Doubt, Brokeness, and How God Uses These Things To Refine Us | You Are Not Alone, Part One

I don’t own the featured image.

Hello, friends! I hope you’re all doing well on this exceedingly warm September day. What have you guys been up to? It’s been a while 😅 Today I thought I’d address a more…difficult topic that I’m really praying will help a lot of you to feel less alone in your struggles.

Before I wrote this post, I had a selection of my online friends take an anonymous poll about their personal struggles, and I must say, I was *not* disappointed with how many responses I got (there were 41 in total!). It was also really eye opening to see what people struggle silently. The struggles varied, from porn to swearing to complaining, and yet they all had one thing in common; they all are a result of living on a fallen planet.

My dear readers, you are not alone in your struggles. Please don’t believe that you are. That’s a lie from the pit of hell. I wish I could give each of you a hug, and reassure you that things will get better, and that others struggle the same as you.


I began my poll with a simple question: Do you believe in God? Unsurprisingly, most people answered that yes, they did. I wasn’t shocked, due to these friends being from a Christian forum. There was, however, a small sliver of people who answered with maybe. 

I followed that up with a slightly less easy question (but still simple enough): Have you ever questioned your faith? This question got a much more diverse set of answers, ranging from yes, to no, to maybe, to I’m currently questioning it.

Let’s be honest; questioning God’s existence is taboo in the Christian community. It’s scary, and there aren’t many good resources for those who want to dig deeper. People are discouraged from asking the big scary questions about God, and we’re taught from a young age that God doesn’t like people who question Him.

It’s not a sin to question whether God is real or not. It’s a crucial part in growing in your faith, and in solidifying your beliefs. God does not hate you for questioning Him. He smiles softly at you, and allows you to question. He’s a gracious and loving Father Who does not condemn us for our unbelief. He knows that we are simply human, and that it is in our very DNA to ask questions.

Friend, do you personally believe in God? In Abba? In the Creator of the universe, Who knit the stars into formation and breathed breath into your lungs? Do you believe in Him? If you don’t, and you want to learn more about Him, please don’t hesitate to contact me through my contact form. I would be more than happy to talk about Him with you, and answer any questions you might have ❤

Please note that not all of the things on that list are sins. For example, it’s not sinful to be attracted to people of your same gender. It matters what you do with it, k? I know this from personal experience *hugs* (I’ll discuss this in a later post ;))

The second part of the poll was asking people which, out of a long list of things, they’ve struggled with. I had one friend inform me that after taking the poll, he felt humbled by the fact that he had checked off so many boxes. And honestly, he wasn’t wrong. I made myself take the poll, and I personally felt so small and…human after taking it. My brokenness was laid right in front of me on a checklist, and it hit hard that I had checked almost every single box.

I wanted this poll to impact the lives of others, but I didn’t expect it to impact my own. I felt slapped in the face by my brokenness, and was uncomfortably aware that I’m not perfect.


Friends, this is only the beginning of this series, and I’m praying that it impacts some of you. You all are loved, and things will get better. You’re not alone.

Let me know in the comments how I may pray for you all.

Ad Gloriam Dei.

Reflecting on 2021 and My Plans For 2022

Hello, dears!! It’s going to be a whole new year in a few days and just ahhh I am not okay with that. I’m super hyped for 2021 to be over. Don’t get me wrong, there were good things about it. But also? It kinda felt like 2020 The Sequel, but also very different from 2020. Anywayssss, I felt like writing a reflections post, so here we go <3.

Reflecting on 2021

January

In January, I started this blog!! I also turned 14, left an online forum that had become my entire life, got in contact with an old acquaintance who became one of my closest friends pretty quickly, watched WandaVision and The Hardy Boys, and played a lot of Stardew Valley.

February

February was quite honestly a blur for me. I spent the first part of the month detoxing from various things from the online forum that I left in January, obsessing over pop music, and writing music. I spent the second half doing Lenten!! I gave up non-christian music and books…it was really hard haha.

March

All of March was Lent, so I spent most of it growing closer to God and learning more about my faith. I think that this was one of my favorite months of the year. I feel like I really thrived and was super happy.

April

This was my best blogging month of the year. I published 13 posts. This was when Lenten ended and Easter dawned and Spring began and my mental health was at it’s best. I began veiling and grew really close to the Lord. My blog also began to grow during April, so that was a big deal.

May

My memories of May are pretty foggy, so I can’t share much about it. But I can say that I graduated middle school…which was super cool! I also called someone who bullied me in middle school and told her I forgave her, became obsessed with digital art, and listened to Sour on repeat.

June

*Sighs* June was…really draining. My mental health struggled and I fell out of my quiet time with God. Despite this, it was a positive month. I learned more about myself and had a lot of deep thoughts.

July

July was pretty uneventful. I grew closer to God and started prayer journaling. 

August

In August, I went on a fairly long blog hiatus because…I STARTED PUBLIC SCHOOL! I made some incredible new friends and had a lovely first day of high school…and discovered how much I despise PE.

September

September was when my school workload started to really pick up. That was fun XD. I also got the first dose of the Covid vaccine, which was a huge deal seeing as my brothers are pretty high risk. I was scared I’d have bad side effects, but I shockingly didn’t.

October

At my school, the homeworkload is miserable in October, what with midterms and the like. During October, I ended up leaving Catholicism (maybe I’ll do a blog post about this later), making the decision to listen to less pop music (I finally realized how toxic it can be), got fully vaccinated, and also stopped writing the WIP I had literally poured my life into because of religious convictions about the magic content.

November

This should have been called the month of Covid haha. One of my classmates got Covid and exposed a bunch of us. My family decided to quarantine me…I had to stay in the guest room for a few days. It was so miserable :(( But at least it ended and none of us got Covid. Isn’t God so good? Oh! I also started Advent in November!!

December

December…was…both really long and really short. I left my public school in favor of an online Christian homeschool program, celebrated Christmas, and wrote a lot.

Overall Musings about 2021

2021 was both one of the longest years and one of the most important years for me. I learned a lot about myself and what I believe and who God is. I grappled with the fact that I had made autism my whole identity. I had to deal with my bitterness towards the Chistian community, and when I say that this was hard, I mean it. Overall, I think I grew up a lot this year. I started out this year as a 13 year old who put her pronouns in her bio and was borderline progressive and did not want to be associated with conservative Christians, and I’m ending this year as an almost 15 year old who still has personal struggles but is learning to rely on God and is so much more sure of where she stands on religion (I no longer identity as progressive…I don’t put political labels on myself, but if I were to, I would say that I’m mainly conservative).

Goals For 2022

  1. Draft out and prepare to publish a novel
  2. Draft out Guitar Dreams, Fathoms, A Thousand Strangers, and Bee County
  3. Win NaNoWriMo
  4. Read 75 books
  5. Learn to play the guitar/ukulele
  6. Read 10 classic novels
  7. Do a snippet series on YWW
  8. Get my grades up
  9. Memorize 10 bible verses
  10. Compile a poetry collection

An Announcement

I’m changing this blog. Soon, I’m gonna switch to having a non wordpress.com ending to my URL. I’m also going to be updating my bio and some other stuff. ❤

Thank you ever so much for reading this long rambly blog post. I love you all and hope you guys have a wonderful 2022. Thank you for following me on this journey. Take care and stay focused on Jesus, dears! ❤