I grew up in a home that regularly attended church, but all through middle and high school it meant very little to me. I would go to church and fall asleep during the sermons, and never exercised my faith any time except Sundays. I was confirmed into my home church my freshman year of high school, but was apathetic and blind to what that really meant. This led to a lack of trust in God, and a certain kind of prideful trust in myself to guide and shape my life. This mindset was mainly motivated by my successes with music and started from a very young age.

I started playing piano when I was about four years old. After beginning to take lessons from a family friend, it didn’t take long to realize that I had a gift. I was really good at piano. I would play in front of my music class in elementary school to the thunderous applause of the other 5th graders in my class. I would play piano at my friends’ houses and have them say things to me such as, “Wow, I could never play as well as you” or “What do you do to be this good at piano?” Going into high school, this prideful mindset grew even more. At this point I was also playing the trumpet at music festivals and competitions, wearing the mask that I was playing music purely because I enjoyed it. While this was true to an extent, in reality I was certain in myself that I would perform well and earn more achievements to brag about, and that was more important to me.

I went to a music camp over the summer a couple of times throughout middle and high school, but I made sure to go my junior year of high school, as there was an audition for a full ride scholarship to UW – Madison and I thought this would be my break. I would audition on trumpet and easily get one of these scholarships, and that would kickstart my career as a musician. I would use that college degree to become a full-time musician out of college, and that is where I put my hope, in the ideal plans that I had painted for myself.

I got out of the audition completely convinced I had earned my spot in the next round of auditions. However, as I arrived at my room that night I saw a note on the door revealing to me that I had not made it to the second round of auditions. This news broke my heart, and I remember crying myself to sleep that night because this audition is where I had put all my hope up to that point. I was left lacking any sense of identity.

I had decided to go to UW – Madison later on my junior year, and it was at college that God came alive in my heart. I got involved with a Christian student organization on campus and began to learn more about who God was, and who I was in relation to Him. I went to a winter retreat during winter break my freshman year of college, at which I learned of the great plans that God had for my life. I learned that God had plans for me to prosper and to hope and to have a future, but more than that they were freely offered to me! This was attractive, that the creator God of the universe had a plan for my life, my seemingly small and mundane human life. There is only one way we can realize these plans however, and that’s by humbling ourselves before God, acknowledging the price that Jesus Christ paid on the cross by dying for our sins, and giving up the plans we have for our lives by putting Jesus Christ on the throne of our lives. It was at that winter retreat that I surrendered my life to Jesus, and my life is forever changed because of it.

Knowing Jesus has lessened my view of myself and heightened my view of God. I can now rest in the certainty that His good plans for me will play out exactly as He intends, and the burden of relying on myself knowing I will eventually fall short is now lifted. I can do no amount of works to earn God’s approval, and simply through faith in Him and what He has done for me can I experience His good plans for my life. Because I don’t need to earn His approval I can confidently declare that I am a child of God, part of His eternal family, and no amount of failure can ever change that fact.