Hello everyone! My name is Summer Watts, welcome to my blog! 🙂 Thank you so much for visiting it, and I hope that this blog inspires and encourages you, and points first and foremost to Jesus. For such a long time, I hesitated making a blog because, to be quite frank, I did not think anyone would care to read what I had to write. I struggled with finding the motivation to write because I felt like my words did not really matter. I was also having a really hard time finding my words. I just couldn’t decide on what I wanted to write about. Finally, I decided that the best thing I could write about was myself, my struggles, my triumphs, my failures, and my day-to-day thoughts on, well life! I know that the Lord has guided me here for a reason, and I am really excited to share with you everything the Lord has done, and everything that the Lord is doing in my life.

As many of you may know, my husband Nick and I recently moved from our home in Astoria, Oregon to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Nick is an AMT (helicopter mechanic) in the Coast Guard, and due to his work we are moved from one duty station to another every 3 or so years. By the grace of God, Nick finally got accepted into the WOFT (Warrant Officer Flight Training Program) for the Army! As a result, both of our lives will be undergoing a significant amount of change within a rather short period of time. What I hope to do is document much of that change and how I handle it (both positively and negatively) here! It is going to be a very exciting but also tumultuous and difficult journey, and I hope that my side of the story will do nothing but encourage, inspire, and occasionally entertain lol!

Another topic that will shape and direct my blog will be something very personal. As some of my close family members and friends may know, I suffer from an autoimmune disorder called Hashimoto’s Disease. The link that I have provided within the previous text will give you a quick run-down on what the disease exactly is, its symptoms, and its complications. I found out that I had this disease when I was a freshman in college. I was also diagnosed with ADD at the same time, which I am sure has been at least partially caused by my thyroiditis. Over the course of 4-6 years, my thyroiditis has steadily gotten worse, and more complicated in nature. Although it is by no means a fatal disease, it is definitely a very real and painful struggle that I have had to endure and adapt to. So, you may be asking this question right about now: why am I telling you all of this?

Well, like I said, for a long time, I struggled with starting a blog because I had NO idea what I wanted to write about. I also just didn’t think anyone was going to care about what I wrote. I wrestled with these self-esteem-rooted issues for a long time, telling myself that I was going to start writing but, I didn’t. However, I am here today to open up about my story not because of any outstanding power or strength that I have, but because of the power and strength that the Lord has given me. I won’t pretend that I have this power and strength everyday… on the contrary I feel powerless and weak most of the time. But God is there, and my central message is this: He is there for you too, no matter what you are going through. It is an ongoing, grueling, monotonous, and often infuriating struggle here on Earth, but there is so much beauty in this struggle. I hope that my personal struggles, triumphs, and failures will inspire, encourage, and challenge many of you to be the best person you can be. And if any of you are suffering from a physical condition like me, whether it be similar to mine or not, I hope that this blog will especially encourage and enlighten you.

Welcome to my story. 🙂