Okay friends, you should know that this is a very honest blog. But during this season I want you to know my heart, my intentions, and my experiences so I’m challenging myself to be vulnerable and trusting you will show me grace when I don’t always say things the right way. I think I’ve been so nervous to start writing because I don’t want to be misunderstood, and maybe I care a lot about what other people think of me. So this is about my experiences in college and ultimately what has led me to the World Race. Fair warning, it’s pretty long, but hopefully it’s worth the read.
College was really hard, and not in the way that a lot of people talk about. I think society and social media portrays college as some of the best four years of your life. We go into it with this notion that here is where we’ll make lifelong friends, probably get too drunk (but that’s okay we’re young and it’s fun), fall in love, and look back years later wishing life were this easy and carefree again before you go into the “real world”. You go to class and learn but only really tell the world about all the parties you went to and friends you made and how excited you are to be on your own. At least that’s what we see on Instagram. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of these things are good and did happen for me (minus the falling in love, but there’s plenty of time for that), and I’m really blessed to even have been able to go to college. But what happens when we don’t always experience college this way? What if I’m not having fun and I’m drowning? What happens when it sucks?
Well for one, not a lot of people talk about it. If they do, it’s usually in a joking manner like “wow I’m really struggling but it’s no big deal haha”. I know I did that a lot, because that’s not what college is supposed to look like. Those aren’t really the conversations people are eager to have with you. You’re supposed to be able to handle all of your classes, all of the expectations, all of the stress, and be able to balance your social life. Okay people, I DID NOT handle these things well at all, and it became pretty obvious. There are several factors that contributed to this. First, I’m extremely hard on myself and I have really high expectations. When I don’t meet them, I think I must not have worked hard enough, or simply I’m not good enough. I think a lot of people at my school are like this, which created a pretty difficult and toxic environment. Second, I could not handle the pressure to perform in both soccer and the classroom. That doesn’t mean I’m incapable of performing, I think it just means my perspective was so clouded that I put so much weight on the thing in front of me. Third, I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole life and being in college exacerbated that struggle. I could no longer step on the soccer field confident in my abilities. My mind was a constant series of questions and negative self-talk like “why do you think you’re good enough to be here?” or “you’ll never be as good as her. If you make even one mistake you’re letting your team down.” I did not possess an ounce of confidence. There was a period where I was literally having one to two anxiety attacks a week, and I didn’t know how to help myself. It’s terrifying not being about to do the one thing you were literally born knowing how to do: breathe. In the middle of a panic attack, people always tell you “just breath”, and I’m just thinking “ha sick joke obviously I’m trying to but I’m crying and I can’t and what the hell is wrong with me if I can’t even do something so simple.” I was the one in my own way and I didn’t know how to get around it. It felt hopelessly beyond my control. If I took a step back I would fall behind or feel like I was missing out on opportunities. Side note: can we please normalize taking a break from something just to breathe a little. Like if you need to take a break from college or go part-time, that should be totally fine because college is hard and I definitely could’ve benefitted from that. Anyways, I say all of this because I think a lot of people, including myself, just sit idly in their struggles and let it wash over them without talking about it or asking for help. It should not be awkward to talk about these things because it is more common than you may think. You will be surprised how much other people can relate to you. I can promise you, you are not the only one at a party faking that you’re having fun and everything is great. Also going out drinking and not caring is fun. I get it. It’s a respite from the everyday stress you experience. But if you’re truly sitting in a hard season in your life, those fun and easy nights are, at its core, artificial and short-lived (at least in my experience). I think sitting down, being vulnerable, and having real conversations, are more fulfilling and the comfort of being understood is more lasting.
I’m not writing this with the hope that you feel bad for me, but I want to create a space where people who have not experienced the darkness of mental health issues can maybe begin to understand or at least feel comfortable talking about it. With that being said, my fourth year, particularly the spring, nearly sent me packing. I legitimately considered leaving but definitely never voiced that desire because it felt like giving up (it’s not by the way). Also I was so close to being done since I only had one semester left after my senior year spring. But I was not okay. I think the weight and stress of college ultimately caught up with me and my body completely shut down. I was diagnosed with Depression. And if you know me at all, I’m a pretty lively, outgoing person. The way mental health affected/affects my personality was terrifying. Looking back now, being on a new medication and overall taking better care of myself, I do not recognize the person I was last year and it’s so obvious now that that just wasn’t me. But when I was in that season, I thought that that was just who I was, because I didn’t remember what it felt like to be happy or if it would ever be easy again to feel like that. There were some fleeting moments when I was happy during that time and caught a glimpse of the person I truly was, but it was as if my body wouldn’t allow myself to fully feel it. I felt hopeless, inadequate, and weary to the point where all I wanted to do, and a lot of times all I did do, was lie in bed with zero motivation for anything. I’m struggling right now to write this because I remember the sadness and darkness and I fear every day that it will find me again. And I wish I had had the strength to turn to God in my darkness, but most of the time I just sat in it. I couldn’t even pinpoint why I was sad or numb, which is the most frustrating part. It was like my personality changed without warning, and I was just watching it happen from the outside. And if I didn’t know what got me to this point, how was I supposed to know how to escape it? So I sat and watched the shore rush in. I didn’t go to class. I didn’t finish assignments. I didn’t socialize. I didn’t run. I certainly didn’t open my bible. I just let time pass. I felt completely trapped. From the outside, it might have looked like I was lazy. In one of my classes, my attendance was 40% for the semester and come end of the semester, I was 6 assignments behind. *Huge shout out to my professor who showed me a ton of grace and allowed me to finish the course the following semester when I was healthier. (also praise God because my next/last semester of college I got a 4.0 which goes to show that 1. Your season of struggle and darkness will not last forever, and 2. Don’t be so hard on yourself because your mental health is SO important and just because you feel like you’re failing doesn’t mean you’re incapable of success or don’t deserve it. It’s unrealistic to expect success all the time and your worth does not falter or change in the midst of failure.) Through instances like the one with my professor, I knew that I wasn’t alone. I’ve been blessed with friends and family who love me, and I had people I could talk to about it. And while that helps tremendously, it doesn’t fix it or heal my situation. So if you love someone who is struggling, please know it is not your responsibility to fix them. I wish I could tell you what does fix it. For me it has been medication, a change in environment (unfortunately not always in your control), surrounding myself with people who will remind me that I’m loved and who will point me to the truth that God is so so good. What helps me may not help you. But all I can say is that it gets better.
So, the World Race. The whole reason I’m writing this. I had heard about it awhile ago through someone I knew in high school who went on the World Race. And I love love love traveling and learning about other cultures so that aspect of it immediately intrigued me. But I would not say that missions have ever been obviously placed on my heart as something I’ve wanted to do or should do. So at this point in my mind the World Race was just a really cool idea but maybe not something worth interrupting my life plan I had for myself. Fast-forward to me wrestling with Depression in the spring. Looking back I think God was slowly encouraging me to take the small baby steps towards Him. I decided to go to Cru’s Winter Conference in January on a whim (I literally had been to maybe two of Cru’s campus sessions). There, a tiny seed was planted and I lifted my hands in worship for the first time. Then in February I went to the Jubilee Conference with TAF (basically the same thing as FCA) and again I worshipped Jesus and felt the Holy Spirit overwhelm me. This all happened when I was struggling to make it out of bed because I was so depressed. So super uncharacteristic that I would decide to attend these things. But in my season of retreat, God relentlessly pursues. Keep in mind, I was definitely still struggling with Depression. I didn’t just wake up and be like “oh, cool I can decide to be happy now” (man, I wish it worked that way). So yeah, I still didn’t open my Bible and I still sought fulfillment from things like boys, food, and alcohol, but I did start listening to music by a Christian band called Rend Collective. I saw that Rend Collective was coming to Pittsburgh in April, and I spontaneously bought a ticket for myself. I tried to get someone to go with me, but it just worked out that no one could. During this season I could barely leave the house and socialize with others, so I know that the Holy Spirit was working in me in this moment to just go. When the night came, I almost backed out. Because it’s weird to go to a concert by yourself right? But they were my favorite band (still are, they’re great) and I just felt the urge to go. I was a little embarrassed and certainly awkward so I got there and headed straight to the very back row hoping I would go unnoticed. But guys, this concert changed so much for me. Rend Collective just exudes a joy for the Lord unlike anything I have experienced. Definitely unlike any joy I had been feeling lately. I felt so so happy in a way that honestly just felt like I could breathe again. There’s this one song called “Weep With Me” and the lyrics say, “what’s true in the light is still true in the dark”. I had wrestled with that verse every time I listened to it. It’s a cool idea, but I wasn’t sure I fully believed it: that God is still good and present in my darkness. That night I felt noticed and loved by my Father and really believed for the first time that the joy found in Him is incomparable to anything else this world has to offer. With every fiber of my being I felt the Spirit in that church auditorium that night by myself and with hundreds of strangers. I surrendered my darkness and cried when that song came on because I felt every emotion and sadness I had been experiencing in that season and still felt joy and confidence that God is good and that God is for me.
This probably sounds like a pretty dramatic experience for me to encounter at a concert. I get it. But I will say that God is capable of meeting you anywhere, and He decided to meet me there that night in a pretty mundane situation because there’s no place that he won’t go in pursuit of His children. That night on the car ride home, I prayed and talked to God for the first time in a while. I told Him I would go. I’m going on this World Race because God pursued me and met me in my darkness, and I truly crave more of the joy that I found in Him that night. I want others to experience that because I know there’s a lot of darkness in this world but God’s goodness and light is so much greater. I’m probably not the best person to go and share His good news. I still have a lot of questions, and I don’t always do the things I know I should. But I also think that’s one of the reason’s He has encouraged me to do this. Disclaimer: I was not miraculously healed from my struggle with anxiety and depression, and that is not at all what I’m saying. I think healing from anything or in any form is a process. A process I am definitely still navigating. But through my relationship with the Lord, I have found joy in the midst of this process knowing I am loved by the Father.
I am SO excited to go all in in my relationship with Jesus and grow in a community of like-minded people. I’m looking forward to being challenged because I know that’s where real growth occurs. I’m excited to meet all different kinds of people and love them and meet them where they are. God is intentional, and I know God is more than capable of using me to love others intentionally despite our differences and brokenness. If I can witness others being introduced to the Lord, that would be so cool. If I can love others well the way Jesus does and they don’t accept or believe in the Gospel, that’s also cool because ultimately they will still know and be shown how deeply they are loved and accepted, which is really the whole point.
I would LOVE if you guys would be willing to support me. First of all THANK YOU to everyone who has supported me thus far. I am so so grateful for all of you. Asking for help is hard, but I know I need it and I can’t do this alone. Here are some ways you can support me:
1) Prayer. My team and I leave in about 3 months and there is still so much preparation left to do. Please pray for my team and I that we seek the Lord in this difficult time full of temporary but very hard goodbyes. Pray that we allow the Lord to mold our hearts to receive and pour out His love on others and that we embrace flexibility as we go into other countries to humbly serve people in anyway they need. I’m so excited but also very nervous seeing as this is totally out of my comfort zone, and I’m sure I’m not the only one on my team feeling this way so we would definitely appreciate prayers that we lean into God and trust Him in our discomfort.
2) Financial Support. In the next 2.5 months, I have about $5000 that I need to raise in order to launch with the rest of my team in August. I would love if you prayerfully considered partnering with me to serve and love others in these countries. All of the money raised goes towards my costs for travel, food, lodging, and medical insurance for the entire 11 months. AND if you decide to follow my blog, I will be posting updates and stories from my time in the field so you can see directly how your support is being used to help others. I’ve had a lot of difficulty asking for financial support, probably because I don’t necessarily think I’m worth the investment (low self-esteem, I’m working on it), BUT I do believe that the people I’m going to encounter are worth serving and I would appreciate if you could help me do that in any way you can.
- Online Donations: All donations are tax-deductible and can be done by clicking on the orange “DONATE” button on the top of the page under my picture. Seriously, no amount is too small and every single one is greatly appreciated.
- Direct Payments to Me: You can send a check to myself if you’d rather do that (message me for the address), or through Venmo (Sarah-Mahler-1).
- Buy A Shirt: I am selling t-shirts as my first fundraiser! They are $20 (+$5 for shipping if you’re not in Pittsburgh) and all proceeds go towards my fundraising. Check my Facebook/Instagram post for more details (will be posted this week). Also stick around for future fundraisers I will be doing!
3) Follow and Share My Blogs/Posts. Keep checking back in for more blog posts and updates on my journey. Feel free to share them as well if you resonate with anything I blog about or know anyone who would be interested in partnering with me!
If you’ve made it to the end of this blog, I very much appreciate you (and your patience).
-Sarah
