[[106]] reason.

I have always been a realist…a skeptic.  Raised in a completely unreligious household, my core beliefs were based one what I saw, what I experienced.  Naturally, some of my most harsh beliefs have failed me and some have guided me single-handedly to where I am.  All of them have shaped the girl that I have become: optimistic, determined, confident in body but insecure in mind and heart.  I convinced myself that I needed no religion, no rule book by which to live my life, and nobody to tell me how I should behave.

However, here I am, nineteen years old and searching endlessly for something to believe.  In my heart, I know that there has to be something out there, something guiding me.  All signs point to yes in that arena.  There is no way that I happened to coincidentally run into my high school crush immediately after my most painful heartbreak, and two years after leaving high school on not-so-good terms.  There is no way that we just by chance managed to finally muster up the strength to leave our high school personas behind and to explore the facets of each other, and to eventually find that there was something more than just a playful flirtation behind it all.  I don’t believe for once second that it all happened by chance.  When Zachary came back into my life, I was broken, torn, and empty.  The best friend I had relied on for nearly two years seemed to be slowly turning her back on herself and on me.  I was losing myself in some sort of haze, falling backwards into grey.  And somehow, his kind words and deep eyes pulled me out.  There has to be some reason he came into my life and I’m starting to believe with all of my heart that some outside force had something to do with this.

Zachary has become my source of light.  I know that I am an insecure soul and my beliefs about God are few and far between.  However, I know that I am searching for something…maybe it’s God, but I am searching and I know that Zachary is playing a huge role in guding me there.  He does not push me in any particular direction, it is just his actions, the way that he loves me that guides me.  We were talking on the phone late one night and he was telling me how he believes that there was no chance in our meeting that night, and that we are with each other for a reason, and in my heart something fell into place.  The notion that he feels as deeply for me as I do for him has finally hit me.  I know now that I don’t have to hide anymore, that he sees me for everything I am and that he loves me anyway.

It is with his hand entwined with mine that I will continue to search for whatever this is.  Salvation? Light? Faith? Who knows, but when I find it, I know that he will be walking with me.  I know this because  I know that my faith in him is unending and I will walk with him to the ends of the earth if that’s what it takes to prove to him and to myself that there is a reason for us and there is a reason that we have finally found our way to each other.