Life is a word so commonly used that we as people tend to overlook how descriptive and detailed life truly is. I’m twenty years old and I couldn’t have asked for a better life to live than the one God has given me already. So many things have happened in my life that has made me who I am today and I can honestly say that I am so grateful for the environment I was raised in, because without it I would not be the person I am today. To begin with, my life would have never begun if the doctor wouldn’t have been skilled in his profession. On October 27, 1990 my dad rushed my pregnant mother to the hospital at 3:30 in the morning, anxious to see his second child born. The doctor told my mother that the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck three times and a C-Section needed to be done within ten minutes in order for me to live. With the Lord guiding the surgeons’ hands, I was delivered at 3:58 that morning. Growing up my life was probably somewhat different than most children today. I was raised on a dairy farm, where I have learned so many life lessons that I will never forget. Growing up on a farm isn’t as simple as most people look at it to be. Not only have I learned farming techniques and skills, but it has taught me that nothing is going to be handed to me in life without working for it. My mother and father provided every essential need that I needed, but also never just handed me things. In other words, I wasn’t a spoiled child. If I had the choice to relive my childhood in another environment I would say absolutely not. Living on a farm I really got to enjoy the things God created, rather than having my face stuck in front of the television. Yes, of course we had a television, but my mother raised my brother and I to get outside and play when we were young, and when we were older we helped on the farm with the rest of the family. Although I was raised on a farm, when I entered school sports caught my attention and took my time. I started out cheering in the fourth grade, but soon came to realize I’d rather be on the court battling it out to win a ball game rather than on the sideline cheering. The fifth grade basketball coach came up to me one day and asked if I would consider playing for him because I was about a foot taller than everyone else, of course I said yes. I played sports from fifth grade all the way up until I graduated high school. My life was dedicated to sports. I played volleyball, basketball, and softball every year and clearly playing three sports left me hardly any time to help out on the family farm. In high school was known as the “athletic farm girl.” I was 5’11, muscular, and had every will and drive in me to perform my best. I ended up with MVP and two scholarships to play basketball at Virginia Intermont and King College. Unfortunately, my athleticism has begun to wear off since I didn’t take either scholarship because I wanted to do my best in my college career. I have always been someone who puts up a strong shield on the outside, but inside I am very tenderhearted. My mother is the very reason why. She is a very strong woman mentally, but physically she is weak and would never show it. She was diagnosed with lupus when she was thirty years old and I know it has been a very hard road for her. Lupus is a disease that is very hard on the body. It weakens your immune system and makes you extremely tired. When I was around the ages of eight to fourteen is when my mother was at her worst with lupus. She would be so strong in front of my brother and I, and everyone else for that matter, but I could see it in her eyes that she was exhausted. When I was fourteen I remember her lying in the bed one day and saying to me she didn’t know how much longer she could take it. It was almost as if she wanted to die because the disease was taking everything she had in her just to get out of bed. Miraculously, she had an accident one day that turned