A list of buzzwords and phrases I’ve heard or said all too often: 

• tracking
• high-speed
• Roger
• accountability
• Gratitude
• I don’t mean to cut you off, but…
• I get what you’re saying, but…
• that’s interesting
• self-love or self-care
• financial literacy
• sustainability
• vegan
• healthy lifestyle
• living my truth

Words and phrases that can be strung together in such a detailed way, yet truly be so vague. Do you really feel bad about cutting me off? Are you listening to what I’m saying, or are you calculating your response in your head while I talk? Does your version of self-love imply complacency or growth? By financial literacy, does that mean you’re learning to invest or are you simply practicing saving methods where your input is greater that your spending output?  

And that’s interesting… really, what’s interesting about that, Ana? I couldn’t tell you five vegan recipes, but I do use vegan as a synonym for healthy living. So, when I usually say vegan, it has nothing to do with food. 

But there’s one word that I really want to talk about that has escaped my buzzword vocabulary and planted itself deep in my heart. And that would be Faith. I’ve used Faith to describe my religion or to comfort my friends in hard times. But Faith has become relevant in so many facets of my life, I could no longer come from an empty and vague place. 

I’ve come to really believe in my Faith, which is essentially having an active belief in that which you can’t see. I have come from such a broken place where my future wasn’t clear. I really had to search for a seed of Faith that there was still purpose in my life. And then I had to water that mysterious seed to see what it would turn into. It reminds me of that quote that goes something like, “You don’t have to really want to live a long life, you just have to be curious enough to see what the future holds.” My curiosity planted my seed of Faith; exercising my passions and believing in them is what watered it. Patience and discipline have allowed me to watch this seed bloom. And wow, YA’LL, FAITH IS BEAUTIFUL! 

What is my Faith centered around? I have chosen to center my Faith around God. I have learned to surrender a lot of my anxiety and depression to Him. For years I’ve believed that God wouldn’t give us anything we couldn’t handle, but after listening to a recent sermon on Faith I no longer believe in that. I think God gives us more than we can handle because He’s waiting for us to give those weighty problems to Him. We’re not meant to live this life on our own strength. We’re meant to lean on Him and those He puts in our path for a reason. Sometimes, we may even get to be that blessing for others. 

That’s why I have Faith. When things seem to go wrong, I remind myself to trust that there’s a divine plan, and it has done wonders for my anxiety. I still have a vision of the life I want to live and I’m thoroughly excited to travel and achieve my goals. But now my expectations of how I get there are so much more flexible. While I enjoy watching my life unfold into Heavenly art, I’m still active in disciplining my thoughts and actions to shape myself into a canvas that can receive those beautiful things in life. I’ll bring my umbrella to the rainstorm and maybe I’ll be prepared for the rain or maybe I’ll just be lucky.

I’ve never considered myself to be a lucky person. But I have heard that luck is where preparation meets opportunity. So, I’m preparing my heart through Faith, so that when its time for my dreams to come to fruition, I’m ready to live it.