I hope you choose love. Even when it would be easier to hate. When someone stirs white-hot rage within you, when they insult you, when they question your worth: be loving. Some people need your love more than you do.

It was only through enduring winter that I finally learned: no matter what cold comes my way, no matter how long and dark the days may grow—there is hope waiting for me around the corner. There is sunlight waiting for me to set it free from within. There is beauty in breakage, and there is love after loss.

You have been hurt, and you have hurt. You are no stranger to pain, anger or fear. Even so, you have given grace to others, and you have been shown forgiveness yourself. And that is what makes you so beautiful, I think. You have had every reason to give up, but you still chose love.

Yes, you are imperfect but your quirks and cracks are the things that make you so astoundingly, breathtakingly you.Yes, you make mistakes but my god, there is something spectacular in the way you don't let it take you down; you get back up every time you fall, and you come back wiser for it.And if being a strong yet soft human with a hopeful heart isn't something worth being unapologetic about, then I don't know what is.

It is ok to feel flawed and failed and fearful and confused and broken and lost and let down and it is also ok to feel nothing at all. These things do not define you; your goodness and warmth and kindness and compassion and creativity and honesty and heart and every other big and small wonderful thing about you are what define you.