From a young age, I wanted to be prized in other’s eyes. In middle and high school I quickly learned that if I excelled in sports, my coaches and parents would be pleased with me. I found that if I excelled in school, teachers would give me praise. I learned that if I was a good friend or girlfriend, my peers would want me around and love me. I lived for the affirmation of others. I thrived when I got it, and felt unworthy and depressed when I did not. I would fixate on shortcomings and work to improve them. My self-worth rode on an emotional rollercoaster of life’s circumstances.
The low of this rollercoaster was my Sophomore year of high school when my best friend and a couple other close friends decided that they wanted to start drinking and spending time with a different crowd. I decided not to join in (for the purpose of obeying parents and my school’s athletic code) but I felt left in the dust. I felt a strong sense of rejection and questioned, what is it about me that isn’t exciting enough, funny enough, or friendly enough for my friends to choose these other things over me? In this place of not being wanted by my friends, I felt empty, alone, and hopeless.

It was at this point that I started searching elsewhere for a place of belonging and again, that affirmation. An acquaintance invited me to Young Life, a Christian organization. I started going to the weekly club meetings and began to learn about God. The people here were excited about their faith, something I had not experienced before. There was this different kind of joy about them and the accepting way they treated others was different that I had experienced. It was at a week-long Young Life camp in Upper Michigan where I understood for the first time how personal God’s love was. I learned that God’s love and grace is so vast, and that He loved me, even when He had complete knowledge of my failures, my shortcomings, my sin and my rejection of Him. To Him, it didn’t matter how funny I was, or how pretty, how good at basketball, how smart or even how moral I was. He came and died for me–broken, messed up, and exactly as I was (and am). He was inviting me into a best friendship with Him. I had been taught about faith as a kid by my parents and church, but still had some questions about God and the Bible to work through. My Young Life leader, Jamie, as well as my Mom helped me get to a place where I felt like “Yes, I fully want this relationship with God.”

Since then, I have slowly trusted God with more and more of my life. I have given Him control of my future, and find my present worth and value in being a precious daughter of His. I still struggle with feeling like I need the affirmation and approval of others, but I am quickly brought back to the truth that God’s opinion matters most, and He sees me as His Beloved.