I think, in today's society, that it takes an extreme amount of effort to be a strong person. There is so much evil, heartbreak, sadness and depression in the world. I will be the first to say that I'm not always the strongest person in the room in terms of mentality and emotions. There are days when I'm rock solid and other days where I crumble like sand falling through your fingers at the beach. Going into the end of the fall semester in 2016, I was feeling pretty good. I didn't have any major challenges up ahead because finals were pretty much over. But, on December 8th, 2016, I lost something I have treasured so dearly for a really long time: my peace of mind.

You know, On TV, through TV shows and movies, or even in the lives of people you know and love, you hear of and see people who have their houses broken into or some other tragic event like that. You never think that something like that will happen to you. You never think that your life could change in the blink of an eye like that. But, the sad truth is that things like this are all too real.

December 8th was the day of dress rehearsals for a huge Christmas production called The Living Christmas Tree at my church (see my recap article here). It was a normal day. I was done with finals and I was excited to finally be able to enjoy my break. I was coming home from running some errands with mom and we noticed that a pane on one of our windows was busted. We ran in the house to make sure our 2 cats were OK since one of them was still small enough to get out through the hole in the window. The cats were fine but there was glass all over the floor. So, we call our maintenance man and the police. The windows were ultimately fixed and the police took a report. Little did mom and I know, this was only the beginning.

Everyday after that between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, when these kids were walking home from elementary school, they would find a brick, cement block, heavy rock or whatever and bring it to throw in the window. Several times I almost got hit in the head with them and so did my cats. Because of all of this, my peace of mind went out the door. I thought I was safe where I was. I thought I could finally begin to settle down and not have to worry about my family's or my personal safety for anything.

Since all of that, we have moved from that area. It was no longer safe. It was also extremely expensive to keep replacing the window panes. But, I think if anything will return to normal, it won't be for a while. You may think I'm overreacting. I know people are having way worse problems than I am. But, because of the mostly sheltered life I've lived so far, I don't know how to handle life events like this.

What now??

I'm moving on. I'm working on not being so paranoid of every kid or adult walking down the street at any time of day. I'm trusting Him more and more everyday, as I should have been before, to protect and guide my family and myself in life. Those kids may have won that battle but they surely didn't win the war. I've got plenty of fight left in me. You wait and see.