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Lost Years To Tears

If you were to ask me what my number one struggle in life is, I would tell you, “Not being content with who I am." All my life I’ve struggled with finding my place and having a secure sense of worth. My high school years were tough, but I wasn’t prepared for the years following my high school graduation.

When I graduated from high school, I assumed that I was going to accomplish academically a lot in my 20’s. Throughout high school, I was a decent student. I took a mixture of college prep, honors, and AP classes. In my 12th grade year I even earned college credit for English 101 and English 102, giving me somewhat of a boost for my first year of college.  

But after my first year of college, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to pursue. I realized I needed some more life-experiences to help me decide. So, in the summer of 2010, I took off from school, moved from South Carolina to North Carolina, and joined AmeriCorps SAFE (Serving America’s Farmworkers Everywhere).

And for a year and half I had the privilege to work as an AmeriCorps volunteer serving one of America’s most under-served communities: farmworkers. After that, I continued for five years as a health educator/outreach worker for the same organization that hosted me when I did AmeriCorps. Those years were crucial in helping me decide that health education was what I wanted to do.

At the same time, though, those years were crucial in destroying my sense of worth. In those years, I struggled with a lot of social anxiety, depression, and anger. There were constant reminders that I was a failure and a misfit. Additionally, there existed monumental family problems that wrecked emotional havoc that sadly continue to linger today. Most days I felt like I was trapped in a cage, and it wasn’t unusual for me to live day by day, frustrated, depressed, or angry.

When I took the time off from school to explore more life-experiences, what I experienced in the following years were not at all what I had expected. My plan was to have a master’s degree by this point! Often times I find myself remorseful about these past years that I lost because to me, since I did not meet my standard of completing a master’s degree by now, they were a waste of time.

Serving others was not a waste of time, of course. After all, the desire to be a bridge between health education and communities with limited resources arose from those experiences. But for whatever reason, I was unable to establish resiliency against those problems I was experiencing. I was unable to overcome my sense of unworthiness. I let myself down because all the time I spent on being depressed and angry, I could have spent preparing and accomplishing my academic goals.

Did I really have control over my emotional stability during that hard time? Could I have been able to happy-think-away the problems and negativity that I was facing in my life in that moment? Remember that I mentioned family problems; I’m tempted to say that none of setbacks I experienced were really my fault. We could play the blame game and conclude that I am a victim in all of this. 

Or I could just be the adult that I am and recognize that I am the one responsible for my own life. 

In my struggle, I must decide if I want to stay in the same sphere of emotional instability by obsessing about things I have no control over or switch gears and seek refuge in God for inner peace. Furthermore, I need to forgive myself for what I did not do and learn to not define my worth according to my accomplishments. My worth comes the eternal Creator, and not my academic achievements that are limited to this life. And lastly, God is able to use those lost years for my own good. A lot of good can result from a lot of bad; a trend that isn't foreign in the ancient Christian thought.  

"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."
- Romans 8:28, NRSV 

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the comment section below. What is your number one struggle in life and what are you doing to change? 
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