Deeply Rooted

          This school year, the theme for chapel is "Christ our Greatest Friend". When I was thinking about who Christ as a friend is to me in the past year, it came down to "Christ our compassionate friend". When having compassion for someone, being completely present and there to support them is something we should strive for. We live in a world full of distractions, and the society we live in prioritizes productivity so much that we often forget to stop and look at those around us. What has God called us to? To love him and to love our neighbor. What does the American Society call us to? To be so overly productive and essentially become workaholics.            I will be honest that I often feel bad for resting because I perceive myself as being lazy, especially this semester when I am taking seven classes, working, and doing an internship and I can always be doing something. Something I feel like the overly productive l...

     Trigger Warning: this blog is about a very serious topic of mental health. It will cover different mental illnesses, challenges with mental health, suicidal thoughts, and the stigma behind mental health. Please read carefully with kindness towards yourself if you need to stop reading at any point.       "We are taking you to see a counselor". I remember my parents explaining to me what counseling was for the first time at 10 years old. When I was 10, I started learning about various mental health terms like counseling, ADHD, PTSD, and I just continued to learn more. When I was 10, I was in the midst of a huge struggle in my home life. I was going through horrific abuse. I remember thinking of the 2 ways out of it: through ending my life or escaping once I turned 18. What kept me going was truly the Lord. I remember being in tears while enduring the abuse thinking to myself "The Lord will get me through this". As soon as I came out of the abuse, I ...