If you would’ve told me two years ago that I would be a sophomore in college pursuing nursing, living with 8 Christian girls, happy with who she was, and on a crazy spiritual journey, I simply wouldn’t believe you. Two years ago I was struggling with anxiety, depression, feelings of worthlessness, broken relationships, and alcohol. I was at a point in my life where I didn’t want to live anymore. I had no friends, no family, and nothing to live for.

My junior year of high school, my dad moved across the country for a new job. At the time, I was content to staying with my mom until graduating high school with all of my friends. A few months into our seemingly happy family being separated, my parents ended up getting a divorce. This was the start of my downhill spiral. My mom and I had frequent arguments about my dad and the family. We were forced to move out of my childhood home into a little apartment. My home was the last part of my life that felt stable. I spent 14 years of my life there, and now it was gone too. My relationship with my mom got worse and worse by the day. Our fighting led to lots of screaming or silent bitterness toward each other.

I wasn’t sure how to cope. My dad was gone, my brother was living off on his own, and I was struggling to live civilly with my mom. During this time, I had also pushed all of my friends and teammates away. It felt like they could simply never understand what I was going through and I never took the time to be vulnerable with any of them. I was living a double life. To people at school, I was a girl who had lots of friends to lean on, always happy, and got good grades. In my personal life, I was shriveling into someone I didn’t know. I found myself drinking with college friends on the weekends, lying to my mom about where I was, and staying out until 2am on school nights. These things would temporarily sustain me, but never lasted. I struggled to find something that would last longer than a few hours and never could. Soon, I found myself struggling to find a reason to stay alive. I felt that nobody loved me anymore and I had become someone I didn’t know and wasn’t proud of.

Growing up in a house that didn’t follow Jesus on a personal level, left me believing God existed but not much more. I believed God was real but had no idea that a relationship with him was possible or a thing that people actually did. When I had come to the end of myself for the second time, I happened to run into someone at the gym, who I knew through a friend. I had followed her on social media and noticed that recently she was posting with Christian friends and looking SO happy doing it. I never imagined that I could be one of those people. After almost an hour of debating in my head on whether or not I should approach her, I ultimately decided that I couldn’t continue going through what I was on my own. I was willing to give God one last chance to give me a reason to keep living.

After approaching her and asking her for help, I was blown away and confused at the loving, welcoming response she gave me. Surely this girl couldn’t actually see how broken I was or she wouldn’t be able to love me, right? She invited me to church the next weekend which happened to be Good Friday. The message and people at church left me in tears. I was introduced to a large group of college kids who were all friends and loved Jesus. They were all so nice to me. I was grateful for that, but also still a bit confused as to why they seemed to care so much about me and my life, when they had just met me. I returned to church on Easter Sunday with the same group and decided that I also wanted the peace, joy, and love the people around me had from God.

There was a clear Gospel message at the Easter service and I was able to accept the fact that God loved me so much that He sent His only Son to die for us. Not only die for the future sins I would commit, but also the present and past sins. God loved me even though I drank excessively in high school, up to the weekend before I accepted Him. God loved me even though I yelled at my mom. God loved me before and when it felt like nobody on earth did. I was ready to start living a life that was honoring to Him. I knew it wouldn’t always be easy, but God was worth it.

That summer I learned a lot about what being a Christian truly meant. I learned how to pour into a relationship with God, how and what it meant to forgive others, and how to rejoice in hardships. Being surrounded by Christian community almost daily helped me grow rapidly in my faith. I was able to surrender my desire of control over certain areas of my life fully to God and let Him guide me through life. While accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior didn’t make my life perfect or easy by any means, I was able to know that I had a forever friend in God. I also learned that feelings don’t always equal reality.

Before finding God, I believed that I would never have a relationship with my mom ever again. I believed that I would go to college and meet friends and boys by going out every weekend and getting drunk to drown my feelings. I believed that I was unworthy of love and grace because of the way I treated my family and others. God showed me that forgiveness is possible. I have an amazing relationship with my mom now. I was able to forgive her and other family members for the way they hurt me and work to rebuild those relationships. I was able to join a campus ministry and meet some of the most important people in my life. I’ve been poured into by people on staff and other students, while being able to pour into other students as well. I’ve learned to share my feelings with trusted others, not keep them bottled up just to drown on the weekend. I’ve learned my worth and that my identity is in Christ, not in what others think of me or what I perceive others to believe about me. I am deserving of love, grace, and truth, because I am His.