The past few days I haven't been able to stop thinking about those who have fallen away from their faith. My heart has been so heavy and with each day that passes I feel more and more burdened for lost, conflicted souls that have experienced God's love and truth at some point but no longer follow Him. Having experienced this myself, I know what it's like and it's hard to not have compassion for people who are going through what I did in my own past. I just feel like I am supposed to share my testimony so here it goes.
I was born into a christian home and was always very involved with church until I hit my sophomore year of high school. I never once doubted that Jesus was real growing up, but the fact is it wasn't something I had chosen for myself. I had been going to church since I was born and it was all I knew. I always felt like I was strong in my walk with God, but looking back it was more something I had inherited. I didn't really have my own self sustaining faith. I read my bible, went to church, and did everything I thought I was supposed to do, but I was missing the real relationship part of it.
In middle school I was horribly insecure as many kids that age are and I was struggling with depression as well as my ADD that was undiagnosed at the time. I was already feeling emotionally unstable and then freshman year of high school came. It was an extremely tough year and I remember every day just crying and praying that God would help me and make it all go away, but it didn't. My whole world seemed to be falling apart and I didn't understand why He would let me feel that horrible. I figured if He was going to let me suffer like that I would do my own thing, so I decided to do just that and take on the world without Him.
For three years after that, I lived a selfish life separate from anything that had to do with God or church. I compromised who I was and made decisions that I never thought I would make. I chose a path that led to nothing but emptiness and more hurt on top of what I was already feeling hurt from. I'll never forget this one day senior year I distinctly remember thinking I had figured out the key to life and how to be happy with God out of the equation. I honestly believed that I didn't need Him anymore and I was 100% content with never having anything to do with Him ever again. By the end of senior year I just remember feeling so worn out. That happy feeling I thought I finally found was nowhere to be found and I felt hollow and defeated.
One night at a party I randomly had a conversation about God and the person I was talking to had similar experiences in her past as well. We ended up talking for a while and I began to realize that deep down inside me somewhere a tiny hint of life still existed in my seemingly dead spiritual life. The next night my mom was talking to me about my brother getting ready to go to the summer camp at our church and for some odd reason I felt like I should go. I had been to church once or twice in three years and when I told my mom she was seriously in shock. There's no explanation as to why I even had that thought. God was wooing me back to Him and I had no idea what was about to come.
To make a long story short, that summer camp changed my life. God broke my heart wide open and told me that he still loved me regardless of my past mistakes. Even though I had willingly turned my back on him he wasn't going to give up on me and I was completely set free from years of pain and destruction.
When I hear of someone who is going through that journey of inner conflict and separation from their faith I feel so much for them. I think it can be easy sometimes to judge others when they seem to be going off course in their relationship with God. We have an idea of what we think a solid walk with the Lord should look like and when we see others not living up to that we form an opinion. Going astray from a relationship with God is just a way to escape deep pain that seems like too much to deal with. I've been reminded this past week of how painful that journey really is and how much more I need to love those walking in similar shoes. Even when it seems hard to love them and I'm more inclined to form an opinion.
It's okay to make mistakes and it's inevitable because we're human. Believe it or not it's a Godly thing to be human because there can only be one perfect being that that's Jesus. I hope that by sharing a little about my life it will help you realize that there is a love greater than anything we could ever understand. And you're not alone in this fight.