My love story: a testimony

When people click on this page, they expect to see my love story with a guy. how we fell in love, how we learned to live for each other, and how it was so romantic. Yes, this is a love story, it’s just that I am not in  love with any guy I met in high school, college etc. this is my love story with Jesus Christ. I know what you’re thinking. “What? how could she be in love with Jesus Christ?”

Here is my story, and I hope it will be a blessing to you:

I often see my life as a mountain. It looks like there is one way up, one constant climb uphill. But it is not. The trails up that mountain are sometimes rocky, sometimes clean and paved, there are dips and valleys, as well as parts of the trail that travel very close to the edge of a cliff. My journey began at the bottom looking up. I Was born into a Christian family, and my parents did their best to teach me right from wrong. They raised me on Bible songs like “Jesus Love me”, “He’s got the Whole World in His Hands”, I attended a private christian school from kindergarden to the middle of 4th grade. I knew nothing about death, or even about life. I thought that every kid was a little christian, and that everyone was the same. In 4th grade, my parents moved me into public school. I realized rapidly that I was different. I didn’t have a close knit group of friends because I entered the system so late. my grades dropped dramatically. I call this point in my life the “first path up my mountain”. I was thrown into the world, and I tried to grasp for anything that would pull me up my first little path. As years passed, I became infatuated with the world. I attended church on sundays with my family, yet thought nothing about Jesus during the week. I thought I was fine. By the time I entered High school I was angsty and tried my best to be just like everyone else. I talked back to my parents, dated behind their backs. My boyfriend pushed me sexually, wanting more and more. I felt like I loved him, I believed that I loved him, and he was my world. there was no one else. My mountain path in high school was rocky and filled with many crossroads and twists and turns. by the time I was a junior, I was very close to falling off my mountain. I was dangerously close to the edge. My life revolved around me and me alone, and my selfishness took a toll on my relationship with my family. Then one day my world spiraled out of control.

   The first and most dramatic turning point on my journey up the mountain was when I was confronted by death itself.  A friend from school committed suicide on the train tracks right outside the high school November of 2009. I remember the feelings hitting all at once. The crying, and the realization that I was, in fact, human not some immortal being who would never die. As I was confronted with the fact of death, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what I was living for, or who I was living for, in this short time I had on earth. My thoughts turned to God. sure I was going to church every sunday, but what was it all about? I had known about Jesus my entire life, every fact. I even had verses memorized. But did I really know Him? a few sundays after the tragedy, my youth group went to a youth rally down in connecticut. I remember my heart being stung with the reality that I needed salvation. I needed Jesus in my life. He had died a painful death, taking on the sins of the world, my sins, so that I could have a new life, a forgiven life. Jesus thought of me when He hung on the cross, a death that I should have had because of my sins. but he took it from me. And I finally understood what the Bible songs, that I had heard all my life, meant. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so, little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong.” November, 2009, I surrendered my life to Jesus, and He forgave me and welcomed me into His family.

You might think that this is the end, that I lived a perfect life after that and nothing went wrong ever again. But I’m telling you that you are wrong. Just because I had a relationship with Jesus didn’t mean that I did not sin, that I did not face challenges, hills, and difficulties. Junior and senior year of high school, I attended an independent baptist church with my family. My life was miserable there. I was scolded because I wore panst, and because I went to public school. I was told that if I didn’t follow the rules that the church had, then I wasn’t following Jesus completely. I watched them judge outsiders, telling them that they were going to hell, telling the that because of this sin or that sin there was not hope for them. For 3 years I witnessed this, and I hated it. I hated the judgement, that was not the way that a Christian should be acting. Yes, it was miserable, but I don’t regret anything that had happened to me there because it shaped my faith. I saw what I didn’t want to be, and I worked hard to be loving and kind to others, not judgmental and harsh.

After we left that church, I was off to college. I decided to pursue a career in nursing, because I loved helping others and wanted to make a difference in the world. I began attending Simmons college, an extremely liberal college in Boston. I quickly learned that this was not high school. I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, and no one could stop me. I looked for christian friends, but I didn’t find any. I felt alone, lonely, I didn’t have a community of Christians to help me. So I became far from God. I went to parties friday and saturday nights, and attended church on sundays (I would fall asleep during the service because of the night before). I looked for acceptance, so I flirted and hooked up with guys I had met at parties. I was searching for that feeling I had when I was around other christians, but I couldn’t find it. So I spiraled deeper and deeper into this rocky valley. the whole first semester of college was a standstill in my journey, I didn’t move forward spiritually, I was slipping. After a breaking point at the end of the semester, I decided to talk to my dad. In tears, I told him that I didn’t want to be at Simmons anymore, that I wanted a christian community, that I Was sick of feeling alone I was distraught and miserable, and I was determined to move down to virginia and attend a christian college. My dad looked at me and told me to wait it out just one more week, and if at the end of the week I still wanted to transfer for the next semester, I could. “Maybe God has plans for you here and you just don’t know it” he said. That week I prayed. I didn’t know what to do. I prayed that He would show me what I needed to do. I wasn’t sure, but I decided to continue studying at Simmons. second semester freshman year rolled around and I was thrown back into the melting pot. One day I remembered that at the beginning of the year I met a girl from a christian group on campus who invited me to their meetings, but I couldn’t attend because I had a lab that day. But this semester, the time opened up. So I began attending the meetings. My life changed after that. I got very involved in the community, and I wanted to do more. That spring I went down to Florida with the gang for Big Break, a college christian conference where we learned to share our faith with others. we were able to go down to the beaches and talk to complete strangers about their lives and salvation. That break, God taught me about having compassion for others as well as how to live out my faith in the college world. Coming back from that amazing experience, I wanted to do more for my community, so I signed up for a Summer project/missions trip in Boston. We lived in an MIT fraternity for 2 weeks, and we learned how to share our faith, live a Godly life on campus, as well as how to be a leader on campus. It was amazing. I never imagined that I would b a missionary in my own city. I shared my faith with many people that summer, and My mountain was being conquered one step at a time.

I know now that I don’t journey alone. Jesus is with me every step of the way, and at some points He even carries me. There will be times where I stumble, or nearly fall off the edge, there will be valleys and points where I do not make progress, but these difficulties mold me into the person that Jesus wants me to be. I also travel with others, their stories intertwine with mine, and this is why I tell my story.

My hope for the future, when I am gone from this world and joined with my Father in heaven, is for people to remember me for having a heart like God’s. Jesus and me. that is the ultimate love story.