What was life like before you met Jesus?
I grew up in a Christian home and knew about God for as long as I can remember. I always thought of Christianity as a religion, not necessarily as a relationship with Christ, because that was just what I had known, I was “Christian.” I struggled to completely put my trust in God with thoughts of doubt or anger running through my mind, especially when my parents split. I was angry at God, wondering why he would let there be so much brokenness in our family and cause us so much hurt. I believed the lie that it had to have been because of me, and I convinced myself that since my dad left, that meant he did not love me and that I had to earn back his love. Unfortunately, that mentality stuck with me and ran rampant. I found myself always feeling the need to have approval from others and was a hardcore people pleaser. I wanted to be liked by everyone so badly and impress everyone from my friends, family, teachers, coworkers, etc. I would strive to be the best at everything and would tear myself down if I wasn’t perfect. Striving so much led to perfectionism, control, and anxiety when things didn’t go how I planned in my head. I believed my worth and my identity was in how well I did, how I performed, or how “good” I was, and that life was so exhausting.
How did you meet Jesus?
Although I knew of Jesus growing up, I never fully understood the Gospel and made it personal to me. I had this realization in the car on the way back from Salt Company on September 8, 2022. My older sister and I had pulled up to our house, and I turned over to her and said, “You know how some people are just so crazy about Jesus? I feel like I don’t understand the true weight of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. I feel like I am waiting for a WOW moment, like I think I get it, but I just don’t GET it.” God heard that cry for help because, well, I GOT it that night. I had hardly ever reread my notes from Church or Salt messages, but I felt like I needed to do so that night. I opened my notebook to find the passage that we read from, and it was 1 John 4:7-19, which talks about God’s love for us and how God showed that he loved us by sending his son to die on the cross as a sacrifice, to take away our sins so that we may have eternal life with Christ. Jesus revealed himself to me at that moment, and the Gospel finally became beautiful to me. He showed me that my sins deserve the death that he endured. He showed me that through his death and resurrection, he has defeated sin and death, and that I can be dead to sin and alive in Christ. He showed me that God loves me so much and wants me to spend eternity with him. He showed me that I can have eternity with Him if I believe in him and repent from my sins. I spent the rest of that night thanking Jesus for what he has done for me, journaling my prayers and thoughts, and worshiping Him with all that I had in me. One thing that I had written down was, “Imagine if you had done something terrible (sin) and you were on trial, with the punishment being the death sentence. And as the judge (God) is about to give you your sentence, someone (Jesus) walks in and takes complete blame, and pleads guilty for everything you had done, even though he was completely innocent. He gets your punishment, and you walk in freedom.” How beautiful is that to think about!
After being saved by Jesus, what is your life like now?
After being saved by Jesus, I now know that I am completely loved, unconditionally. I know that there is no greater love than the love that God has for his children. I know that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). I know that I have no one to impress and nothing to prove. I know that I was created in His image, and I don’t have to strive to be liked by others because I am already loved by the one who is love. As Ephesians 2:8-10 makes clear, I don’t have to work to earn this, this love is a free gift from God, and from this love, I can love others. I will never stop sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and letting everyone know that they, too, are loved and they have a perfect Father in heaven waiting for them to come home to him.