“Nothing good is easy.” This is what my mom would always tell me when I would complain about having to sweep the floor or actually do homework in high school. Now that I’m learning to deal with real adult problems, this saying has a whole new meaning.

So often we expect good things to just *boom* happen. Why is it so unbelievably easy to skip class or go out on a Saturday night, but so difficult to get out of bed or say, “No thanks, I can’t be hungover for church tomorrow”? The world is difficult to resist, and last year, my sophomore year, I definitely found myself taking the easy route.

I grew up in your typical Christian household: a mom and dad who loved their kids, three siblings, a nice house with room to play, a dog, Church on Sunday mornings… the works. I went to a Christian grade school, middle school, and high school. My faith was fed to me from the moment I was born. I was baptized at a week old, memory verses started in Preschool, and we had mandatory chapel five days a week in high school. The path was easy and the burden was light.

While my faith-life was paved for me, the rest of my life was out of control. My mom struggled with postpartum depression and anxiety, putting a strain on my parents relationship, and on our family. 

Fast forward to my freshman year at college. I figure that I’m finally free! Well, turns out, I actually had a pretty tame freshman year because one of my best friends from high school was also a Badger, and I had a long-term boyfriend. While on the outside it may have looked like I was a “good” Freshman, I was slowly letting the world take hold of my heart. I had never learned how to make my faith my own. I was spiritually starving, however, Sunday mornings were virtually impossible to dedicate to church, even without a hangover. The funny thing about starving is that eventually the hunger pains fade, and we become numb to them. Of course, the first few weeks I felt terrible about missing church. I would tell myself, “Heidi, this cannot happen again. Next Sunday you’ll be there.”

“Next Sundays” became a lot like tomorrows, and never actually came around. Despite this, by the end of the year I was doing well. I made good friends. I had a good GPA. I had survived freshman year.

When you’re on a high, you don’t quite realize how far you have to fall. My free-fall started when my boyfriend and I broke up. Typical? Yes, but heartbreaks really suck. Where would I find my worth without someone texting me good morning and goodnight? Even though this breakup was my idea, I became lonely, and had to fill the void.

It’s now the start of my sophomore year. I’m free as a bird, single, and ready to mingle. With my best friend from high school not returning to UW, I was free to do as I pleased – start over and create a new identity. I felt oddly like a Freshman, this was the start of something new. I decided to live in Ogg, and my new friends and I started drinking every weekend. I began to put my identity in how I looked and how men looked at me, but at the end of the long, drunken, nights, I still craved a stable, loving relationship I once had.

As I was yearning for the relationship I lost, I realized I needed something more than what the world could give me. I began to prioritize my relationship with the Lord and started going to Cru and leading a Bible study with my friends. I finally opened my Bible! I was learning to feed myself. Through this time, however, I was singing praises to the Lord on Thursday evenings and then going out drinking on Thursday nights, Fridays, and Saturdays. Sundays I would occasionally go to church, but not often, and the whole cycle would start again. I was stuck in a double life. Jesus in the AM, booze in the PM.

As my faith life became stronger, so did my desire to fit into the world, and neither path seemed easy anymore.

So what did I do about this? Well, for the first time in a long time, I prayed because I wanted to, not because I had to. I started realizing that I was enough not because of my looks, my GPA (which started to tank by the way), how many friends I had, or how many numbers I could get in a night. As a matter of fact, I was not enough because of those things. The very things I was putting my trust in were the reason I was feeling worthless. I started to realize I was enough when I put my identity in what Christ’s love has done for me, not what I could do for the world.

What I focused on changed, and what you focus on grows.

While I still went out, I started drinking less and focusing on having a fun night with my friends instead of what the guys thought. I started talking to my Christian friends from home about my struggles. I was honest with them about who I wanted to be and my motivation behind my choices.I wrote in my Bible every day. My relationship with Christ was now my focus and priority, and the way I started to view myself changed dramatically. I no longer feel the need to fill a void with drinking and boys, but now feel confident that I am complete in Jesus’ love.

Unfortunately, all of this did not happen overnight. I didn’t wake up one day and never drink or party again. The issue was bigger than just drinking; however, the issue was where I was putting my worth.

Life’s a journey, and if you’re here, reading this, I’m guessing you want to ensure your destination. Maybe you already have, and you know with all your heart that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. At the end of the road you know you’ll be singing His praise forever. And that’s amazing! But maybe you don’t know where you’ll end up, and are just looking for some purpose in life. Well, I didn’t type out my whole life’s story for nothing!

A²+B²=C². The Pythagorean theorem. We learn this theorem so we can figure out the shortest way to get from A to C. The hypotenuse, the direct path, is always the fastest way to get there. And I find myself always looking for my hypotenuse. The quickest, easiest way to get over the heartbreak, to be successful, to get that A in a class, etc. Unfortunately, it’s virtually impossible to take the straightest path to class. You have to follow the roads that have been paved. If you actually mapped out the direct path to your furthest class, I bet you’d be surprised by how many buildings would be in your way. God has a path mapped out for you. The problem is, we think we know the destination. We want to get there using the easiest and straightest route while God is having us take all these turns, making the simple trip seem long and hard. Little do you know, He’s guiding you to avoid the road blocks, and sometimes He even lets you walk the extra distance so you avoid walking up Bascom Hill.  

Ephesians 3:20 says: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

So, I encourage you, no matter where you come from or where you are on your spiritual journey, to know that nothing good is easy, but God is right there walking next to you, through every doubt, fear, or low. Open your Bible! Seriously. Open it. Write in it, scribble in the margins, wrestle with the Old Testament. Question it. You are not meant to blindly believe, but purposefully serve. Our journeys may be different, but we all have the same final destination.

Although I did struggle with self-worth, and at times still do,God has always been working. The journey hasn’t been easy, but He has used the low moments to teach me that I am more than what the world expects me to be. I am His beloved daughter. He cherishes me as His own and is walking alongside me through all the twists and turns.

When we obey God, we don’t get more God, He’s always there. God gets more of us, and we need to trust He will lead us when we don’t know which way to turn. When we are spatially disoriented in life, we need to trust Him, our GPS, that He knows where we need to be to land safely in His arms.