I tell myself I'm going to be more positive a lot and then do nothing about it. I end up complaining my friends' ears off when the first remotely bad thing happens or put down somebody when they something a little unrealistically optimistic, which is why I am incredibly surprised I still have friends. Praise God I have such faithful friends. If I were the kids at my lunch table, or in the bookstore, or even at church I probably would not have gotten involved with me. Praise the Lord my friends did though. Its really encouraging and a good step towards being optimistic.
So of course your probably wondering what makes me so unhappy and not peaceful. And the truth is... a lot of things. In all honesty, part of it is I'm still not completely at peace with how my last relationship went. For those of you that don't know, that ended the summer after my 8th grade year. Pitiful right? I'm a junior and that thoughtless relationship is still affecting me today. Its a big reason why I don't trust myself, why I have such a negative view of relationships, and why I'm afraid of commitment. Now your probably wondering, what made it so bad that I'm still affected by it. Well, that is a LOOOONG story. I'll try to condense it and be mindful that this is the first time that I'm really putting this out in public. I won't be saying the girls name because I wouldn't want to offend her. But this is part of my testimony and I'm tired of hiding it.
So it started in seventh grade as an awkward junior high relationship. At this time I was learning a lot about God and was getting excited about both relationships. In 8th grade I got too into the relationship with the girl and this caused me to fade in my relationship with God. This girl and I did some stuff I'm not proud of and that left me quite ashamed of myself. By the end of 8th grade I had barely any relationship with God and a very confused relationship with the girl. I liked her and didn't like her at the same time. This meant I liked her for the wrong reasons but for some reason the fact that I still liked her made me want to continue to be with her. Then in the summer of 8th grade I went to a pool party. The girl was there for the first half but she left early and so I went to talk to another friend... yes most of you have guessed it already... it was Grace. At this point I started like Grace and not the other girl. So that summer I ended the relationship with the girl but it was by no means a good breakup. I told her not to talk to me for a while but she wanted to discuss the issues which is very reasonable. We were very mean to each other and this escalated at a fall retreat. Lots of stuff happened there and to sum it up it ended in us not liking each other very much. And then this is when it got to the bad part. One day this girl told me that she was going to kill herself the next day. Seeing as she had manic depression and I was used to her making threats of the sort I didn't take it all that serious but I did try to convince her out of it. That is very hard to do when you don't really have a good relationship with God and the other person is mad at you. The next day I found pills in her backpack at school... I got scared. I didn't know what to do so I asked my bro and he told me to call my youth pastor so I did. He said he would take care of it. Then the girl started text me. Again I pleaded with her not to do it but she said she was going to and she said it was because of me.
After that day ended I didn't hear anything about her or from her for like three days or possibly even a week. I was scared out of my mind. Then one day I found out what happened. She had taken the pills and was rushed to a hospital where they kept her from dying. Thank the Lord she didn't die otherwise I would have lost it but still the near suicide was enough to send me into depression. Sometime after I realized everything. I realized how sinful our relationship was, I realized how much of a jerk I was to her, I realized that I had ruined my relationship with God, and then I also blamed myself completely for her attempt. Needless to say... I hated myself. I felt like the scum of the earth and I believed that I was too. I knew I needed God but I had no motivation to find Him again because I felt like I was just too much of a sinner. I was like this for a year. Depressed. Angry. Sad. Lonely.
That summer however I went to Jamaica on a missions trip. I didn't want to go originally but God made it very clear to me that I needed to go. So I decided to go. I got to the meetings and Doug asked who would like to present the Gospel. People were quiet so I raised my hand. Now I was going and presenting the Gospel and I felt like I had no relationship with God. Possibly at that same meeting I was given a very important role in a drama we were doing. I was so unmotivated but God decided that He wanted me to do stuff. And I am so happy he did. The first time I presented the Gospel in Jamaica I put all faith in myself and it went pretty horribly. That day I read some awesome verses though. It was 1 Timothy 4:11-16:
11 Command and teach these things. 12 Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. 13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. 14 Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.
15 Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. 16 Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
This promise is awesome. If we stick close to God's doctrine and His laws, God will protect our hearers. God will give us the words to say to those who listen. So that is when it clicked. If I was going to preach the Gospel well, I needed to straighten things out with God. So I tried hard to do that and it showed as I started to get a lot more comfortable teaching. I learned that God forgave me for all the things I did. That everything was in His control. And that the past was past. I learned this from Philippians 3 which Leah challenged me to memorize. I need to thank her for that.
I knew God had forgiven me but the thing I struggled with and even still struggle with today is... how do I forgive myself? God has infinite love, I am weak in heart and weighed down by my inequities. And the thing is that I just need to do it. I need to forgive myself. Yes I made mistakes and yes I dealt with the consequences in the wrong way but that is the past. I learned from it. I'm not the same. I'm renewed.
I still need to work on forgiving myself though and I still need to work on being positive and trusting myself. I haven't been filled with much joy and peace recently and that is because of a lot of things. School stress, church stress, and the fact that my dog died this week. But do you know what? God is here. GOD is HERE. He is with me! He is in me! He is around me! God is great and to be sad with what He is given me would be wrong. So Lord please give me the strength to be more happy. Give me peace about everything going on. Help me to get over a stupid relationship in the past. Let me be an encouragement to my friends rather than a burden. Help me be the person I am meant to be!
Sorry this was forever long and it was a lot of me venting. But I hope you learn something from this. There is no sin God can't forgive. There is no place you can be that is beyond His reach. There is never a time when God isn't with you. And there is never a time where you shouldn't be happy with what you have. Praise the LORD!
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