Growing up I thought my life was perfect. I grew up in the church where my dad was a youth minister. I had parents that loved each other and my sisters and I, for the most part, got along great. In my eyes I had the perfect family. When I was nine this all changed. In August of 1999 my parents sat my sisters and I down to tell us that they were getting a divorce. I was devastated. We were Christians. Christians didn’t get a divorce in my mind. This felt like a nightmare to me. I asked God so many questions. Why me? I haven’t done anything wrong. Why not someone else? At this point in my life, when I was so broken, Satan started deceiving me and feeding me lies. Things that were not true but that affected me for years to come. I felt like I wasn’t worth it. If I was better then maybe they would have fought for the marriage, but I wasn’t. I felt as if I were worth nothing.
Insecurities started filling my mind constantly as I got older. I was still a huge part of the church but kept everything inside because Christians don’t struggle. No one knew this about me. No one knew of my insecurities. As time went on and insecurities continued to flood my mind I started believing that as long as I have a boyfriend I’ll feel good about myself. I’ll be worth it to someone. So, I started looking to guys to find my value. As soon as I found someone interested in me we started dating. We only dated for a month and then he broke up with me and I was crushed. What did this say about me? “It must be because I’m ugly and fat.” That’s what I told myself. I also had an awful year with school and soccer. “If I’m not good enough in school, soccer and if I’m ugly the one thing I can control is my weight.” So, I developed an eating disorder. This lasted a month or two and I finally confessed to my youth pastor and his wife. They helped me overcome this as best they could. I started eating again but was still looking to guys to find my value and beauty. I started dating another guy about a year later. I wasn’t that interested in him but if he made me feel beautiful then it was worth it to me. I ended that relationship pretty quickly but continued to try and find someone that would make me feel beautiful.
I was strong in my faith and was a leader in my youth group. People looked up to me. I was a good kid but just struggled with my value. I knew I should find it in God but didn’t fully understand what that looked like. So, after another year I continued to look for guys to make me feel good about myself. I thought “I just need to get married and then I’ll be happy, then I’ll truly feel beautiful.” So, what did I do? I started yet another relationship. This one lasted longer than the rest. I got so caught up in it all. He made me feel secure and good about myself. I cared about him but our relationship did not reflect Christ at all. I was lied to many times but just kept thinking “He’ll change, he will want to change for me.” The change never happened but I wanted to feel worthy to someone so bad that I stayed in it. I slowly started pushing God out of my life and started focusing more and more on this guy. I would always make time in my day to spend with God but the more time I spent with him the less time I spent with God. I would get caught up in hanging out with him that I started to replace my God time with boyfriend time. As I slowly stopped reading my Bible we started struggling physically but I couldn’t open up to anyone because Christians weren’t supposed to struggle this way, so I kept it to myself. Things started to get so bad that I started feeling unworthy to even pray. I was filled with regrets but couldn’t find it to open up to anyone. I then began telling myself that what I was doing was okay. I shut myself out to my friends, family and God. Allowing no one to know what my life really was. I started falling so far away from God that I ended up losing my virginity to this guy. It was no longer God or my friends who I turned to, but a guy. God didn’t have me anymore, he did. It was a slow fade. I slowly stopped reading my Bible, slowly stopped praying, slowly stopped going to church and before I knew it, I was gone.
Romans 1:24-25 says, “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator- who is forever praised. Amen.” I believed Satan’s lies. That I wasn’t worth a fight. I gave up on God’s plan for me and went with my own. So, God let me figure it out the hard way. It was almost as if He was saying, “Okay Em, do it yourself. You think you’ll find your beauty in guys then go for it.” So, I did. But, I was left broken and empty. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had fallen so far away from God that I did something I promised myself I would never do. I broke down. I cried myself to sleep almost every night for months. Everything that I thought would make me feel so happy ended up leaving me broken, confused and alone.
After I had completely given myself away I started to turn my life around. I felt so lost and alone that I finally turned to the one thing that wasn’t going to let me down, God. I had tried to end the relationship many times before but never had the strength to actually do it. One afternoon we had gotten into a fight and I suddenly realized how unhappy I was. But, I thought, “Who am I going to go to? I can’t go to him anymore? My church family flashed into my head and I said “Ok, I’m done.” I ended the relationship but was still left so broken and alone. So many people were by my side but they didn’t know the extent of my broken-ness. I hadn’t told anyone what happened. I believed Satan’s lie, that it would show my weakness and people would look down on me. I thought, “I can do it on my own. God will help me get through this.” But, I was constantly sad. People were always saying, “You’re not the same girl we used to know.” No one understood why the break up was so hard for me. About a month after the break up I had enough. I realized that if someday I wanted to help people that were struggling with what I went through then I had to help myself first. I couldn’t keep it in any longer. It was tearing me apart. So, I prayed that God would give me strength to tell someone. I opened up to a girl that was in my church. She was just the person I needed to be there for me. She cried with me, listened to me, reassured me, let me know that she still loved me and encouraged me to open up to my youth minister and his wife. I was then able to tell more of my close friends so that they too could help me. Not one of them judged me or looked down on me like I thought they would. They cried with me, forgave me and they all loved me. From that moment I started my long journey to victory.
So many conversations took place after that. I’m not going to lie, it was NOT easy. I needed people by my side all the time. And that is exactly what happened. I was constantly being encouraged by my church family. They were always calling me making sure I was doing okay. They were there for me every bit of the way. Any time I would need something they would drop what they were doing in order to hear me talk. When I didn’t have faith that I would get through it they were there to encourage me and let me know that I would. I couldn’t have done it on my own. I had tried for too long to do things on my own, it was time to let people help me. I realized that if I wanted to help others, I had to help myself first. If I wanted to take this sin and turn around and glorify God with it, I needed to receive help from those around me.
I learned to open up to others when I was hurting. My best friend was with me through all of this. He said, “Em, you have to start letting people know when you struggle and when you hurt. You have to let people help you.” I started letting people know when I hurt. The more I opened up the better I felt. James 5:15-16 says, “And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” I learned that when I confess to God I am forgiven but when I confess to others I begin to heal. I thought I could keep losing my virginity a secret, but if I just kept it a secret I wouldn’t have healed like I have.
I was so scared to open up to people at first. I was afraid of people knowing what really went on in my life. I didn’t want people to see the sin in my life because of the fear of what they would say or think about me. I didn’t want to be exposed. But, I finally let myself become exposed.
John 3:16-21 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
Every morning I read faith confessions over myself. Steven Furtick’s book Sun Stand Still gives 12 faith confessions to read over yourself so that you can believe in God’s truth and put Satan’s lies to an end. (I’ll read these out) I begin my day in the word so that I can be reminded throughout the day of what I read.
I also took a year off from dating. I prayed a lot about it before I decided to commit to it but I felt like God was just saying, “Spend time with me Em, get to know me. Stop trying to get to know guys and just get to know me.” So, I spent a year getting to know God. Spending time learning about him and learning about myself. I was challenged to lean on God so much through this time. I was encouraged to love God with my whole mind. Phil. 4:8 says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.” I learned to focus my thoughts on what was pleasing to God. To stop fantasizing on what I wanted my life to be and started listening to what God wanted my life to be. I would spend moments in silence in order to listen to God and what he wanted. Spending those moments in silence is what led me to realize I needed to give a year to God. It’s what made me realize that I needed to be back at Greenville. I realized that God was doing so much work in my life and I wanted to share that with those that are struggling in the same way I was.
I also started memorizing scripture. I started hiding scripture in my heart so that I could use it to fight off Satan’s lies throughout the day. Anytime I would think what ifs or think about my past I would recite a scripture in my mind. Reading scripture and meditating on it allowed me to embed God’s truth into my mind which resulted in me not only knowing God’s truth but it allowed me to believe in God’s truth in time.
I had to learn to find my confidence in Christ. Proverbs 3:25-26 says, “Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being snared.” I had to find my beauty in Christ. I started praying that I could see myself the way God sees me. To see that I WAS a beautiful child of God. Like I said before, I knew I should be doing this but wasn’t quite sure what it looked like. I had to pray this multiple times a day. When an insecure thought came to mind I would just think of something I was thankful for. I started replacing my negative thoughts with positive ones. I started telling myself I was beautiful. There were many times where I didn’t believe what I told myself but I did it anyway because I knew it was what God thought. There are still days where I don’t believe it but I continue to proclaim it. I also started praying for passion. That I would desire to spend time with God. I realized that God was jealous of the way I spent my time. That he wanted so badly to spend time with me. But, there were days where I didn’t want to spend time with God. So I prayed that I would have the desire to know God like he knows me. Now, there are days where I absolutely love having endless time to just sit and be with God. But, there are also times where I would much rather be doing something else. That is why I pray for passion. So that when those days do come I can passionately pursue God.
I also began learning how to find my value in Christ. I get so caught up in defining myself by the things of this world. I have to stop and realize that my value comes from Christ. In high school I defined myself on whether I had a boyfriend. I defined myself by whether I played or didn’t play on the soccer team. I defined myself by what letter grade I got on a test or number on the ACT. This is still a struggle for me. There is a mental battle that goes on in my mind daily. I play soccer here at Greenville. I’m not the starting keeper. I so badly want to be, but I’m not. I get so frustrated sometimes because what I want and what is really happening doesn’t match up. I sometimes get so frustrated sitting the bench during a game that the only thing that can keep me from crying is repeating Christ is my value, Christ is my value, Christ is my value. I CANNOT let myself be defined on whether I play or not. People don’t like me because I play soccer. They like me because of who I am. Soccer is something I do, it is not who I am. I am a child of God and that is where I will find my value and what I will allow myself to be defined as.
Please don’t make my mistake. I thought that I would get looked down on because of what I did. I felt so alone. I was so lost. It felt like I was in a dark tunnel and couldn’t see any light. I didn’t think I would ever get out of what I had gotten myself into. But, guess what. I live in victory. I now live in God’s truth and am able to shine. I didn’t think I was worth a fight. But, Jesus Christ died on that cross for me. I think that was a pretty big fight. He did it so we could live in victory. So that we could be defined by his truth and put Satan’s lies to death. If you find your value in, alcohol, drugs, guys, girls, sports, music, academics put an end to it. Start looking to Christ. I promise you it is worth it. I have been single for over two years. I have been looking to Christ to find my value and I haven’t been disappointed. God has been faithful and will continue to be faithful.
We have so many people here that want to help you with whatever it is you are going through. At Greenville we hear a lot of talk about community. We are a community and communities help those in need. When I was in need my church family was right there with me. We are your church family and we want to be right there with you in this. We want to help you. You can’t do this on your own. Come into the light. Allow yourself to be exposed. Start living by truth and put Satan’s lies to an end. Don’t let fear get in your way. It is so worth it. I highly encourage you to stop living in the darkness and to expose yourself to the light. Matt Cowman and I are partnering together to head up a part of Vespers that answers questions, if you have a question about your faith, who God is, or if you are broken and need someone to be there for you, we want to do that. We want to connect you with people that can be by your side. We want to help you grow in your faith. We want to introduce you to a God that will put up a fight for you. So please, if there is something on your heart, don’t ignore it. Come and be free of your sin.
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