I lived with my mom, step dad, and three younger sisters, and about one weekend a month I would go and stay with my dad to visit him and his family. When I was with my mom, every Sunday we went to church and Sunday school, and as I got older I began spending my Wednesday nights at youth group. This led me to seventh grade when I made the decision to follow Christ on my own, it wasn’t just because it was the right thing to do or because my mom wanted me to be in church; this was my own decision. I understood the gravity and importance of what Jesus did for me and decided He was going to be at the center of my life.
But this isn’t where my story ends. As I got older, I struggled with feeling loved and wanted. In high school I went to my friends and boys to try and fill these holes in my heart that I really didn’t even know where there at the time. I struggled to have a relationship with my step-dad; I struggled in the relationship I had with my dad. Having this lack of relationship with a father figure was something that I had a hard time with as I was struggling through high school. Looking back now, I know that I tried to make my friends and what ever boy I liked at the time fill this role. I was looking for love in all the wrong places. Thankfully I decided I wanted to become a member of my home church. I asked one of the youth sponsors at the time, Denise, if she would be my mentor through the process of joining the church. She was able to teach me so much and to continually point me back to Jesus and what His love had led Him to do for me. She was able to point out to me what I was feeling and how Christ desperately wanted to enter in to these feelings and walk with me in them.

This wasn’t just a one-time issue though; as I transitioned from high school to college I fell back into looking for friends and boys to soothe my aching heart. Through out high school I was told who I was, and that identity followed me to college. Some of the friends that I made my freshman year started saying the same things that I heard through high school. I know that I knew better, but I still kept returning to empty wells. Joining Cru and this community I am continually encouraged to turn my eyes back to the cross and the identity given to me through Jesus.

Becoming a Christian does not make life magically easy, but it gives you a hope unlike any other. I know that having a lack of a father figure is going to influence me all throughout my life, but I’m comforted knowing I have a heavenly Father whose perfect love is all that I need to be fulfilled.