About eight months ago, I was in a library when I had the blessing of being approached by a man sent to me from God. I had shared a couple of classes with this person at Kutztown, but we had only had one conversation before. I must have felt something in my spirit, because this was the first time in my three years at Kutztown University that I took a step towards making a connection with another person. Since that day, God has blessed me in ways that are unexplainable. I have found a church and a family of people who go out of their way to love others. I have made friends who are ambitious, generous, supportive, and wonderful. Unbeknownst to me, that man that first approached me was another of God’s blessings and he became my best friend.
Inwardly, God has done so much more. Two to three years ago, my mind was in a place of confusion. I was making friends who were also in a state of confusion, and this led to bad decisions on all sides. These decisions led to sadness, stress, and tension in all of my relationships, especially with my parents. Most importantly, without me even realizing, I had this thing inside of me growing: this feeling of not being worthy of anything good, of success, or of love, because I was not seeing it or experiencing it in the environment of the people surrounding me.
All the chaos got to me, to the point of needing to cut it all off as if it were a cancer in my soul. I quit my job and cut off all avenues of contact between myself and the negative people,which was every friend I had. For a little over a year after I kept to myself, and because I no longer had a need to lie about my whereabouts or who I was with, my relationship with my parents slowly mended. As a result I was experiencing a lot less stress and guilt.
Regardless, I felt hollow and numb all the time. I didn’t care about people and it worried me that I couldn’t muster up the energy to care. I would get upset seeing tragedy on the news, but personal relationships were pretty much nonexistent. I couldn’t care enough to establish deeper connections with friends, which had always been difficult, but especially then.
It wasn’t church specifically that changed me, although that was definitely a tool; it was the fact that I now had a relationship with God. Things of the world are temporary, but God is everlasting. He never leaves us, and He is always with us and supporting us. All he wants in return is love and time, and that was so encouraging and lovely to me. It felt like I had finally found an outlet where I could give and receive abundantly, as well as a path that would lead towards living a full life. “37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39 ESV)