Mostly I think I've learned to trust God more. I mean, if I start getting worried or freaked, I just try to put it in God's hands. Sometimes I imagine God cradling the globe in his hands, and I tell myself that as long as I'm with God, the Creator of the universe, I can be comfortable and at home anyplace on the planet.

Shut off the internal bashing.

I grew up in a difficult environment, but I became a Christian as a teen. My mom and my sister soon became Christians also.

God planned for our lives to connect. Let's make sure we keep it that way.

I welcome each new day with a hopeful expectancy that I, too, will rise above the ordinary. For I am not content to live a merely 'normal' life or settle for an average existence. No, I am destined for more - much, much more.

To the casual observer it looks like I have moved on since I go around wearing my little happy mask all day. I smile and laugh and carry on like my heart's still in one piece, but beneath it all, I am dying.

But fear is confusing. It tears you in two. Half of you wants to run far, far away, but the other half is paralyzed, frozen, immovable. And the hard part is that you never know which half is going to win.