Faith Over Fear

The night I attempted to end my life wasn’t loud or dramatic. It was a quiet summer night around 9:32 PM. I had just gotten the news that my father was going to jail again for an unknown amount of time. I remember feeling more empty than sad, like something inside me had gone still or died. My thoughts overwhelmed me while I laid on the floor, contemplating whether my life was really worth all the pain. Thinking that nothing was ever going to change, and when your mind becomes convincing, it's terrifying. I didn't feel brave. I didn’t feel worthy of Jesus’s presence and words.There was no loud voice, no dramatic pause—just a sudden, quiet hesitation. A resistance that didn’t feel like it came from me, interrupting the spiral. That’s when I picked up my bible and randomly opened up the book of Jeremiah. I came across Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” I am still here because of that pause. 

Looking back, I didn’t see that night as a moment of weakness. I see it as a moment where my faith became real to me. Because faith to me wasn’t the absence of darkness, but it was choosing to stay when everything in me wanted to disappear. Since then, my relationship with Jesus has been less about perfection and more about presence. Even now, I still struggle; I still have days where my mind feels heavier than my body. Gosh, I even still sometimes feel like I would’ve been better off gone. But then I remember the night that I had the choice to leave– and I didn’t. And I remember why. Being me means carrying both sensitivity and strength. It means feeling deeply, quietly falling apart, and healing slowly. My identity is not the girl who almost left. It’s the girl who stayed. 

I believe that Jesus still walks with me in the in-between – in psychiatry appointments, in anxious moments, in silent car rides, in the moments I question everything. I believe He is closest when I feel the furthest from Him. And I believe that surviving that night was not an accident. It was mercy. Faith, for me, is not loud. It is steady. It is a quiet decision to wake up again. It is having faith even through my fears, even when my faith is as small as a mustard seed. And that – more than anything – is what it means to be me.

Because of that faith, I now enter every room believing people deserve compassion, especially when their struggles aren't visible. It’s why medicine calls to me. Healing isn’t only about diagnoses or prescriptions; it’s about seeing people in their hardest moments and reminding them they aren’t alone. My story began with learning to survive, but today my faith pushes me toward helping others do far more than that. 

I have learned that the strongest people are often the ones carrying the heaviest burdens, and that kindness can become someone’s answered prayer without us even knowing. I don’t want to simply treat illnesses; I want to care for people in the moments where they feel scared, uncertain, or unseen. My experiences taught me that healing begins long before a diagnosis or prescription. It begins when someone chooses to listen, to stay, and to remind them that their life has value. If my hardest seasons have given me anything, they have given me the ability to offer that kind of hope to others. I strive to embody this understanding in every interaction, fostering an environment where faith triumphs over fear, and where compassion reigns above all else.