(NOTE: If you do not want to scroll through a post about a religious viewpoint to a common doubt, then do not continue reading. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, and definitely don’t want you guys to judge me based on the contents. If you are interested to see my view, read on. If not, don’t color my books based on my beliefs. While they are connected by me, they are separate entities, with different motivations and meanings. Your choice.)

*************

“Every time that you wake up breathing, Every night when you close your eyes, Every day that your heart keeps beating, There’s purpose for your life.”

Above are the lyrics to a song called “Here For a Reason” by a Christian group called Ashes Remain. In case you haven’t picked up on little details in my blog posts in the past 3 years, I’ll answer truthfully: Yes, I am religious. No, I don’t judge others based on their faith, whether it’s different, weak, or nonexistent. To be honest, I’m not super religious anymore, but I still “Keep Faith“. At one point in my life, I fought a huge struggle with my faith. Between a family member being overseas, struggling with life in high school, and trying my hardest to not bang my head in with a frying pan when writer’s block attacked, I didn’t understand why.

Sound familiar to anyone? (The tough things happening, not necessarily the faith struggling part).

If so, then you’re one of the many. There are so many people that go through so many hard things in their lives that they can’t understand the reason for it. No matter what omnipotent entity you might believe in, we’re led to believe that He has a plan, and we don’t need to know it; it’ll happen when He wants it to happen. That just doesn’t seem right, does it? What happens when we work our butts off, and feel we’ve built up so much good karma and energy, and then things still spiral downhill? Doesn’t take a lot to lose faith (in a general sense, not necessarily religious sense), and want to give up.

You might feel like this:

Or, like this:

In any case…

That’s how I’m tying together Affirmation #1 post from Tuesday and my Affirmation #2 post that will be coming out early next week. In #1, I addressed having to work towards your happiness, because only you determine what makes you happy and what it’ll take to achieve that happiness. #2 will be about tough moments of despair that we all share, and how to know “You’re Not Alone”.

This one is about pushing through the common struggles to make yourself happy, and things will turn out the way they were meant to.

Now, what do I mean by that? It’s simple. Life, fate, God, other deities, positive or negative energy… whatever you believe affects our universe – they already know how your life turns out. Now, I don’t mean you don’t have free will. Of course you do! You control your thoughts, your actions, your words. How you treat others, how you solve problems, how you work, relax, have fun. You have complete control of what you do. They’ll give you obstacles to leap over or bust through, in an effort to make you a strong individual. There’ll be sad moments that will strengthen your soul and test your heart. There’ll be joyful moments where your heart is jumping up and down, but your body is exhausted from the adrenaline or excitement as a result of said happiness.

Each moment that happens in your life shapes who you are.

(Here’s where I get deeper into the religious side. Continue at your own risk)

For me, God does have a plan. When he put me on this earth, he gave me a purpose – a reason for existing. In my opinion, that’s pretty cool to think about. Even if it’s as minor as giving a dollar to a homeless person once a week, to starting a small business that might give work to struggling single parents, in-debt college graduates, or those unemployed for months at a time (For the record, my mother was unemployed for 16 ½ months at one point, and it was a rough time. Obviously, we got through that just fine.), to a struggling writer whose stories encourage a child to pick up a book and start reading.

We don’t need to know our purpose right off the bat. When the time comes, we’ll know. If we just continue to do what we’re doing, feel what we feel, and just BE OURSELVES, we’ll be led there, whether by parent, mentor, friend, or stranger. Not all angels have wings, you know. 😉

One of the things I absolutely love about modern religion is the abundance of music. When I met one of my best friends (who I am still friends with seven years later), she introduced me to a few artists. I went on to research more on my own soon after, and came across Ashes Remain. I fell in love with their music instantly, and so did my friend when I played some for her, so much so, she bought the album a few weeks later.

The quoted song at the beginning is one of my favorites of their’s, and, if you don’t feel awkward or annoyed by the idea of Christian rock/pop music, then they are definitely a group to check out. I’ve linked this song below. To finish, I’ll leave you with another lyric from this song, continuing the chorus from the top:

“So don’t give up, Don’t lay down, Just hold on, Don’t quit now, Every breath that you take has meaning, You are, Here For a Reason.”