I was in love with God up until I was in eigth grade. I was angry with him. I had lost friends and family members to death. The people who I thought were my friends were making fun of the cross that I wore everyday around my neck.
I gave into the world. It began with saying a simple cuss word. I then started to care more about my appearance. The guys that I liked had seemed to become easier to reach. Lust started to consume my body. In ninth grade, I had so many friends that my best friend and I couldn’t keep count. At the end of that year I met a guy that would be my first boyfriend. 

It was in a long distance relationship that consumed three years of my life. Everything started out great. He was a Christian, never smoked, never did drugs. We had talked for hours at a time on the phone and when we were finally together it seemed like nothing could get any better than that moment. All I could think was, “Great! Someone I can fill that void from where God once was.”

A year and a half later, I had really began to realize that I was tired of living a thousand miles away from the guy that I “loved”. I say loved that way because I honestly can’t say I knew what love was without Christ in my life. He and I began to go on and off with our relationship. All this time that I spent in this relationship, I had lost, from what seemed to be, hundreds of friends down to two really close friends. I was brainwashed. He had my heart and was tossing it around but I thought that was okay, because at the end of the day he told me that he loved me.

I fell in love with the guy that I was dating for six months. After two years, he had changed. I was brainwashed by him and giving him all he wanted. I thought enough was enough after two years and had called it quits. However, I hadn’t run to Christ. I had run into another guy’s arms.

My lustful habits continued, this time stronger than ever before. This only made me still want him. I spent the days with the guys who were my “rebound” and my nights calling him begging for him back. By the end of the summer he took me back. There was one condition though, he did something so unforgivable that it took me until just a couple months ago to be able to look at his face and not think about it. I held a grudge about it and I didn’t plan on letting it go anytime soon.

We wen’t back to our old ways. We fought everyday and I cried all the time. My heart was in peices that even I was ashamed to think about. I managed to still give him it all. I willingly gave him the rest of my purity and control in my life.
Five months into getting back together with him, at school I went blind, numb, and my hearing was going in and out. We had been fighting earlier that day and he had told me I deserved it. I told my mom what was happening and she picked me up from school. I was crying as I waited. You would think that this would have woken me up. I explained everything that was happening to my mom and my mom had told me this was the same thing that happened to her when she was diagnosed with Multiple Scleriosis. Everything came back, but I was terrified. I went to the doctor and then to get an MRI. They had found two lesions on my brain and couldn’t diagnose it until I saw a neurologist.

About six months after getting back together, I had gone up to visit him and his family. I had promised myself that even though his mother didn’t like me, I was just going be myself. I did exactly that and his famly fell in love with me. As I was falling in love with his family, I was falling out of love with him.

I came back to Florida and he made promises about moving down but with conditions. It took me defending him, him telling me to apologize for it, and calling me “fat” when I didn’t apologize to the person I had defended him to that made me realize that this was so not worth it. His mother even called me to tell me I deserved so much better.

I ended it six months ago. I took my heart back into my own hands. Although it was shattered, it was still beating. I took me to stand infront of the mirror and cry because I didn’t like what I saw to realize that I needed to wake up out of this rut. People had been telling me to run away but it took me doing this of my own will for me to realize that this was not the way I wanted to live anymore.

This time was different than a year ago. I ran into Christ’s arms instead of another guy’s. Yes, I was still crushing on guys and my eyes still did experience lust but I would pray about it. I began attending church more often and building my relationship with God. I went on my first missions trip to New York to talk to women who had been abused. I was abused verbally so I knew where they were coming from. I attempted to even call the guy that I had broken up with and try to fix his walk with Christ. I realize that I couldn’t do that. I had to just pray from a distance.

As my walk grew with Christ, my friendships had too, this time with the right people. I had began to believe that God was truly going to prosper my ways. He had given me the calling to become a teacher 11 years ago. I obeyed without a question. I wore a purity ring on my finger that read “Forgiven” as a physical promise that I will rededicate my purity to my future husband.
As a graduating senior, I became addicted to my chruch because there was nothing to do in the summer. I worked Vaction Bible School and let the love I had with Christ pump through my veins for the children to see.

The best part of my summer so far had been attending my youth camp called Awaken. I felt and experienced God in ways I never thought possible. I had prayed for the people God had put on my heart and I believe He will do great things in their lives. I forgave the guy that I had been with because I realized the hypocrisy my heart was holding if I hadn’t forgiven him but expected God to forgive me.

As soon as I got back from camp, I stumbled a little bit, but I had gotten right back up remembering all that Christ wanted for me. One of the guys I had been praying for at camp had stumbled with me but five minutes later we were telling each other of the great things God had done at camp, how we had made promises and aren’t going to break them. God was there in that room and I felt a better satisfaction in Him and having that conversation than I would have if I lusted. I even prayed before I went to sleep. It had been awhile since I had done that. I asked for forgiveness for stumbling and for help to keep my promises.

I went to the Dominican Republic the week after I had returned from camp. It was life changing. The orphanage touched my heart more than anything. I wanted to help. All I could think was these children need help. They need God. I officially claimed my life as His.

God works in ways that sometimes make no sense to the naked eye. After returning from the Dominican Republic, I had a follow-up appointment at the neurologist. I didn’t have the slightest idea of what might possibly happen but I did know one thing. I wasn’t going to be scared.

The first time that I went, I tried not to be scared but I was. It was this way because I had no one to give my fear to. Now though, I have God for everything. I give him all of my fear and pain. God tells us specifically that this life is not to be put in our hands but his. We are to trust and accept any path that he puts us on and whenever we begin to worry, we are to look to him. He will look back at us and smile as if to say trust me. 

I know that my faith has been tested, but I needed to keep in my mind that God has never given me something to hard to handle. Whenever my faith is tested I draw closer to God. So, as I walked into that Doctor’s office holding my mom’s hand, I kept in mind that I have nothing to fear because I have given all of my fears to God. Multiple Scleriosis or complicated migraines, I knew that it rests in God’s hands and I trust him. Thank God that the Doctor has only diagnosed it so far as being a complicated migraine.

Missions trips are life changing. God speaks to you there. I have spent time in meditation with God and thought to myself that He’s not happy with me. I was wrong though. He was not happy with the sins I was partaking in. He frowned upon my actions in the following three weeks after returning from the missions trip and I am had become very aware of this.

One night, I had the urge to read my bible. That has never happened to me before. I found myself so in love with the words that were flowing off the page. I couldn’t stop thinking how there is a God that loves me. He never stops thinking about me. He made it very clear that things of my past are to remain of my past. I am to pray for those things and those people but I am not to get trapped in their webs again. They may be apart of my testimony but that is all they are. They are not to come in to my life again. I’ve realized that bringing those things back into my life causes me to be the Kelly that I had ridden myself of. This Kelly was a lover of the world and focused on those things of not only sinful pleasure but also of those that pleased others and caused me to stray.

In the Dominican Republic I made a promise to myself. I promised myself to listen to what God wanted for me. I forgot about that in those three weeks and all of my friends that haven’t been close with me over the past five months were happy for me when I was getting back into the relationships that I had been in before Jesus consumed my body.

However, I had started to drift again. I ran back to my  summer love. I hooked up with a guy, that was from my church, during that summer. Just because he went to church and called himself a christian, didn’t mean that he actually was one. He was your typical player, but he and I had grown way closer than he had to any other girl. Or so he led me to believe. I took this to heart. BUT, he was still hooking up with other girls. Here’s what went through my mind towards the end of that:

“Caught up in your smile, the constant indecision was always there. Why the heck would I wanna do that? I am sick of always being love struck. I am honestly completely done with it. Don’t get me wrong. I like you and all but it sucks that whenever we are together in public, it’s like, “Who’s Kelly?” I don’t wanna be treated like that anymore. I deserve better. And yes, I do like you a lot. But to be honest that is nothing that a little prayer couldn’t solve. I’m tired of that feeling that I get when my hand is in yours. I know that two seconds later you are texting that other girl. Don’t get me wrong; I love just sittin’ there and talking to you about everything in our life but when I know that you aren’t even in like with me, how am I to feel? You tell me to be like you and not like anyone? Well yes, I agree with that part but you constantly get girls to fall for you by leading them on and using your Prince Charming moves on them. And to be honest, I think I am probably the only girl who has called you out on this. But I don’t want to also be the only girl to put up with it because I don’t deserve to be treated like a doormat. I deserve more than always being walked all over. I mean you need to mature into a gentleman. I think you’ve complimented me maybe once? I am constantly flattering you but that’s besides the point. The point is that I am tired of this act. It’s quite pathetic. So this is me letting you know that I am done and it’s over for good. I love talking to you and the trust that we have for each other but this is getting ridiculous. Either be real with me or fake with someone else. You and I both have the common goal at the moment to get closer to God but not like this. Not with the speed bumps that we keep throwing in the road. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming you. It’s just as much my fault as it is yours. I think that you and I could help each other if we really tried and put our mind to it but your too busy, I think. I try talking to you and it’s like you don’t know me. So you know what? I’m done with that. You’re on your own. I’ll pray for ya but to be honest, I think the only way I am going to be able to resist any temptation is by just acting like you don’t exist like you do to me. I’m done with being your back up girl/ talk to when I feel like it and not when she wants to. I’m gonna focus on me and God. So when you text me and I don’t respond, remember today when I texted you. Am I pissed off at you? No. I am pissed at myself for letting myself fall for you. I’m mad at both of us for continuing to be a distraction to the only thing that we both want on our mind. I know that I’m ready for God, and I pray for you everyday that you’ll take those promises you made to Him more seriously. Because I’m not blind. I know that there’s other girls. So this may not come as any offense to you because you think you have two other girls that are willing to be exactly what I was to you for a month and a half, but all I know is that I will be the one happy in the end. Getting the fulfillment of Christ and not the emptiness of lust. I’ll keep on prayin for you like I have been for about a month now but just know that I will no longer put myself in the position to stray even an inch away from Christ. I really do care about you and it will take me sometime to get over the churning in my stomach that occurs when I see you but with prayer I’ll get stronger. God’s writing my love story and I just wanna be in love with him right now. I know you’ll probably never read this, but hey. It’s out there. Glad I got it off my chest.”

He never read it.

I felt that I was, again, at one of the lowest points in my life. I let my faith go because, well, if God was really God then He wouldn’t let this happen to me, His daughter, the one who went to church all the time. He wouldn’t let the one guy that I actually cared about from church hook up with other girls while he was with me. So guess what? Forget this, I’m running back to my long distance ex. Again. I know. Pathetic. I thought that I could fix him from being the jerk that he was to me and set his heart on fire like my heart was on fire for God. Wrong. I left him again.

My real friends told me they were praying for me and that they didn’t agree with my actions but they will not speak negatively about it to me. This was God speaking to me through them. They love me but were not happy with my actions. Sounds a lot like God, huh?

Here’s the word that he had given to me:

Job 11:13-20 “If only you would prepare your heart and lift up your hands to him in prayer!  Get rid of your sins, and leave all iniquity behind you. Then your face will brighten with innocence. You will be strong and free of fear. You will forget your misery; it will be like water flowing away. Your life will be brighter than the noonday. Even darkness will be as bright as morning. Having hope will give you courage. You will be protected and will rest in safety. You will lie down unafraid, and many will look to you for help. But the wicked will be blinded. They will have no escape. Their only hope is death.”

I understood it the following night. I thought to myself that I needed to leave all my sin behind and stop thinking that I can transform them. I need to shine bright so that others that need help will look to me. 

I cried out to God saying, “I’m ready. I’m ready to focus on you, my friends through you, and all that you want for my life. Every time I become discouraged in college or doing something for You, this verse will come to my mind. It will rejuvinate my spirit and cause me to have motivation that I once lacked before. Thank you God for all you are doing in my life and continue to do. Thank you for a wonderful family and friends that shine your light and make me want to do the same.”

So here I was, single, with a low self esteem because of my heart being broken so many times and that I know now that only I can fix instead of some other guy, but I was telling others to turn to God. Not to just turn to Him, charge towards Him. Here I was telling others that and it wasn’t until now that I am actually practicing what I preach.

I used to think that this was the hardest thing ever in the world, but I am telling you that when I just gave it all to God, not just part of it but all, then He would take care of me. 

I never thought I would be this way. When I say “this way” I mean this happy. Life for me has changed a lot. I realize that running into God’s arms is a lot easier than running into another guy’s arms.

I’ve decided that He’s the only one that deserves my heart, because you know what? It can never be complicated with Him. Now don’t get me wrong, I know this won’t be easy but I also know that anything good and worthwhile isn’t easy. Temptation is on every corner but in order to put on the blinders I have to read the bible and pray. I pray a lot, but I have never actually sat down and read the bible except for in church and on the mission’s feild.

So I need to  learn to discipline myself. I need to allow God to put on the blinders to keep me from looking at things that aren’t on my path.

What it comes down to is that I will only give my heart to God. Right now that is all that I will focus on. I want to be a true Christian for the rest of my life. God’s made it clear to me that I am to do his work for the rest of my life.

I am to get my Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education and go to third world countries to teach children. I look forward to this and will obey everything that God wants. Don’t get me wrong, I do hope to get married and have a family someday but that will all be in his time. Right now all I am going to focus on is getting closer to God, getting a job, and keeping up with my studies in college.

God is blessing me in ways that I know that I don’t deserve. So I look forward to this journey. I look forward to growing more in love with God. I am learning that I am fearfully and wonderfully made; and I am enough for my God.