Dear World,

C.S. Lewis wrote “to love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.” When I think about the question what makes me strong it is the ability to be vulnerable yourself and others even when your heart has been broken. To choose to be seen and known, even when it is hard. As I look at my own heart I see the bruises and blood oozing from it indicating the hurt that others have inflicted on me. However I also how it glimmers with hope, how it is still malleable, how it is still vulnerable despite what it has endured.

Friends have chosen to cut ties me for reasons I do not know or understand. While not having an explanation or a chance to defend myself still stings, I have become more appreciative of the small tribe of people who surround me with love, support, and encouragement. I do everything I can to let them know how much they mean to me and how much I value our friendship. Instead of choosing to self-isolate, I choose community.

I try to be 100% honest and real about the grief that I face. I do not hide away my tears even if it may make others uncomfortable. These tears are borne out of love for the one I have lost—a mix of wonderful memories and bittersweet emotions. The grief has made me more aware. I unite my grief with that of others who are grieving. I also work to comfort them and help them find hope and healing, even as I myself work to find comfort, hope, and healing after loss.

I have been bullied for most of my life. Despite this fact I do not seek revenge on those who have wronged me, in fact it’s not even an option. Instead I use those experiences to help bring awareness to the bullying that goes on in schools and other places and in doing so make you, world, a better and safer place to live. Even so I humbly admit that I am not perfect and that I do need God’s help to forgive the people who have broken my heart. Being able to see the ways that you need to grow and improve shows true strength.

In the past year or so I have had to learn how to ask for help when I need it. I have had to delve deeper into my own story, and my own emotions. I’ve had to become my own protector when no one will come to my defense. And though I know I still have work to do I think it is the process of becoming a more confident, whole, and healed version of myself shows strength.

My refusal to sit in the shadows and let life make me bitter, but to instead choose to blossom and become a better version of myself is my greatest strength.

For so long world you have told me that strength is how much weight you can lift. Your definition of strength made me think of superheroes who could lift more than their own body weight and carry out heroic feats, therefore I never considered myself as strong. But as I have gotten older I have found freedom in refuting your definition of strength and letting my own definition evolve. I have discovered that there is strength in vulnerability. And I am learning to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable has been the greatest risk, but it will be the greatest reward.

Sincerely,