I am not alone in what I am about to write. I, like many others before me, with me, and after me, crave one vital thing: LOVE. I remember the first time it happened. I was young, less than five years old. I was at a party with my parent. Crowded by people, I felt so small and so alone. My parents were mingling with the other adults and all I wanted was attention. My craving was for recognition, to be loved on by the ones that I loved so much. It was a Christmas party, a time of joy, and yet all I can remember was feeling sad, empty, and incomplete. This feeling did not leave me.
As I attended more social events, started school, went out with friends and experienced life as a young woman, the craving for love never left me, it simply changed forms. In school, I craved love from my peers. The desire for a close friend had always been fulfilled, but somehow, my heart remained empty. The interest in boys came to me at a young age. I had my first crush in kindergarten and my first kiss in third grade. I wanted to fill a void. I wanted someone to love that would love me back. In middle school, well, those are not pleasant memories. As more kids picked on me, my self-esteem dropped and the dark pit within me just got deeper and deeper. By the time high school started, I gained some confidence again. My mom bought me nice clothes, taught me how to style my hair and gave me some make-up pointers. I felt pretty. I entered tenth grade with high expectations. I felt even better when I realized that no one was picking on me anymore. Friends became easier to make and my home life was improving. All was going great, until I got home, went to lay my head down to sleep, and realized that the hype of the day was gone, and I was still empty inside. Soon, I turned to internet dating. I wanted to find a love that I could go to when the people around me were gone. I stayed up late, defied and deceived my mother, and became a tad promiscuous in and attempt to find some form, any form of love and acceptance. This continued all through high school. Regardless of the love from family, friends and internet relationships, I still hadn't found the love I was looking for. I was incomplete.
This next portion is the other side of my growing years: I was churched. What do I mean by "churched"? Well, I was taught about God in church on Sundays. During my elementary years, a bus would come to pick up me and my brother and take us to the kid's service. The next part I will never forget. The teachers called up all of the children who wanted to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. I went up, did as I was told and sat down. The next time they called up the children, I went to the alter for a second time, until a teacher explained that I only had to do it once. I did not realize it at the moment, but I still felt empty because I did not understand. Eventually I was told that I was saved and I accepted that as truth. Nevertheless, there was still a need to be loved. In my middle school years, I attended service with my family. I learned about Jesus and that God loved me and that if I prayed He would solve my problems. Yet, it was not real to me. After service, I would go home and put on my music and become wrapped up in my pre-teen drama. Even while at church, I felt alone because I did not have friends, and even the friends I brought with me were not enough to fill my void. I was in the house of God, surrounded by other believers, and yet, I was so alone. By the time I reached high school, my family stopped attending church services. God became a moral guide, a symbol of all that was good. We acknowledged Him on holidays. I was taught that I was a Christian because my parents were Christian. I never learned about the relationship that I could have with Jesus(that or I simply did not pay attention enough).
And so, back to high school and graduation. I had done it! The great achievement of getting my high school diploma. Next step...college! Before graduating, I made some Christian friends who encouraged me to continue believing in God. So that is what I did. Still in search of love unlike any other, I went two hours away from home to go to college and be the room mate of one of my best friends. I had a career in sight, new friends, a best friend, my family only a phone call away, a boyfriend via internet (to text when bored) and a love interest on the side. I joined a sorority, hooked up with guys, went to parties, drank a lot, ate a lot, and had a blast! And yet...I still felt like something was missing. With all of the fun around me and this wonderful experience, I insisted on getting to church every Sunday. It felt right. The school had service in one of the larger rooms. Many students attended this service, but I befriended none of them. I had nothing to offer them. I was there in search of something.
This "something" I got a taste of in my previously mentioned "love interest". I call him that because I was interested in him for his love. It was not the romantic love, although I liked him romantically, it was the something, the love, that I was looking for: the love of Christ. I was so drawn to that love that the relationship with my internet boyfriend faded and soon ended. I thought it was because of Tim (Mr. love interest) and my attraction to him, although true, it was not the only reason. It was because Mr. internet could not offer me the love of Christ because he was Muslim, he did not have Jesus within him. Even in other boys I had dated who said they were Christian, did not carry such a love with them. In fact, I would not have known they were Christian if they had not told me. Tim had the love of God, and it radiated off of him in a way that I had never seen before. All of my life in churches, I never knew how to access such a love. I did not even know I was looking for such a love until I found it.
But this is not about Tim (who, as it happens to be, I am now delightfully married to). This is about the end of my searching. It started when I was very young. I craved love from people and tried to fill that void with a variety of people and things. I was loved a lot, I was hated, I felt immense happiness and immense pain. Through all of my ups and downs in life, I could not find satisfaction. I always felt empty. I would laugh and somehow still feel pain inside. My problems only got bigger as I got older and solutions seemed harder and harder to come by. I felt trapped, hopeless, and alone. Any relief, any happiness, they were only momentary. I went to sleep with the same craving, the same gnawing within, the same thirst that could never be quenched. Satisfaction was an unobtainable dream. Then I met Tim, the vessel used of God to point me in His direction. Many of my friends thought I was engulfed in Tim, but what they did not know, and some still do not know, is that it was the Love within that drew me. It was the Person within. Tim had a relationship with God, something that I had never seen before. It was the something, or rather Someone, that I had been searching so love for.
So many years had past where I only saw God as a religious figure, a mystical being that could make me feel good. Jesus and His work on Calvary was only a story and never a reality. To all who read this I want to let you know, Jesus is REAL. His love is real. You can have a personal relationship with Him. Jesus is the love that I spend eighteen years looking for. It so happens that I found Jesus through a person that I was dating. But let me make this clear, it I did not find Jesus, if I had not been filled with His love, if that hole in my heart, that deep pit, if that thirst had not been quenched, I would never had found satisfaction in my relationship with Tim. We would never have gotten married because I would have been continually searching for something else. OR, if we married and I had not found Jesus, I would still be feeling empty and not know why. I ask, how can it be possible to have such a great life and still feel like there is something missing? People try to fill that gap with cars, houses, jewelry, toys, shoes, people, a career, partying, drinking, smoking, food, sex, etc. Everyone is looking for something, they cannot put their finger on it, but that something is a Someone, and His name is Jesus. I wrote in the beginning that I am not alone in this. With Jesus, we all have access to our Father God in Heaven. I have never been so relieved than I am right now, writing this today. I was never more free than the day I accepted Jesus as my PERSONAL Lord and Savior and began developing a deep personal relationship with Him.
As a child, I experienced a trauma. It was the type of experience that never leaves a person, it is crippling, always keeping that person in constant pain. I would have night mares, flash backs, panic attacks, and a deep seeded hate and anger about what happened. But guess what...I have been set free! I allowed Jesus' love to enter me, flow through me, and remove every single effect of what happened! Furthermore, I have forgiven that person who did me wrong in a way that I swore I never would. But that is what happens when you have the love of God within you, as I saw in Tim, and as I now have. In high school, I had to quit sports and be put on a strict diet because I was developing a stomach ulcer from stress and depression. When I cam to know Jesus, there was such a weight lifted that a full year later I was working out daily with no pain and I now eat anything I want (although not the best thing when you look at my current eating habits lol)! Furthermore, stress and depression no longer rule my life. I did not need any medicine, I only needed the real, sincere, fulfilling, overflowing, extraordinary love of Jesus Christ.
I have many more testimonies of the like, but I just wanted to make a point. God is not dead, He is ALIVE. Jesus is a very real person offering a love unlike anything that could ever be found on Earth (and I have looked). He did it for me and He can certainty do it for you. But, you have to allow Him to. You have to be open enough to receive the amazing love that Jesus is so willing to give you!
That is my story: the power of the love of God that can take a person trapped in darkness and open their eyes to the light that is Christ. Thanks for reading, I hope you were encouraged. This is only the beginning. I will be sharing more on how God has impacted my life, what it means to me to be His daughter, and how I have learned to love the way He loves. Many blessings to you!!
"But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" -1 Peter 2:9
