Prideful in myself, that’s what I was. I was striving to be the best at everything, including my church life. My family and I went to church every Sunday, but to me, I was just doing something with my family and trying to answer all the questions in church classes on Sunday mornings. As I grew older, I entered middle school and high school. In the eyes of others, I embodied the term “successful.” I was involved in many different activities and sports and performed very well. A lot of people thought I had it all together, but guess what? I was incredibly dissatisfied with my life and nobody knew it. For those who were close to me, they knew that I dealt with a loss of my younger sister in a car accident and an extremely difficult family situation stemming from divorce. What’s unfortunate is that instead of looking to God, I took pride in being so successful against those odds. I put on a face in front of everyone to make it seem like everything was going well, even in my faith walk. People commended me on my walk with God, but didn’t know the pain that was inside my heart.

So, what changed, you may ask? The biggest thing that changed my perspective was leaving for college. I remember watching my mom drive away from my dorm after move-in day trying to hold back my tears and “act cool.” Immediately after, I realized that I had complete freedom. Freedom to do (or not do) whatever I wanted, even discontinue church. Luckily enough, I had some people who cared about me and encouraged me to join a church (Blackhawk) and get involved in a Christian student group (Cru). At this point, I began to realize that although I called myself a Christian in high school, I was so far away from Jesus. As a result, I began a long process of renewal. I began to realize the indescribable amount of love the God of the Universe had for me! I started to realize that He had a plan for me, one I wasn’t following. I was blatantly disobeying him. On top of all that, I began to see Jesus as less of an intellectual subject, and more of the person He actually was, the one who took the punishment for my sin. So, over the course of my first semester of my first year of college, I finally agreed to give my life to Jesus, and follow him with all of my actions.

Since then, my life has been drastically different. I continue to work hard in many activities, but now I’m no longer working for my success or myself; I’m working for God. I used to put on a façade that everything was okay and that I “had it all together,” but now I can openly say that I’m a total mess and my true identity lies in a perfect and holy God. This is the most amazing transformation that has ever happened to me. If this is new to you, please talk to me! I’d love to share more details about how God changed my life. I used to be prideful and now, I’m working on being humble. What’s funny, though, is that I think I’m even more prideful, the only difference is that my pride comes from the God I serve, not myself.