I believe in honesty.
I believe in charity.
I believe in love.
My story may have nothing to do with what I believe in but it has everything to do with how I was able to experience these things genuinely for the first time. I’ve thought for the last two years that my father’s death and the time leading up to it were what shaped my life, allowing me to become the person I am today. When in all actuality it was only the catalyst for the change that was about to take place inside of me.
When all odds were against me to brake free of the home I had grown up in, my father was the one person who encouraged me to go, when he should have been the one wanting me to stay the most. No one would have blamed me for going to community college and taking care of my mother after I graduated, everyone would have supported me for being selfless enough to take care of the house and the dogs and be with the friends I knew loved me, but my life was missing something and I knew St. Petersburg would never be able to give it to me.
My father died in spring and at the end of the summer I moved to Orlando. Change brought along with it fear, regret, grief, and examination of the faith I claimed to hold. My faith was challenged in these days while I searched for things I never had back home, hoping this move would be worth it. It was more than I had expected.
I had about three friends from my church when I left home, not saying I didn’t have many friends, just not many that were still claiming to follow Christ. I had no sense of who I was, just what people told me I was and I had no care for other people, just my own interest. When I came to Orlando however I had no friends and nobody cared about who I was because nobody knew me, I was a blank slate. When I made friends, it was not because we were thrown into the same situation but because we had the same interests, and one interest happened to be a love for Jesus. I was able to find out who I really am because nobody was telling me what to be, they were asking what I wanted to be.
Since moving to Orlando and leaving my past behind I was able to transform into the person God wants me to be. I am still learning new things about myself everyday and realizing that it’s not my own interest I should look to but that of others, and that’s what makes me happy. The honesty of the new relationships I am building, the charity I am learning to share with others, and the love of Christ pouring out from within me, those are the things I have come to believe in. 
