Alli-Kate.

Everything around us changes, but pieces of us will always remain the same.

While cleaning out my closet to move to college, I found an old journal entry from when I was 9. The entry asked me if I could wish for anything, what would it be? In my big, childlike handwriting, I wrote the sentence: write a New York Times bestseller.

Flash forward to today. I may never become a New York Times bestselling author, but it gives me peace to know I am still the child I have always been, no matter how much dark ink has split on the pages of my story. My first year of college, everything changed. Yet, my pen continued writing, no matter how jumbled the words became. My passion for writing stayed the same; however, my goal changed.

My life purpose is not to write a New York Times bestseller, but to impact others with my words. For I write for an audience of One, and if my words are only read by few people, but He works through me, I have accomplished my purpose.

Through every change, there is a piece of all of us that stays the same. Sometimes, we just have to simplify our lives once again. We have to block out all the noise, all the distractions, and remember who we once were, and who we still are when no one else is watching. I will always be Alli-Kate, the 9 year old with the big hair bows and even bigger dreams, even if the dream looks a little different than it once did.