Beautifully Broken.

Hi! I started a blog because I believe that we are created to create and our creations are meant to help inspire others. I named it Beautifully Broken because instead of living in comparison, we must live with compassion. Instead of acting like we have it all together, it is time for us to come together with our brokeness and pain so God may bring healing. I want to be vulnerable and share how God has transformed my broken testimony into something beautiful. How instead of allowing experiences to break me, God used them to shape me and transformed my perspective from pitiful to powerful.

This summer, I received the opportunity to attend Oklahoma Girls State. I am not interested in politics; however, I learned that the Lieutenant Governor and the Governor candidates got opportunities to speak in front of the girls attending the conference if they made it to the final round. I felt as if I were Esther in the Perisian diaspora- born for such a time as this. What better audience to speak to than three-hundred girls in my generation? So, I decided to run for Lieutenant Governor as a platform to share my testimony. Mustering the courage to be open and vulnerable was difficult.

I started my speech with a poem I wrote about Gen-Z:

We care too much about what others think

About likes, about follows, about social ranks.

Our generation is not free.

We are bound by social media we perceive as reality.

We are digitally connected but far apart,

With scars that need healing and broken hearts.

How do we become the generation we are meant to be?

That rises above social norms and addresses adversity.

Not an addicted generation,

but a generation who shapes our nation.

Not a generation on our screens,

But a generation in prayer down on our knees.

Then, I spoke about how our generation has the ability to make a greater difference in the world than any other generation because of the technology available today. How will we make this mark? We will make it by being vulnerable and coming together, regardless of what we have done, where we have been, and regardless of our differences. I shared about a season in my life that I didn't believe in my identity.

I had the girls repeat: "I am loved. I am chosen. I am beautiful. I have a voice. I matter." The rumbling sound of three hundred girls unified in declaring their identity was powerful. After my speech, a girl told me that she was suicidal and I changed her life. I didn’t change her life because of anything I have accomplished- I was simply a girl standing on a stage. It was God turning my broken testimony into something beautiful by working through me. Soon after that, another girl shared her experience with bullying, another opened up to me about her insecurity and struggle with self worth. Girl after girl opened up to me about their struggles because I was vulnerable enough to share my own.

So, I hope you are inspired. To know your identity. To believe your identity. To declare your identity. To share your broken testimony. Not because of anything you have accomplished, but because God works through us. You all have a unique gift from God. It is time to answer your call, step into your identity, and change other's lives.