Heather’s Story

How can you have a loving and personal relationship with someone who isn’t even here? This is something I questioned for a long time. I grew up going to church and bible camp, but I never really understood it all. I always knew there was probably a God out there somewhere, but I thought it didn’t really apply to my life right now. I was always very shy and self conscious, believing I wasn’t worth anything. I relied on other people, especially boys, to make me feel good about myself. My life revolved around boys. I couldn’t really be happy without one giving me attention and love. I needed boys to make me feel like I was whole and complete. But this was all so unfulfilling. I only really felt joyful for brief periods of time; happiness never stayed for long. When there wasn’t a boy around, negative thoughts about myself and the world around me slowly crept in.

Because of this need for love, I become involved in a long unhealthy relationship during high school. I allowed this boy to become my entire world and pushed everyone else in my life away. Our relationship was very physical and I gave him almost everything. It eventually ended with him cheating on me. I felt completely abandoned and unloved by everyone. If he didn’t want me anymore, why would anyone else want me? My reason for living was no longer there, so I became depressed.

But this is where the Lord came to me and worked a miracle in my life. He used one of my weakest moments to lead me to him. A friend started bringing me to youth group where the Lord began to work on my heart. I slowly started to understand that he was the only thing that was going to bring me out of this depression. I realized that I had given boys the place in my heart that only God is meant to have. It wasn’t satisfying me, because no boy on this earth can do what God can do. When I gave God back his place in my heart I slowly changed my outlook on life and began to feel better about myself.

I began a long journey of learning how to give everything to the Lord and of him changing me into the type of person he wants me to be. I was once motivated by my own desires, which always led me astray, but I began to be motivated by God. I wanted to honor him with my life so everything I did was now for him. The decisions I started making were difficult, but they eventually led me to happiness and what was best for me.

But I am not saying that my life is perfect now, by any means. I still have struggles and I even turned away from God during one of these hard times. My freshman year of college exposed me to many new things, including a whole new group of boys. Second semester I got involved with a boy on my floor. He slowly broke down all the walls that the Lord had helped me to build up over the years and I finally gave in. We became involved physically and I started reverting back to the way I was before I let God into my life. I was angry at God for doing this to me. Why had he allowed me to go through this? Why hadn’t he given me strength to stay away? Why had he left me alone to deal with this? At one point I even decided God didn’t exist anymore.

When I did finally get away from this boy, it took me awhile to allow the Lord in again. Luckily I had connected myself with CRU and with good friends to lead me back to him. I began to realize that I had asked the Lord for this. Earlier that year I decided to surrender my entire life to him, including my relationships with boys. He was giving me an opportunity to show him that I was really willing to do this, but I wasn’t ready for it. I thought he had abandoned me but I realized that he was actually holding me in his hands the whole time I just wasn’t able to see it. I could have given myself completely to this boy, which would have devastated me, but no matter how many times it almost happened, it never actually did. There is nothing to explain this except for the Lord’s work. Even when I was pushing him away he still loved me enough to not let me fall completely into darkness.

I’ve learned that no one is perfect, even Christians. Life is hard and everyone will go through difficult times, but it’s so much easier to make it through those times when you have God on your side. He will give you strength to keep going and you can trust that he has a purpose for your life personally. Your life has meaning because the Lord wants to use you to do amazing things! He loves you so much and he will always be there waiting for you. He will radically transform your life if you only let him in.