A love for the Lord has been in my heart for as long as I can remember. When you truly love the Lord, it is a love that becomes part of your identity, something that you can’t escape no matter how hard you may try. From the time I was three and practicing mass in my bathtub to my sophomore year of high school singing on worship team, to now, being a YoungLife leader and finally owning my own faith as I walk into my sophomore year of college, it has been there. Getting to where I am today was not smooth sailing. In fact, it was more like a violent storm. For as long as I could remember I went to church every Sunday and was always encouraged by my parents to seek God in all of my trials, but as I got older and became more independent I started to question God and why He was doing certain things in my life, like moving me away from my hometown the week after I graduated high school. The months leading up to that move I was angry and hurt. Why would God just uproot my family right before college?

So, I decided to do things my own way and lean on myself instead of the Lord. But guess what? That got me nothing but heartache, disappointment, and confusion. I was placing all my trust in people instead of the Lord. It wasn’t until after an extremely bumpy transition into my first semester of college that I realized the most important lesson I have ever learned: You can’t run away from who you truly are. And who I truly am is a child of the Most High King. A King who is constantly shaping me and molding me and saving me from myself. Jeremiah 18:4 says this, “But the vessel that he was making from clay was spoiled by the potter’s hand; so, he made it over, reworking it and making it into another pot that seemed good to him.” Sometimes God has to squash us and reshape us because He sees that we have been spoiled by our own desires. He breaks us and shapes us to save us from ourselves and our own fleshly desires. I’ll end this with some encouragement for y’all. No matter how far you feel like you have run from God, you can never run far enough for Him to stop loving you. What Jesus did for us on the cross has made it so that we can NEVER be separated from His love. You are worthy of the journey friends, you need decide if you’re willing to take it. To here more about my story read my blog post “What I learned my Freshman Year of College”

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