Have you ever reflected over your life story, mentally flipped through the good and bad pages of it, and found yourself wondering, How the heck did I arrive…here?  

Instinctively, you might wonder how you managed to attain peace, after having survived chapters of your life story you’re grateful never to have to relive, ever again. Or you may naturally find yourself reminiscing on many of life’s most magnificent moments, grateful to have ever experienced them at all.

My interpretation is some combination of the above. The way the Author uses the highs, lows and everything in between of my life story to expand my character always leaves me in awe. I never thought my story would lead me here. And yet, even with all the unknowns yet to be resolved, the sheer trust of Who’s holding the pen makes the unknown excite me. It brings me joy. And it keeps me going, even on the hardest of days.

Trying to mentally piece together the wonder of it all leads me to a single, fundamental follow-up question. Within the how, there’s the who. Who exactly have I been along all the other pages of my life story?—And, yes, how did she manage to arrive here?

Somewhere in the moving words of a sermon I streamed while in Uganda, during the summer after my second first year of medical school, I learned that our purpose isn’t necessarily in what we do, but rather in who we become in the process. (Yes, you read that correctly: “my ‘second first’ year of medical school.”)

I think about my dreams and how far I’ve journeyed toward realizing them, despite the odds. And yet, there are moments where I reflect on how far I still have to go. In any case, my spirit always finds unique ways to remind me that success is in the journey itself, not the destination. She’s also opened my eyes to see that we don’t ever truly arrive at our dreams at all; rather, we live them. And in many ways I’m already living mine.

Perhaps we get it all wrong in thinking that the purpose in our lives exists in some far-off reality we haven’t yet attained. Maybe it’s been within us since the day we were born. There all along, revealing itself little by little with each of life’s crazy twists and turns, slowing unraveling strengths we were always meant to unleash and share with this world. We spend our lives searching for something we never truly find because it’s always been hidden within the very framework of who we are; who we’ve been from the beginning, not who the world tries to mold us to become.

The journey itself and what we experience in connection with others along that journey are gifts. No two paths look exactly the same, yet each seems to be connected in some way. Here we find ourselves colliding worlds, bonding through the timeless capsule of language and storytelling. In this space—whatever that space looks like for you today—you’ve somehow landed on this page, intersecting your own life story with mine. I like to think there’s purpose in that, and within each of us.

I collect gems even in what feels like the deepest trenches of my story because I choose to believe the trenches are not the end, for any of us. With child-like optimism and divinely supported endurance, I choose to keep turning the pages. Because if I arrived here, I believe, surely, I can arrive there too. Wherever there takes me.

They say when you’re healed, you tell the story differently. Well, my story is still very much being written and my healing has made major strides. I find solace in the fact that both the story and the healing are expanding in miraculous ways with each passing day. Within each day, an internal battle conquered. And within each new tomorrow, a happily, ever after waiting to be embraced.

I think I’m closer to becoming who I was always intended to be. Closer, than ever before.

I trust that the Author of it all is holding my hand, guiding me as I somehow find the words to trace it all back to the very beginning.