You Are More

It’s 2:54 PM on Monday, December 4, 2017 and it can be really hard to remember why your heart is beating today. Monday’s are hard days. You may still be in recovery mode from a really long weekend following a really long week of a really long month of a really long year. That’s okay. You are not alone. We all feel that way sometimes. And we all need a little help sometimes.

So here’s a friendly reminder that you are so much more.

You are more than the pain from a hangover on Sunday following a Saturday night that you can’t quite remember. You are more than the words he said to you, the names he called you, the lies he’s told you. You are more than the number of empty beer bottles littering your living room right now. You are more than just a party girl, a “typical sorority girl” or any backhanded compliment your friends have labeled you as. You are more than the likes on your Instagram photo you spent too long trying to edit. You are more than a carefully chosen filter and I can promise you that you are equally as beautiful without it. You are more than the number of retweets on that witty tweet you crafted (your intelligence cannot really be proven in 140 characters). Your life is more than your Snapchat story. I know the beauty of your life cannot be captured by 9 second snapshots. You are more than your followers, your views, your Facebook friends.

You are more than your GPA. I know the classes you take are important. I know your admittance to the program may depend on the grades you are labeled as. I know that you want to be the best teacher, trainer, nurse, engineer, business student in the field. I know it may seem like your worth and your identity and your future and your life are tangled up in and defined by digits on a screen, but I promise you it is not. You are more than the hours you spend studying. You are more than the tests and the stress and the anxiety. You are more than a balancing act of the hours put in and the minutes you spend in class and the friends you try to keep up with. You are more than percentages and weighted grades and calculations.

You are more than the lies you tell yourself at night. You are more than trip ups and screw ups and mistakes. You are more than stuttered words and messy conversations. You are more than your missed appointment and your misplaced homework assignment. You are more than the flaws and the blemishes that make you human.

You are more than the pain. You are more than the cuts on your wrist and the razor you’ve stashed somewhere beneath your bathroom sink. You are more than the overwhelming anxiety. You are stronger than the waves of sadness coming from a storm you didn’t see coming. You are louder than the voices telling you that there is no way out. You are more than the valley. You are more than the darkness. You are more than just a body painted with cuts and scars and bruises.

You are more than just a beating heart, skin, and bones. You were created beautifully and intentionally by a God who loves to create beautiful things. The God that made brilliantly painted sunsets, perfectly carved mountains, and impossibly wonderful seas made you and believes that you are more. He loves you even more. You are more than a perfectly edited caption displaying your perfectly edited life. You are the life behind the photograph, the laugh that echoes through the halls, the being that reflects the Light that transcends the darkness. You are the breath in your lungs, the joy in your heart, the energy in your muscles. You are the smile that still hopes when it feels like hope does not seem possible. You are the hand that holds fast to the hands surrounding you to band together when the storm begins to break. You are the mind that dreams brilliant things. You are the hands that create beautiful things. You are the heart that believes that there is hope in the stars and in the one who holds them in place.

It is 3:33 PM on Monday, November 9, 2015. Mondays can be really hard. But you are more than a painful Monday.