Description

Dear Friend,

The story behind the brand? It’s simple: My life. Rewind two decades and I find the younger me surrounded by a host of loving family members. My parents would sacrifice anything they could for me to have the best opportunities, to have the best education, to have food on the table and a roof over my head. The house was small, sharing a bedroom with my brother, but on paper, I had everything I could have imagined, was surrounded by people, and yet, I battled the feelings of isolation and depression.

I found myself – more often than I care to admit – on a tiny bathroom floor lodged between a toilet and a sink. I remember day after day silently screaming at the over-the-door mirror trying to convince myself that I was okay. I would finally be able to catch my breath and I would muster up the strength to spread the corners of my mouth to resemble a smile. I would open the door and the moments of wanting to take my own life would be in the distant past. I would dig deep and fill every room I entered with laughs. I was the loudest one in the room. The one to help someone else battling their own demons. The shoulder that people could cry on.  And yet, at the end of the day, I found myself back on that same bathroom floor.

Over time, the Lord healed and restored, but I walk around thinking… About the ones who wander around seemingly without a care in the world. The ones who are flooding social media with all of their inspirational quotes and beautiful candid pictures. And I often wonder what’s behind their smiles. Are they, too, walking around with a mask to cover the pain that they’ve learned to suppress? Where do they find themselves in the middle of the night when the silence gets loud?

The good news, and the thing that brought me through and kept me here today was a scripture: Psalm 139. It talks about how God. Is. There…no matter where we are. No matter how far off course we think we’ve gotten. No matter how misunderstood we feel. No matter dark it may be. The same God who lifted me up off of that bathroom floor too many times to count, is the same God that is there for you. This is more than a tshirt. This is your personal reminder that God is Even There.