Faith

Faith. What does that word mean to you? To me, it means that you have to believe in yourself, opportunities, and that things will work out at the end. Those three aspects of faith have shaped me into the human that I am today. Faith is a big part of my life. I started believing in faith when I was little and my beliefs have only gotten stronger throughout the years. I used faith to get through some of the toughest situations life threw at me. Now, I am stronger than ever because I believed that everything would work out in the end and it eventually did. Faith is a hard concept to grasp because it is abstract and complex. Sometimes situations seem like they will never get better but faith always has a way to work its magic.

When I was three years old, I was diagnosed with Autism. The doctors told my family that I would never be able to speak, go through a regular school system, or be an active member of society. My family was crushed. Our worst nightmare came true but instead of perseverating over it, we worked hard to prove those doctors wrong. The thing that helped us accomplish this goal was faith. We had to have faith that things will work out at the end. What I mean by that is I had to face each challenge pertaining to my disability with confidence, perseverance, and most of all faith. Faith is the reason why we preserved through the regular public school system despite the higher-ups trying to push me out the door. Faith is the reason why despite struggling socially, I still push myself to make friends and have a normal social life. Faith is the reason why I am graduated college with a Bachelors Degree in Communication and Media Studies. Faith finds a way for things to work out.

When I was younger, I would have patterns. If you do not know what those are, it was basically my daily routine that was based off the clock. I would have to abide by these rules that I set up or else I would have a meltdown. These patterns caused a lot of stress on myself. My parents even brought black electrical tape to tape over all the electrical clocks in the house. Eventually my parents had to wean me off my patterns by telling me that everything was going to be okay if I put on my pajamas at 8:30 pm instead of 8 pm or if I ate dinner at 7 pm instead of 6 pm. At first, I wanted to defy them by continuing my patterns. These patterns brought me comfort and predictability in a world that was unpredictable. Slowly I realized that these patterns were becoming to destructive to my life. I had to use faith to believe that I could break these patterns. I had to learn how to trust the process which is not an easy thing to do espiecally for an Autistic person. By having faith in myself, I allowed myself to be more open to the possibilities.

Faith is defined as the complete trust or confidence in someone or something.  I would love to have complete trust and faith into someone or something but life does not always give us that blessing. That is why I have to put my faith in opportunities. After I graduated college, I thought I was going to get a job right away. That did not happen. I had to wait seven months before my first job offer came through. During that time period, I did not know what to do. I never had no set plan before. So I had to put faith into abstract concepts such as positivity, hope, and happiness. This created a more positive outlook on my not-so-ideal situation. I had to think of all the positive things in my life, do things that made me happy, and hope for a good job opportunity in the future. By holding out and keeping the faith, I finally got a good job opportunity that will be the foundation for my career.

As shown above, faith has been and will continue to be a defining thing in my life. Since I was a little girl, I have used faith to get through all of the major obstacles that have tried to hold me back. From scheduled patterns to a prolonged job search, I managed to get through the struggle with faith by my side. If anybody is struggling out there, faith will help you prevail. Have faith in yourself, your environment, your support system, and the world around you. Faith is the key to all good in this world. Just remember, even though times are tough, you are tougher.