A little background about me before I get started, I was born and raised in a loving christian household, but I didn’t truly accept Jesus into my life until I was around seven years old. Before I truly understood who Jesus is and his incredible gift He gave us, I struggled and still sometimes struggle with feeling that I am loved or wanted. For some time in my life, I felt very lonely as a child because I had temporary friends. I would have friends who kept moving away or friends who would rather hanging out with other people other than me. Also, I was bullied for about a year, which made me feel more insecure and lonely.
Feeling lonely and insecure, I started to keep to myself and become more and more shy. I did not think anyone wanted to be with me and I felt very insecure with myself. Every year I went to Vacation Bible School at my church and nothing seemed different, but when I went to VBS at seven or eight years old something changed. That year they had a special speaker come in (one of our missionaries from church who specifically works with children) who taught us about the salvation message. As she was talking, I began to understand and see that Jesus loves me and never leaves me. Even though people come and go, God always remains and you are never alone. I mean, Jesus did die and resurrect from the dead for us, which shows that Jesus loves us more than we can EVER imagine and that Jesus is always with us, even if we mess up. All we have to do is accept Jesus into our life and we receive the greatest gift of grace. When the lesson was over, we started praying and the speaker said “if anyone here wants to learn more about Jesus and talk about this more please raise your hand and you will be able to talk to someone else about this,” so I rose my hand and talked to one of the elders at my church at the time. He talked to me about the same thing, showed me some verses, and I accepted the Lord into my life that day.
Ever since that day, I’ve been trying to act in love toward others and become more and more like Jesus. As of right now, God has been working in me in so many ways. He works in ways that we do not always understand, but it is always good. For example, COVID-19. Sometimes we don’t understand why pandemics or strange terrible things happen, but God is always working through these things. During this interesting time, God has been challenging me to work through the unexpected- leaning on Him and trusting Him more. Also, my prayer life keeps growing, since I am gaining more confidence in my faith and realizing this is how I talk to God and how I shouldn’t feel insecure about that (especially when praying out loud).
Rutgers CRU 