I became a Christian the summer after 7th grade. Two years later, the summer after 9th grade, guilt started accumulating in my life – guilt because of fear. Although after becoming a Christian I had shared more openly about God with others, I had started being more reserved with my faith since I was afraid of looking weird in front of non-Christians. But God says to not be afraid to identify with Jesus. There were times when I didn’t care what people thought of my faith, and I would share with them about God, but a lot of the time I was afraid of what non-Christians would think of me if they knew I really loved Jesus. I would get down on myself for not being more open about my faith. I would shy away from conversation about God at school, but would still feel immense pressure and guilt to talk about God with my friends. It was all guilt and little grace, and this guilt started accumulating after 9th grade. Sometimes, I would even find myself questioning whether or not I was really a Christian, or whether God had saved me if I was afraid to acknowledge God in front of others. Despite these doubts, I grew a lot in community and in certain parts of my relationship with God thanks to my strong youth group at church; however, I still had not yet fully believed that God always loved me – even when I failed to acknowledge him in front of others. Eventually I learned that I cannot go on without being sure of God’s grace.

During the fall of my sophomore year of college, I really started to doubt whether I knew God and that he had saved me. As fall semester went on, I become more and more afraid that I was not going to be spending eternity with God. I imagined all the punishment I deserved. I couldn’t talk to God about my fears because knew he didn’t love me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone else because I feared they would confirm my doubts. I became deeply depressed as winter break approached. Nothing in life mattered to me anymore. I didn’t know how I would go on like this, but I knew God had to do something or I couldn’t live.

I was relieved to see my family when I got home for winter break, but I was still overwhelmed with fear. One night, a couple days into break, I remember not being able to sleep. The whole night I couldn’t stop thinking about how guilty I was and the fear of being separated from God. I decided I would just tell my parents about what was going on, even if it meant being judged. Since I couldn’t sleep, I got up early around 7 AM. I was surprised when I saw my Mom get up 10 minutes later since she always sleeps in. She told me she couldn’t sleep and asked me if I wanted to go on a walk (we were in the Bahamas). I said yes. On our walk I finally let out to my mom how I didn’t think I was saved, and how I was so afraid of acknowledging God in front of others. Then she told me that the reason she couldn’t sleep was because she had felt the Holy Spirit telling her to pray for me throughout the night. I couldn’t believe what I had heard. I was shocked. Did God really love me? After that walk, my doubts shriveled away. All the guilt that had piled up started disappearing. God set me free from guilt and fear of punishment for my sin, and at the same time I became more bold about my faith. I am so thankful to God for having mercy on me when I was overwhelmed by guilt. God truly loves me, and I believe it