My high school experience was pretty good, I seemed to have everything I could have wanted – I was class president, valedictorian, and on homecoming court. My group of friends was mainly made up of people I went to church and youth group with – some of my best friends were captains with me on the cross-country team. My junior year I started dating a senior guy who was both on the cross-country team and in my youth group, and we were together for the majority of that school year. He was the first person outside of my family to know a lot of personal things about myself.

My world would then fell apart in a matter of a few months. My boyfriend and I broke up, at the time it was extremely hurtful. I was devastated and looked to my friends for comfort – but that never came. I was in an extremely vulnerable state and didn’t understand why no one was coming around me. A few months later, after dealing with my pain internally, I found out why my so-called friends had not bothered to help me that summer. I was told that my ex-boyfriend and friends had a Facebook chat designated to talk about me. I remember scrolling through the messages written by about 15 different people and reading line by line what each person had to say about me – whether I was an attention whore, a patronizing friend, someone who deserved what she got, someone who needed a reality check, someone who would hopefully realize that she wasn’t so great when she saw she had no friends, crazy, psychotic, overemotional, and the list went on and on. One late night a few of them got in a car and drove to one of our classmate’s houses, they went into his truck and laid on the horn at midnight that night, waking up his whole family. But the next day they convinced him that it was me who had broken into his truck. These were attempts to destroy my reputation, and to ultimately destroy me. When I found all of this out during first semester of my senior year, I separated myself from that group entirely, which was pretty hard since a lot of them attended youth group with me. I sought out my current bible study leader and a youth pastor for help. However, I was met with unwilling responses. I tried reconciling some relationships during the beginning of second semester. These attempts led to me again feeling rejected.

I remember one night in particular being crouched on my bedroom floor sobbing because I had no friends left and going to school or church was a constant reminder of my every day struggle. I felt so alone. I felt abandoned. I felt rejected. At that point I was done with the constant pain and hurt. I can still picture myself as I grabbed this long cord that was laying on my floor and tied it into a noose. I put it over my neck and just held it there, I wanted so badly to end it all right then and there. The pain these people brought me is something I can’t put into words, but I’m sure many of you have felt it.

I hated and resented these people for a long time for the emotional stress they put me through. I used to hold onto the fact that they never apologized to me and would tell myself I would hold this against them until they fully realized what they had done. But I realized that this wasn’t affecting them, it was only tearing me apart. I wanted justice, and I wanted it immediately. Yet, justice isn’t mine. It is God’s. What I can do is forgive people 7 times 70, with no strings attached. I decided to allow Jesus to transform my heart towards these people. I can’t say healing from past hurt is an easy process by any means, but the end result is amazing – I am not continually burdened by the daily resentment or the countless reminders of what happened, but rather I am free to enjoy the relationships I have now and to grow in my faith with the Lord. I will continue to choose to walk in trust and hope that is provided through Christ. I can honestly say that I am grateful that I went through this, it has made my relationship with God so much sweeter. He will never leave me nor forsake me. He keeps his promises. He will not abandon or reject me. He relentlessly pursues me. That’s the type of love I want to live for.