The reason I love God so much is because...

I’m not the same person I was.

Me circa 2013, septum, contacts. Naive, but I thought I knew it all

  I remember being on the after school activities bus in 8th grade. Some other girls were saying mean things to a younger girl who was sitting in the back of the bus. I had just awoken from my nap, and I wasn’t too aware of what was going on, but that didn’t stop me from joining in the bullying. I teased the girl to the point where she looked like she was about to cry. That’s when one of the three original girls started telling me to calm down. And told me I was being mean. I did it to feel accepted, but deep down...I knew I was wrong. It was one of my cruelest moments to date. 

I remember joining the cheerleading squad in highschool. I had just cut off all my relaxed hair and was newly natural. Noone thought it looked good on me, and I knew people were secretly saying things about my hair behind my back. I logged on facebook one day and in a picture I posted with some other girls on the squad, a boy commented (he was friends with these girls) and said ‘eww, she looks so gross.’ The ‘She’ was me. That was a pretty low moment too. 

Imagine my surprise in college when people started calling me pretty. Everyone now loved my nappy hair, they liked how different I was. I was really different…but It was good. So I lowered my standards at the first taste of belonging. It started out fun. Smoking, and drinking was fun…getting a lot of guys who thought I was attractive was fun. Manipulating men into desiring me for my body, for what I thought I had… was fun.
  Until I started paying for it.

 I became dependent on things that were once choices.

 People liking me meant more to me than what God thought of me.

I got into an abusive relationship looking for the love that I wanted all my life. I wanted someone who thought I was the most beautiful woman in the world, who told me that daily…who knew all my secret sins and who refrained from judging. I wanted a man to finally tell me, “it’s okay to love yourself…you don’t have to put up a front all the time….I’ll be the rock, you can melt.” And I received some of that…but I also got a man who used me as a  deflection for his demons.

 The relationship got worst.
Truthfully, I was really searching for God, not man. I yearned for the acceptance my father never provided and my mother was incapable of…and I was willing to lose my life for it.

But Jesus saves, he saw me. In the middle of my brokenness, my addiction, my pain, my dark thoughts and my twisted reality.
He cleansed me and he reminded me that I was made for so much more than weed, fake smiles, and fake happiness. I was made for more than casual sex, and being hit at someone else’s whim.

 So that’s why I believe in God. Because as messed up of a person as I was…I am, my creator loves me, unconditionally loves me…he sees me when no one else is willing to, he wipes away every tear and he sees every fear.

A relationship with Christ changes you, it betters you, it fixes you.

 On solid ground I stand. I’m never going back to the person I was.

 I can’t.

 John 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free. 

 2 Corinthians 5:17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!