How I got here

 "For a very long time she felt very stuck and one day she woke up and decided: This is not paradise."

If everyone around me believes this waking suicide is paradise, what else is left for me but leave? And so I left. 

I left my home. I left my family. I left my church. I left my religion.  I left my friends. I lost so much in order to receive so much. Today I look around my life and wonder how I was ever able to construct such a living paradise.

Christians often talk about the paradise to come. But I want to know why I should yearn for a paradise I've never seen. If paradise is indeed on the Other Side then surely it's aching to meet me right here today. 

I found paradise within.