was going through some of my old stuff to clear and make space for new items when I chanced across memories of my uni life.

Throughout the camps with the Christian Fellowship, we had some where we wrote notes of encouragement to one another. This often resulted in madcap laughter over coffee/tea/water and copious amounts of biscuits with the lazy guitar in the background at 3am while we poured over scribbling notes.

I often wonder if people kept those notes. I'm not a terribly sentimental person when it comes to letters or notes like these so I wouldn't blame them if they didn't keep theirs.

But I kept mine. For as many as I could find, I kept the notes that were written to me.

So today when I found them, I decided to read them all over again. The same things were repeated in the notes. They were about how I encouraged people. About how they learnt so much while talking to me as I shared my life with them.

The notes used to make me smile. They used to make me sit up a little straighter and feel a little lighter.

Today, I cried. I slouched over them and suddenly the burden was heavier. More painful. More overwhelming.

I felt like such a fraud. Through all those kind words, I never really shared my life with them. Sure, everyone knew that I was serving God despite parental objections. But they never knew my dirty secrets. About how I lied just so I could go to church. About how I snuck around and hated the oppression without ever once confronting it.

I never really shared the darkest moments of my life where I needed God the most. I never shared the splitting headaches and panic attacks and unexplainable moments of chest aches and breakdowns. I never shared my thoughts and that one attempt of suicide when I was younger. And the reason why I didn't share them wasn't a selfless one. I just didn't want people to see me as weak. I didn't want people to see how helpless and how miserable I was.

I never really shared my life with them. All they saw was the part I wasn't ashamed of. The part that I thought they would learn from without thinking worse of me.

Then towards the end of my ministry with Christian fellowship, there were people writing to me to tell me to rest. To take a break. To slow down and not exhaust myself.

I cried even harder.

What happened to that girl who so tirelessly met up with people and berated herself for not doing enough? What happened to that girl who tried so hard to patch up the holes and mend lives at 2 am in the morning despite knowing that she had a morning class in less than 7 hours? What happened to that fight, that drive, that hunger, and that passion to want to learn for the sake of others?

In exchange for wanting people to see the real me, I gave up that side of me that serve to the point of breakdown for the ministry.

Is that wise? What is right? What is wrong? What is good for the people and for the church? Why have I come to the point where I don't know what is enough and where to start and what to stop?

I need answers. Praying. Praying so damn hard.