My story isn’t about choosing to believe in God, and giving Him my life; growing up in a Christian home, I understood from a young age that I need God, and had started a personal relationship with Him practically before I knew my ABC’s. No, my story is instead about trusting in God with the everyday struggles of my life.
My home was very loving; my parents encouraged and supported my three siblings and me. For nine years, I attended a Christian private school, where I gained a lot of knowledge about the Bible, and who God is in my life.

At some point, my knowledge about God became centered around performance. I’m not sure what caused this – maybe it was the drive to compete with my siblings, or the pride I felt when I answered questions correctly in school, whether they were about God or other subjects. In either case, I was striving to excel in many areas of my life, simply because I had the ability to. If it was possible for me to get all the questions on a test correct, then I must do it. If I could answer a question about the Bible in Sunday school before the other kids, then I must do that too. Having the best behavior out of all my siblings? A must. Outcompeting everyone on the tennis court? A necessity.

Looking back, it’s easy now to see I had a huge issue with perfectionism. My Christian faith was supposed to be centered around the knowledge that God has already fought for me and paid the price for the wrongdoing in my life, my failures, and has given me grace so I can live freely with the knowledge that I am His, and every time I fall short, He has already picked me up, and forgiven me. Instead, I horded my failures to myself. My mistakes were mine, and I didn’t want God or anyone else to see them because I was supposed to be perfect, and I could be, if I just tried hard enough. I couldn’t give myself the same grace that God had paid so dearly for by sacrificing His son to pay for my mistakes.

This obsession with perfectionism soon became a struggle with my self-image. I wasn’t living like I was made in God’s image, and, so, I began to attack my own image. In middle-school, I developed an eating disorder that would be my companion for many years. One summer, my cousin told me my uncle thought I looked anorexic – instead of feeling shame, I felt pride that he noticed. My mom told me she believed I had a disorder, and I only felt upset because a disorder meant I was broken, and not perfect – I needed to be fixed. At this point, I knew food and my image had become an idol in my life, and I tried to turn to God with this struggle – but a part of me wasn’t ready to turn it over to Him just yet.

A major turning point in my life came my Senior tennis season. Tennis was definitely another idol in my life – I strived to be the best. My ceaseless striving soon developed into an overuse injury, and I could no longer compete at the level I believed I was capable of. I was incredibly angry at God – how could He take away something that was so precious to me?

And I realized – He was what was supposed to be most precious to me all along. I was certainly most precious to Him. In my anger, He held me so close. As I beat His chest, He carried me. As I demanded the recognition I though I deserved, He whispered, “I see you.”
So, I began clinging back. I began seeking Him, and longing for His comfort. I would cry – and I still cry – at the overwhelming feeling of His love and the knowledge that He has been with me all along, crying with me.

I began changing, and these changes were centered around the fact that I had finally fallen in love with the One who has only ever loved me. Just me. Not my efforts, not my performances, not what I was capable of doing. Just little, broken, me.

I need to remind myself of this knowledge every day. Every time I’m tempted to feel like I’m not enough because I have no man to hold me when I’m upset, I remind myself God has been holding me all along; He tells me I’m enough, because He is enough. Every time I slip into anxiety over an exam because I’m afraid of not having all the answers, He reminds me that my identity is not in my intelligence; His future plans for me won’t be undone by one bad grade. Every time I look to the community around me for affection and belonging, He gently tells me I belong with Him. Every time I look in the mirror and what I see sends me running after what I perceive as the perfect body, He reminds me that I am beautiful, and I am His.