I had identified the need for Christ earlier in life but thought that I could still continue in my ways and accomplish the life for which I yearned. It wasn't until my first summer after teaching where I felt like my roller coaster slowed down enough where God could show me all where I went wrong and how incredibly painful it was not living His ways. When He opened my eyes to my sin, I became extremely emotional and that's when I formally repented my sinful past to the Lord. I prayed hard for a child because I knew the only reason I would change my ways would be for someone else... still searching for the meaning of life through a person. The Lord granted me my first daughter very soon after that and my heart changed immediately (as most new mothers' hearts do). However, I still compared my situation to my friends' thinking "this would be so much easier if I had more family members for support" and other thoughts that looked at everyone around me instead of God and I suffered from extreme anxiety after having my daughter because I just felt so alone. It wasn't until she was about 6 months old that I started reaching for devotionals more regularly and learned that I have God for support all the time and how amazing He is working in our lives. My husband and I knew that we wanted me to stay home full-time to provide the best possible beginning for her. When I first started staying home, my husband had also quit his job at the time so we had this new baby with zero income at the moment but he found other work right away. He had faith that everything would work out more than I did and I decided that I needed to really take a step back and reevaluate my perceptions on a lot of things. Devotionals, meditating on the Word and reaching for examples of other faithful people in my life helped... but it wasn't until we were quarantined due to the Coronavirus that life really slowed down again making me reevaluate my perception even further. Before quarantine, we were constantly at the library or at playdates and kept ourselves very busy which I thought I valued but housework would often get neglected and my children ate every meal in front of the TV (insert face palm emoji). However, during quarantine I started homeschooling and focusing more on household chores and eating our meals at our table with prayer and cleaning up after every meal immediately. My daughter recognizes the word "God" and "Jesus" now and learned a simple prayer for mealtime which makes me so proud! I felt more comfortable attending church services because I wouldn't have to leave my kids at the church daycare and they could be as loud as they wanted since it was now car services. Of course the home improvements were made but then things slowed down enough where I realized that devotionals were only giving me part of the story.. and that I needed to know the whole Truth for myself. I started reading my Bible and the fire of the Holy Spirit lit up inside me! God opened my eyes to more than I ever thought could be possible!