my story

Sitting silently in a giant ballroom amongst over 1,500 college students last December, I broke down. I had known that the life I had been living was fake, ungodly, selfish. I understood that I needed to change, and that things weren’t going as well as they could have. All of the pressure that I had put on myself, all of the expectations that I had for my life, all of my convictions…it all came crashing down upon me in that moment.

When I was in junior high, I was blessed to have a solid group of Christian friends. We went to Bible study, youth group, and church together. We spent Wednesdays after school, and many evenings at our local Starbucks talking about God, life, and what it meant to really have a relationship with our savior, Jesus Christ. Between 7th grade, and my junior year of high school, I grew spiritually, but it was in leaps and bounds. Looking back, I realize that I never truly made my relationship with Christ into a priority; instead, I made my idea of Christianity into a social excuse. It became my go-to if I didn’t want to do something that I thought might be ‘bad.’ My actions and thoughts were legalistic, and I used Christianity to judge others for their drinking and lewd behavior. It was my way to justify my judgmental and elitist behaviors and thoughts. In my mind Christianity served to separate me from all of the plastic and stereotypical students at school. It separated me somehow from all the “fake” Christians, who only went to youth group to check out all the cute boys & girls. Looking back, I realize that I was no better of a Christian (or person), and in some ways, I was worse.

In March of my junior year of high school, at the age of 17, my family moved to Minnesota, some 1600 miles away from my home near Seattle, Washington. I spent a lot of time up until the move being outwardly optimistic. I pretended well and often enough that I was able to convince myself that moving was going to be a good thing. When I first got to the Midwest, however, it seemed unreal. I was away from all of the fellowship that I had gained in the past years; I was alone. In the silence of my bedroom, I cursed God for taking me away from all that I had known; I had left so many things unfinished, so many plans unrealized. I didn’t understand why he would pull me away from everything, nor did I know what I had done wrong to deserve such a punishment. I spent countless nights in my room, crying myself to sleep.

Intellectually, I knew that everything happens for a reason. I had heard so many times that God had a plan for my life. Having grown up going to Sunday school, and Bible camps during the summer, I knew that God loved me, and that He knew what He was doing. Even with all of the knowledge, and background… I didn’t understand.

I became a lone soldier at school. Being the new kid is a hard thing to do; it’s a hard role to take upon yourself, especially if it wasn’t your choice. I had persuaded myself that I would have the best of both worlds – I would keep my old friends, and make a lot of new ones. However, as the contact with my friends back in Washington slipped away, I had nothing to hold onto in my new environment. Sure, I had ‘friends.’ I even had a boyfriend soon after I got to Minnesota, and then through senior year. It looked like I had it all together, like I had people that I could turn to, yet I was empty. I didn’t know who I could trust. I didn’t know who would get me into trouble. I couldn’t rely upon them, and they didn’t know me well. Instead of turning back to God, instead of acting upon all that I knew, I ran away from it, and threw myself into these people, hoping that something would stick.

Senior year was a nightmare. Yes, there were things that went well. There were things that made me happy, but day in and day out, the honest truth was that I hated it. I hated who I had become, and what I was doing. I spent my time at school acting happy, acting social, but on the inside, I didn’t care. I put up a front, but knew that I wouldn’t be friends with anyone from my graduating class after I was gone. I did things that I’m not proud of, and things that my friends from back home would’ve been shocked to hear coming from me. I didn’t know who I was anymore because I changed daily.

It wasn’t until I left it all behind me – graduation, and everything that went with it – that I started to understand why. It wasn’t until I came to Madison, to the University of Wisconsin, that it clicked. I was invited to a conference last Christmas in Minneapolis called TCX and I went. As I sat in that ballroom that night, in a hotel in downtown Minneapolis, I heard a speaker talking about truly living for Christ, about letting Him control your life. He spoke of sincerity. He spoke of giving things up. He spoke of pursing a relationship with a savior that had come to this earth, just to save us. I had heard it all before, this talk of Jesus Christ being the son of God and dying on the cross, and resurrecting to pay for the sins of the world. I had heard it, but this time was somehow different. It was as if the message was just for me, and it stuck.

In the weeks and months that followed, as I went through my freshman year, things changed. I’m still not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, and though it wasn’t always instantly, I could see my life take a new path. I gave up old relationships that weren’t healthy. I apologized to people that I had hurt in the past. I changed my major. I realized that God had moved me, and that I had gone through things, so that I could end up here, at Madison. He intended for me to be here to hear these messages, and meet these people. He intended me to know Him personally, to follow Him, and live for Him. Since then, I have seen how loving, and how great, and how faithful God truly is. He never fails to amaze and astound me. It’s because of who He is, that I trust Him with my life. It’s because of what He’s done, that I follow Him. I couldn’t ever be good enough, nor strong enough to do life on my own. I tried to get through it by myself, and it left me miserable, incomplete, and exhausted. Day by day, I rely upon Christ to get through, and time and time again, I find that He’s more than enough.