In high school, I had a lot of security in my identity as a good person. I didn’t do a lot of the morally “bad” things that I watched the people around me slip into. I felt that I generally had my life together because I didn’t do those things and I took pride in that. I compared myself to the gossip I heard and the people around me and thought to myself “Well at least I’m not THAT bad.” I had never smoked, drank or done really anything with boys. The party life that college promised didn’t scare me. I felt like I would have no trouble ignoring it. I plunged into college confident that I would continue to be a “good” person. What I underestimated was how accessible partying became in college. The friends I made normalized a party atmosphere. I found myself involved in the things I had promised myself I was never going to do like binge drinking and smoking and at one-point kissing someone I didn’t even know the name of. I felt confused on who I was supposed to be. I wanted to keep the good girl mantra that defined me in high school, but I kept feeling pulled back to the things I didn’t want to do.

At a Cru conference my freshman year, it hit me. I alone only had so much good to put out there. I alone did not have the strength to always be the most morally good person. But that was okay. God didn’t need me to be perfect, in fact, he knew that I would make mistakes. He wanted me to be more than a rule follower and a good person. He had sent his son to relieve me of the burden to be perfect. He cared more about me and my relationship with Him than any mistake I would ever make. I felt so relieved to find out that I didn’t have to be good to be loved. That God did not love me anymore or any less on a given day for any decision I made. I decided that day that regardless of my circumstances I wanted God to direct my path.

Though I had grown up in the church and understood God’s love from a young age, I didn’t really grasp the full meaning of it until I got to college. Once I understood how little I could do to make myself a better person, I started talking to God all the time. Before I had only prayed when I had lost something, but I just wanted to talk to God and I knew he wanted to listen. I had found a new peace in my life. I now believed that God was always happy to have me as his daughter, even when I messed up. I also could no longer justify being more “good” than anyone else. Sometimes I find myself forgetting just dearly God loves us, but He had never ceased to remind me and pull me back to him. Ultimately, I know it’s not about what I do, but who I belong to. One verse that reminds me of this is Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ.