This is my story.

by Devin
(Georgia)

This is my story.

When I was just a young girl in second grade, a boy I was good friends with told me I was fat.

It totally crushed me.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I even remember what I was wearing. I was sitting with my knees in my chair at school and he said, "You are kinda fat." I looked at him in shock. He then defensively said "...but it means you like boys, so it’s ok." (Yeah, I don't know who told him that.)

Now, I know this might sound ridiculously stupid to you, but at that time being told I was fat was horrible. I took those words that boy said, and turned them inward. Only being in the 2nd grade, I then started questioning myself. "Am I really that fat? Am I ugly?" I ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror. All I saw was me. Fat. Ugly. I started to pull away from people in general. I use to be bubbly, but then I developed a shy personality. "Why would anybody want to be friends with me?" I would ask myself. I figured I was not worthy of anyone's friendship.
I believed this untruth all my life.

I was of the world, so I did what the world thought was cool. Especially the stupid stuff. I didn't have many friends except for a couple here and there. I only had 1 person I was myself around until I moved away to a new house... Then our friendship died. I started to become jealous of her and it became very awkward when we were around each other. We are still not friends today.

I didn't like who I was. I wanted to be someone else. I was embarrassed to be me; ashamed to be stuck in this skin. I wished I could change it. Or at least look like someone else. A girl that was pretty with the perfect body, with the perfect life. I remember I used to daydream about me being someone different. I would pretend I wasn't me just for a few minutes, in a world filled with "happiness." I would cry at night because of how miserable I was. "Why did I have to be me?" "Why didn't God make me someone else?" I would cry.

If you would have asked me, I would have said I was a Christian. I was far from it. I hated church and I would get happy every time we skipped Sunday church service. I thought Church was something that you just did for no apparent reason. My parents made me go. I can remember one night I got mad at God. I asked him "What did I do to deserve a life like this?" with tears streaming down my face. God was not a part of my life. I knew he existed, but I didn't really think he cared about me. In fact, I didn't really care if he cared about me.

Summer 2008 was when I started taking baby steps towards God. I was hopeless and desperate. I would just cry then I would randomly pick up a Bible and read for comfort. I told God I knew He could fix me and I wanted Him to. I even started praying. I don't remember what made me want to start praying, but I did. All my prayers were basically just wish lists. Like God was a big Santa or something.

One day on a weekend in January 2009 while I was cleaning up, I started to cry just thinking about life. Then I picked up a Bible and opened it. It happened to open to Romans 8 and my eyes were stuck on Romans 8:31-38. It talks of God's love for us and how nothing will ever be able to separate us from His love for us. I started to cry again, but this time they were not tears of sadness and misery. No, these were tears of happiness. God showed up that day. Little did I know that He was not finished with me yet. He had more in store for the that day. Right then and there I decided that I was going to start learning about God and what else he had to say to me. I made plans to start waking up early in the morning to pray and read the Bible.

Before I went to bed that night, I decided to look up a few devotionals about God and have a quiet time before I went to sleep. After I read a little about God, I decided to pray. While I was praying, I started to get overwhelmed with emotions. I started crying to God "I want more of You! I want to be with You! I want to be Your child!" I started crying so hard that I couldn't see. Jesus was there. He came to visit me. He said I could be God's child. After that I had a joy I could not express. I was so happy! I had began a relationship with Jesus Christ!

That was THE best day of my life. God took a boring, ordinary day and made it the best day of my life. Just like he took a depressed, hopeless, miserable, out casted girl and started molding her into something better.

I still have problems. I still have a fear of rejection from people. I still put myself down and beat myself up sometimes. I still have the scares from a hurt past, but Jesus is with me along the way. I want to fully hand Him the keys to my heart. I know God is working on me and showing me that I am beautiful to Him; I am His child.