August 2020, I had nothing else to work toward. Chase was convicted and I was now dealing with two years of internalized trauma and pain. It was as if I was just realizing the reality of what happened to me.

This past semester was the worst that I have had. My classes were extremely difficult and I was constantly distracted due to the unwavering trauma and anxiety that trial left me with. Once the semester was nearing the end, I realized that I had a difficult decision to make. I had to take a medical withdrawal from the semester. My mental health was at an all time low and there was no way that I could concentrate enough to keep my grades up. Making this decision was hard for me, because it meant that I would be a year behind in school and would not be graduating with my friends. After praying about it and taking the advice from advisors and professors, I decided that it was the best decision for me. As I said before, I have always been an A/B student and school has always come easy to me, so admitting that it was too much was very difficult for me to do.

This semester I am retaking some of the classes that I passed, because with a medical withdrawal, you withdrawal from all the classes that you took, pass or fail. It has been hard for me to be positive and accept that I am not graduating when I had planned on it, but I have to remind myself that I am not invincible. Sometimes you have to do what is best for your mental health regardless if it aligns with the plan you have made for your life.

I have started to look on the bright side of my circumstances. By withdrawing from the semester, I had to take 15 hours of classes this summer in order to maintain my promise scholarship. I took three psychology classes and two independent studies. After taking those classes, I now have a minor in psychology which will be helpful in my nursing career and when I work as a SANE nurse. I have the opportunity to work for Autism Services and watch Brayden for an extra year, and get to have another free summer before staring my career. By retaking my classes, I will be able to learn the material in greater detail than before.

As disappointed as I have been with myself, I realize that I am lucky to have made it as far as I have so far. I could have easily dropped out and given up on myself back in 2018, but I didn’t. I continued to prevail through unsavory circumstances. Although my plans for school are not exactly as I planned, I know that I will be a great nurse no matter how long it takes me to graduate. I have to remember that I went through something horrible and it is not my fault to take a break for my mental health. That doesn’t make me stupid. It doesn’t make me a worse nurse. It makes me strong for realizing when I needed to take a break and focus on myself.

Sometimes your thoughts can be worse than the actual circumstances surrounding you. If you’re like me, you know what it’s like to spiral. And by spiral I mean, this: 

“I haven’t finished my notes for class yet this week. Oh my gosh I’m going to fail. But I don’t feel like doing them, I’ll be fine. But I need to or I’ll fail and won’t be a nurse. Then I won’t be able to do work in the clinic in Haiti. Then everyone will think I’m a failure. It’s fine, I’ll be alright. Can the people around me tell that I’m having anxious thoughts and spiraling? Just smile and engage and they won’t know. No one can know you’re stressed. You have to be strong so that when others are hurting and need your help, they’ll come to you because they don’t know you’re hurting too. If I just ignore my stress it will go away.” 

That’s not even the half of it. Some days I feel so much joy and thankfulness for life, then there are days where I can’t sit still for even a second because if I do, my thoughts start to race and begin to consume me. Today is one of those bad days. For whatever reason, I can’t keep myself from spiraling and rethinking every moment in my life that caused me stress. I am rethinking conversations that I had months ago and worrying that I should have said things differently. I am picturing myself up on the stand in the court room and experiencing every ounce of anxiety that I felt then. I keep reminding myself of all I have lost and gone through these past two and a half years. And although I am feeling all of these emotions and cannot seem to break the cycle of unwanted thoughts, I can’t help but push them away and worry more about the people around me rather than my own mental and physical health.

I wish that I could love and take care of myself half as much as I feel the need to do for others. I feel like I have more of a purpose when I am helping someone else. I get to put all of my struggles aside and focus on fixing someone else’s issues. As much as I think this helps me, I’ve started to realize that it may be causing me to spiral even more. If we don’t love and take care of ourselves as much as we do others, how can we be fully equipped to help them? Maybe the best thing we can do is take a break from constantly fixing others problems and work on ourselves so then when others need us, we can be fully present.

These past few months I have started praying more than ever before. It’s become so natural to me, that whether I’m closing my eyes to go to sleep or I’m driving, I just start to talk to God like he is physically there beside me. Although praying does help me destress and relax, sometimes I just get so frustrated that God doesn’t just make me feel better on the spot. I know that’s not how it works, and he works in ways that we sometimes don’t see until years later, but sometimes it just sucks. 

So to anyone who struggles with anxiety and frustration when you don’t feel that God is answering your prayers, you’re not alone. Take care of yourself first so that you are fully equipped to take care of others. God will always answer your prayers and comfort you when you need it.

Psalm 139:13-14 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

This past week I was able to have one of my clinicals on a labor and delivery unit. Needless to say, it was much more enjoyable than my normal medsurg clinicals. Being able to witness the love that these mothers had for their unborn children made me think of how crazy it is that we have a Heavenly Father that loves us even more. Even so much that He died so that we didn’t have to.

A nurse that I was working alongside said something that stuck with me: “A lot of the times nurses treat their patients like patients, but I have always believed that we should treat our patients as family and the children as our own.” When she said this, all I could think about is how that is exactly how our Father loves us. We are not just “humans” to Him, we are His children, His family.

Now, as much as I would like to believe that we live in a perfect world where everyone loves each other and there is no evil, I know that’s not true. Satan roams the earth not in physical form, but in the form of worldly desires: drugs, alcohol, jealously, lying, cheating, temptation, adultery, murder and so much more. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that the people who consistently partake in these worldly sins are just as much a child of God as the next person. But the verse that I quoted at the top does not say “For you created the inmost being of some people; you knit only certain ones together in their mother’s womb.”, it is intended for all of God’s children. He created each and everyone of us and loves us no matter what.

I think that one of the reasons we are referred to as “children of God” is because He wants us to be like children, full of hope, innocence, and purity. Constantly striving to be more like Him. If you have children or a younger sibling, I’m sure you have seen how they mimic their parents or siblings because they want to be like them. Is that not the same thing that God wants to see from us? To mimic Him because we admire Him so much? You hear people say “Don’t be childish”, but I think that is exactly what how we are supposed to act. Always looking up to our Heavenly Father and learning to mimic Him more and more each day. The verse that I quoted at the beginning popped up as my “verse of the day” on the Bible app as soon as I left my clinical. I felt as though that was a sign to me to remind everyone that I could that we are all children of God. Knit together perfectly in our mother’s womb. He has made a way for us and who are we to not follow it and act more like Him every day?

Yesterday I had a routine doctors appointment just to check and see how my antidepressants and other medications have been working. The nurse asked me multiple questions as she always does before I see the doctor. She asked me a question that I have gotten so used to answering over the years; “Have you felt down or depressed recently?” I cannot recall a time that I have ever answered “no” to that question. My answer is mostly always “Yes, nearly every day”, but today was a monumental day in my struggle with depression. I answered “No, I actually haven’t felt depressed at all recently.” It wasn’t until she asked me that question that I realized how content I have been with my life recently.

Since around 8th and 9th grade I have struggled with depression and anxiety and for the past two years, have had to deal with PTSD and night terrors on top of that. I have been on several different antidepressants throughout the years and gone to counseling to try and deal with it, but I have never been as content as I am now and I think there are a few reasons for that.

1. GOD. Without God and my faith, there is no way I would be where I am today. As you have read on my blog before, I have been to Hell and back these past two years. From hating myself for what happened to me, to to going into the courthouse about once a week for a year straight, there is no other explanation for my happiness other than God.
2. MEDICATION! There is such a stigma to taking antidepressants and it’s so sad. Do I wish that I didn’t have to take four different antidepressants and antianxiety medications? Well yeah, but guess what? I have no shame in taking them. If you had a heart condition, you would take medication to help it. If you had bad vision, you would get glasses. There is absolutely no difference in taking antidepressants. Depression and anxiety is a medical condition due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, so why would you not take medication to help that?
3. MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY. After going through what I did and losing two of my best friends throughout it all for reasons I will never know, you would think I would have no hope. But that is so wrong. The friends and family that really do care about me have shown me that. I have been able to see who my true friends are because they have stuck by me no matter what. Losing friends hurts, especially when you don’t know why, but I believe that if someone is meant to be in your life, they will be. So thank you momma. Thank you daddy. Thank you Harper. Thank you Cody. Thank you Mikayla. Thank you Heather. Thank you Carissa. Thank you Sabrina. Thank you Delaney. You all have shown me unconditional love, and because of that I am the happiest I have ever been.

It feels almost wrong to say that I haven’t felt depressed recently. Although of course I don’t want to feel depressed, it honestly feels like I am saying goodbye to a part of myself that I am not ready to get rid of. I have held onto the sadness and the pain for so long, that it almost feels unnatural to not feel that anymore. I have become so comfortable in clinging to the part of me that is depressed. I think part of me is afraid that once I say that I don’t feel depressed anymore, I am going to have to be happy all the time or that I’m going to jinx it. But that’s not true. Just because I feel content right now does not mean I am never allowed to feel sad again.

Anyway, these past few days have felt so free. I still cannot believe that I was able to go from answering the nurse’s question with “Yes I have felt depressed nearly every day.” to “No, I actually haven’t felt depressed at all.” Life is full of pain and sadness, but it is also full of beauty. I hope this helps someone.

In eight days it will have been two years since the day I was completely violated and forcefully raped in the back of my own car. Eight days.

It has been four days since Chase Hardin was sentenced to 20-50 years in prison and 30 years of supervised release once he gets out.

It has been 723 days since October 7th. It has been 723 days since the old Ripley was torn away and transformed into someone I don’t even recognize anymore. There are parts of me that have changed for the better, but there are also parts of me that I wish did not exist. In this post, I want to be brutally honest. I want to express the positive and the negative changes that I have seen in myself throughout the past 723 days, so that is exactly what I’m going to do.

For the past 723 days I have been working towards a goal. I have been working toward Chase’s conviction. It wasn’t until after he was convicted that I realized while I have been working towards this goal, I have not dealt with the reality of what happened to me. I have been fighting for years to get him off the streets and keep every other girl safe from him, that I have forgotten to fight for myself. I have forgotten the reality of the pain and trauma I went through. So now, 723 days later, I am dealing with two years worth of pain. Two years worth of bottled-up angst and anger. Two years worth of tears. And I am not the same.

If you knew me before October 7th, 2018, you remember that I was always up for a conversation. Whether it be a casual hello, or a conversation full of depth, I was always eager to join. I was such a people person. There were days that I would just go sit on campus outside the student center so that I could wait for someone I know (or didn’t know) to walk by so that I could talk to them. That was me. I was always the one for social situation. But that is not who I am at this point in my life anymore and I hate it.

I think it was the beginning of quarantine that flipped a switch for me. Up until then, I had done a pretty good job of keeping a social life no matter how much I was hurting on the inside. I was an RA which basically forced me to be social even when I didn’t want to be. But when quarantine started and I moved back home, I realized how much easier it was to be alone. I didn’t have to put on a fake smile or pretend that I wasn’t falling apart on the inside. I just got to hide from the world and it was a relief.

Now, six months after the beginning of quarantine, I am acting as though I am still quarantined. Every time I am in a social situation with more than five people, I feel like I’m going to throw up. The bad thoughts outweigh the good, and I no longer enjoy having casual conversation and I hate it. I am not who I used to be and I absolutely hate it. My friends have been to every trial, every court hearing, and some even sat on the witness stand and were questioned for me. But here I am, not even texting them. Not even making plans with them. Distancing myself from anyone who cares because the pain and suffering I finally have to deal with after two years is too heavy. I know that I should reach out, and I know that I should make plans, but I can’t make myself and I hate it. I hate certain parts of who I have become.

I could sit here and continue to write about the ways I have changed for the worst, but I would also like to share ways that I have changed for the better, because if I only focus on the negative, then I will never get out of the hole I seem to have dug myself into.

People say I am strong. People say I am brave. I say that I am resilient. Through the past two years of my life, I have not only overcome going through trial, but I have done well in nursing school up until this point. Nursing school is hard enough as it is, but when you are going back and forth to the courthouse countless times as well as trying to pass exams, it makes it even harder. This past year on my birthday I studied for an exam all day and also had to go to the courthouse to prep for trial. And guess what… I passed my exam. I don’t think that’s something that most people could get through and for that, I am proud of myself.

As I am so happy with the outcome of the trial and I couldn’t be more thankful that God was on my side through the whole thing, I also feel a sense of dread. A sense of dread because now that I am not working towards a goal, I have to deal with my built up emotions for the first time in two years. When I was prepping for trial, it was easy to disassociate from the situation. I kinda made myself forget that I wasn’t only fighting for every other victim, but for myself. Now that it is over, I must deal with the reality of my trauma. I went through something horrible and it’s hard for me to fully comprehend it.

I’m not sure if this blog will help anyone or mean anything at all. But for all the strength I show on the news, on the stand, and over social media, remember that this journey was not and is not easy. I have been slowly falling apart from my old self for 723 days and starting today, I’m going to try and put myself back together. I may never be the exact same, but I hope that I can become something even greater than before.

Hey everyone. It’s been a while since I’ve written. It’s partly my fault and also partly nursing school’s fault. As soon as the semester ended, I pretty much immediately started my online summer pharmacology class. I have had plenty of time to write, but just have not felt the inspiration that I needed in order to write something meaningful. Until now…

As some of you may have seen on my social media, I recently started a relationship with a wonderful man who has treated me like I am more precious than gold. With this new relationship, and with trial coming up within the next month, I have been revisiting some of the old lies that I used to let Satan tell me. “You are not worthy of this.” “You don’t deserve to be treated this well.” “He’s lying when he tells you you’re beautiful.” “You don’t really want to put your baggage on someone else. You are damaged goods now.” As I have nearly always struggled with my self esteem, after being assaulted, it got much much worse. I believed these lies along with many more. It took me to a very low place emotionally and physically. I lost an excessive amount of weight in a very short period of time and began to regularly spiral out of control with my thoughts of self hatred. After losing weight, I realized that yes, I did feel a little better about myself, but it was not fulfilling enough to make me be okay. It was miserable way to live.

In past relationships, I was not treated as well as I should have been. I was constantly made to feel like I was inferior because I was a woman. I was told that I was stupid. I was made into a last priority when I should have been one of their first priorities. So it’s no wonder that after being assaulted, I felt as though that was the way I was supposed to be treated by men. It is what I deserved.

So starting this new relationship, Satan has begun to slowly let those thoughts trickle into my mind once again. But there is one major difference… I don’t believe them anymore. Of course I still battle with my self esteem on an almost daily basis, but with Christ being the center of my happiness and comfort, I am able to tell myself that the lies I once believed were never true in the first place.

If you yourself have been assaulted, you have probably experienced a lot of these same feelings of not being enough. Here is my word of advice to you:

You deserve to have that car door opened for you. You deserve to be told you’re beautiful, because you are. You deserve everything because you are worthy. You deserve nothing less than to be treated with the love and grace that Christ treats us with. I’ll end with a verse… Christ tells us this in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” You are God’s masterpiece. Don’t ever let anyone treat you as if you are not.

Happy summer. You may feel broken, but you are so so beautiful.

Hey everyone, in the midst of this chaotic time, I find that the only thing to keep me sane right now is to write. Nothing seems to be constant anymore except God and my writing. Even God doesn’t seem to be so much of a constant to me anymore. As I write that last sentence, I feel a single tear trail down my face. How did I get to this point? Why do I feel so far from grace right now in the midst of a time when all I should be doing is clinging to Him?

My life these past few weeks has been nothing short of unexpected and constantly changing. To those of you who do not know me well, I do not like it when things are unexpected and constantly changing. When my schedule is changed, I go into a state of panic. It is one of the many effects of my anxiety that I feel as though I cannot get a handle on. Things that I thought were going to be a permanent part of my life, have shown to be the exact opposite.

It all started with my trial being postponed until the middle of May. So far, every time my trial is postponed, it has been for the better, but at this point, I just want to get it over with. I am so tired of waiting.

The next thing that happened was school being canceled and changed to online for the rest of the semester due to COVID-19. Now to most students, an extended spring break and early summer probably sounds amazing, but to me, school is one of the few things I can rely on to remain constant. I enjoy going to my classes and I enjoy having a schedule. Living on campus is also very helpful to my anxiety and depression. Being steps away from my friends at any given point of the day allows me to be a lot more social than I would be if I were at home. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE being home with my family and the time I am going to be able to spend with them will be amazing, but with school being completely canceled and having to move out of the dorms so quickly, I will no longer be able to hang out with my friends as easily because everyone is moving back home. Being social is going to be a lot more difficult for me.

The next part of my life that I never thought would change is my ability to travel to Haiti over spring break. Due to the virus, our trip is postponed until June. I understand that I still get to go (that is if the virus has stopped spreading by then), but as you all probably know, Haiti is so very special to me. This would have been my fifth trip going. I have been practicing my creole and also communicating with my little boy Cardy over facetime who is down in Haiti. Having to tell him that I will not be there after I just told him a week ago that I would, is going to be heartbreaking. This trip is such a good refresher for me, but now I don’t get that refresher.

Now the most recent change in my life. I screwed up my knee…. again. If you don’t know, I have torn my left ACL twice and have had to get surgery both times. On Monday, I did something to mess it up again. We are not sure what I did to it, but I go back to the doctor next Friday to get it checked. Until then, I am convinced that it is torn for a third time. The doctor said that it could just be a partial tear or a sprain, but I am trying to expect the worst and hope for the best so that I won’t be disappointed.

As I type all of this, I want you to understand that I know things could be worse. And I know that canceling school and postponing this trip and my trial is for the best, but I can’t help but feel so distraught and confused as to why this is all happening at once.

Recently my mom got a tattoo that says “be still”. Then without thinking about that, I bought a devotional book titled “be still”. Is this what God is trying to teach me? Is he trying to teach me to be still and live in the moment? Because up until this point, my mind has constantly been on hyperspeed. Even my physical mobility has been taken from me, so I really have no choice other than to mentally and physically be still.

So I title this blog “Be Still” because I feel as though that is what God is trying to teach me in this difficult time. It is what he is trying to teach us. As we are on quarantine, take this time to be still. God is forcing us indoors, so take this time to spend with your family and pray. Pray for peace and healing among the lands. Pray for guidance in this time of distress. And I ask, pray for me. I hate asking for things, especially when it pertains to me feeling weak, but at this point, I have no more strength to keep going on my own. Pray that in this season of my life, I figure out what God is doing with me. I know that there is a greater purpose for all this pain, but as I take this time to rely solely on Him and figure it out, I ask for your prayers.

Thank you.