I was so blessed to have been raised in a Christian home with parents who always encouraged me to be involved in church. I prayed to receive Christ’s gift of salvation at a very young age through a children’s program at my church. Being a Christian was always part of my identity and every chance I got I would be involved in every bible camp, play/musical, missions trip, etc. Although I learned a lot about God, I never really knew him on a deeper level. During middle school and high school,I was very self conscious, introverted, and worked very hard not to draw attention to myself in anyway. I moved a few times to new states, new churches, and new school and I would hide parts of myself so I wouldn’t stand out. (and I still struggle with these things sometimes today). I am thankful God was watching over me during those confusing years because I never compromised what I believed in. Also I had many Godly people in my life to love and guide me! However I wasn’t very open with others about my relationship with God and I felt like the conversations I had in my youth group and with my christian friends rarely went past the surface. This kind of communication was also a pattern I had with God and with myself.
Many times I doubted the strength of my faith and doubted God because I saw the connection other people had with Him. I was jealous when I saw new Christians experiencing God in ways I wasn’t. I wondered what was wrong with me, why I wasn’t “further along,” but never actually changed anything in my life. God and I did have our moments of closeness, but only when I ran into problems I couldn’t deal with on my own (I always tried things my way first). I recently heard a speaker say, “sometimes we are not hungry, because we are full of something else,” which really opened my eyes! I didn’t have the insatiable hunger for God I wanted because over the years he was shoved to the side by other things. In my mind they were small, innocent, and insignificant things, however all those little things added up. I was trying to feed my soul with getting good grades, entertainment, TV, movies, and music, my family & friends, relationships with boys, acceptance from others, and even serving and participating in everything at church. But I have learned that anything put before God in our hearts is a problem, no matter how small. God gave everything for us and deserves nothing less in return! And I have seen that there is no reason at all, not to give all my heart to him.
Coming to college, getting involved in campus ministry, and experiencing amazing fellowship and accountability with other Christians over the last three years, I have grown closer to God than I have in my entire life. I learned about the power of the Holy Spirit, the importance of spending time in God’s word, and how trusting God is not as complicated as I made it out to be. It isn’t easy, but following God’s plan for my life has been way better than trying to fit God into the plans I was making on my own. It did cause me to make some tough decisions like changing my major and ending a serious relationship I had with my boyfriend from high school. However, God never disappoints! I have begun to experience a joy, passion, and fulfillment that I could have never have found on my own. I have held on to the promise in Jeremiah 29:11. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Every day since I took the step from just believing in God to completely opening my life to Him, I have had many challenges and convictions, but even more victories and blessings! I spent too long keeping God and others at a distance, I never had to doubt, hide, or search of my purpose. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galations 2:20
What is the worth of a human life? According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, worth is defined as, “importance, value, merit”. Although I grew up in a loving supportive Christian family, before I personally received Christ into my life I believed the lies the world was feeding me when it came to my worth. The world tells us that our worth lies in our success, our beauty, and how smart we are.
I first accepted Christ into my life as a ten year old, when Christ was just beginning to change my life, I was insecure and uncomfortable in who I was. I was constantly bombarded by the lies of the world telling me that I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t perfect enough, and not just physically but also in every other aspect of my life. In the middle of my sixth grade year my family moved to a completely new community, planting my insecure self into an entire new world with no friends and a changing body. By seventh grade my life became all about my grades and my appearance. My worth had become defined by how well I could perfect these aspects of my life. I could be daily seen trudging to and from class with my head down, shoulders slouched, and eyes averted to anyone their path crossed, the reflection of the condition of my heart as I slowly realized my inability to be perfect.
In the middle of the third quarter of my seventh grade year I got a math quiz back with a score of 9 out of 10 destroying my perfect 100 percent and downgrading it to a 99.9 percent. Devastated I went home and cried, the next day I went to the teacher and begged for extra credit. Although now looking back, this memory is rendered as funny, it goes to show how deep my worth had become embedded in my grades. By this point my hair had also started to curl making my perfectly slicked back, bump free ponytail an impossibility. In that moment of my vulnerability, God began speaking to my heart, planting the first seeds of my realization of my worth in him.
Slowly, I began to change, by God’s power alone. The more I grew closer to God the faster I was transformed. Although I struggled along the way, at one point almost becoming bulimic, God was always there to grab my hand while I was drowning in a flood of self-worthlessness. When ever I had hit rock bottom, God always provided a verse, a song, or a person in my life to remind me of how much he loved and valued me. By God sending his one and only son to die in place of us, so that we may spend eternity with him, God gave us worth equal to that of his own son making us co-heirs to Christ Jesus! John 1:12 “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-.” The amazing thing is we cannot do anything positive or negative to change this. No matter who you are or what you’ve done you have amazing worth as a person, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8, we just have to accept his amazing gift. With God constantly reminding me of this my self-confidence and self-worth grew each day.
By the time I was done with my eighth grade year, I was a completely new person, confident in not myself but confident in who I was in Christ. Today, many people tell me that I am one of the most confident people they know, but little do they know this was not always the case. Thanks to God’s amazing love, I am today a person totally changed by the one who all along knew my worth as his precious child. I am entirely and totally devoted to the one who loves me for all of my imperfections and flaws, the one who taught me the value and worth of a single human life.
My story doesn’t start out with anything special. I don’t really remember what my attitudes were before I received Christ because I was young when I accepted Christ into my life. I was in elementary school so my life pretty much included going to school and doing church activities. My dad is a pastor so we did a lot of things with the church.
I first received Christ in 1995 when I was at Vacation Bible School. I don’t totally remember how it happened. I just remember that when they asked if anyone wanted to accept Christ into their life I went downstairs with a couple of other kids and we prayed to accept him into our lives. I was also baptized in 1997 on the same day as my sister.
I rededicated my life to Christ when I was in Jr. High when I was out at camp one summer.
Before I rededicated my life I wasn’t really spending anytime getting to know Christ better. I knew that I was supposed to go to church and everything I just didn’t know why. I also wasn’t spending anytime reading the Bible daily or praying that much to God to help guide me through my life.
After I rededicated my life I started spending more time reading the Bible and I began to understand what being a Christian was really all about.
After I received Christ I began to grow in ways that I never thought I would. He has taught me to trust in him in everything that I do.
My life has changed quite a bit because I trust in the Lord for everything and I know that whatever I do will be for his glory and I know that I can lean on him no matter what is going on in my life. I also have wonderful Christian family and friends who look out for me and I know that I can always count on them when I need to talk to them.
Dedicating my life to Christ was the best decision that I have made and I am so glad that Christ is in my life and that I can trust him with anything.
I had the privilege of growing up in a Christian family. We went to church every Sunday and I went to Sunday school and Wednesday night programs. My upbringing gave me an awesome foundation to build my life on. One aspect of my upbringing that really impacted me is that my parents were part of different churches. I was being taught things from two different perspectives. Even though they were both Christian perspectives, they were different and this caused many questions for me. I never really believed the things I was taught without investigating them. I started a daily quiet time, reading scripture and prayer, at a very young age. Many of my questions were answered through these times.
I accepted Christ at a young age, and from that time on, I lived a “good Christian life.” I did what I should and didn’t do what I shouldn’t. I lived this because I really wanted to—I wanted to honor God with my life. As my high school graduation approached, I decided to attend Bible College. I have always had a desire to learn about the Bible, so this was the perfect opportunity for me. While in Bible College, I learned so much about God and what living for him really means. It was during this time that I really took a stand on what I believed and made my faith my own. I was baptized at the beginning of my second year of Bible College and it was then that I really surrendered my entire life to Christ. When I let Christ have all of me, he really took my life and radically transformed it. I could see God at work in my life—showing me my sins and helping me overcome them. I could see how God was leading me to particular places and to particular things. I can see how he is changing my character from who I am by nature to someone more like Jesus.
The person I was before I totally surrendered my life to Christ was just okay. I was living a good life and enjoying being a Christian. I guess I didn’t even know what I was missing. When I gave Christ total control, my life was radically changed. I have now experienced what it means to live a spirit-filled life. I can’t imagine life without the Spirit guiding, comforting, and directing me. Now my life is all about Jesus; glorifying Him through my life and making His name known.
Since I was brought up in a Christian home, I remember going to church on Sundays feeling like it was a chore. To me it was just some feat I had to accomplish in order to be a good person. Then, as I grew up, I took on that label of the “good kid,” and I embraced it because it brought me attention from others. By middle school, this label that I’d placed on myself soon turned into a huge pride monster.
My life at this point revolved around what people thought of me. As long as I was accepted and liked by others, I was content. Acceptance from my friends especially was huge. I spent a lot of my time trying to impress people around me and live up to the label placed on me.
God obviously wanted me to see my true identity in Him because sometime between junior high and high school something got me thinking about who I really was and what my purpose was in living. I realized that I didn’t know who I truly was, and I struggled coming up with an answer because my identity was hidden underneath the facade I had covered myself with in order to impress other people.
As I think back, I notice that Christ’s transformation of my heart was a long-term process, but if I had to pin-point it to one specific time it would be the summer between junior high and high school. That summer, I attended the Bible camp that I’d been going to since I was little, but this time turned out differently. This summer it clicked. The purpose and identity that I’d been searching for, I finally saw in Jesus. There wasn’t a specific moment that I welcomed Christ into my heart, but I just distinctly remember telling myself that this was for real, that Jesus has a legit purpose for my life, and I wasn’t going to let my spiritual high die down this year.
When I received Christ, my attitude took a huge 360. God opened my heart to realize that who I was isn’t determined by what people say about me, but by who He says I am. Though it was a process, I slowly let go of the need of acceptance I had so desperately held onto before. As I entered high school, I tried to remain focused on living for the will of God rather than for the will of people. This was and is still a continuous challenge, but just realizing that God had a plan for me was something completely new that I thoroughly enjoyed and still enjoy experiencing.
I’d love to say that I am completely motivated by God’s view of me, but I know that wouldn’t be completely true because it definitely still is something I struggle with every day. I oftentimes am convicted of justifying my identity through others’ perceptions of me. Also, through Christ’s transformation of me, my motivation for doing good works has been stemming more and more from living in thanksgiving to Christ for what He’s done for me. Of course I fall short in this more than I’d like to admit, and I let the pride that had dominated me in my past creep back in. It’s something that I’m constantly aware of and that the Holy Spirit is continuing to work on in me.
Today, I’m at the point where God is continuing to reveal to me my true identity in Him, and even though I fall short and go back to my old ways, He’s always there to remind me of His awesome plan for me.
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