I grew up in a very Catholic environment. My parents were Catholic, I was baptized as a baby, and I went to a Catholic school from Kindergarten to eighth grade. My parents worked hard to instill values in me, and were very protective. I was sheltered, and one of the things that kept me from straying too far from my parents was that they taught me to never ever lie. I obeyed my parents because I was afraid to even attempt to deceive them. I believed in the things my parents taught me, and I was committed to them but I didn’t really understand them. The values I defended weren’t really my own.
In high school, I had everything going for me. I had great friends, a family who loved me, good grades, and involvement in tons of activities. But despite the many blessings in my life, it just wasn’t enough. Looking back now, I can see how selfish I was. Life was all about me. I didn’t care about others. Not really. What mattered to me was that I got what I wanted, because I was used to having everything.
My first few years of high school this selfishness really began to manifest itself. I took for granted the love of my family and friends in pursuit of what I thought would make me happy. For me, everything revolved around boys. The one thing that I wanted more than anything, literally, my goal in life, was to have a boyfriend. Now you probably think this is isn’t such a crazy idea. Most girls want a boyfriend in high school, that’s not ridiculous to believe. But I was obsessed with romance. I went through crush after crush after crush. I thought having a guy would be the one thing that could make me happy.
I wanted someone to PURSUE me, KNOW me, DELIGHT in me, call me BEAUTIFUL, be THERE for me. Someone to LOVE me unconditionally. And I thought I could find it in a guy. So I chased, relentlessly.
But the thing is, in order to get what I wanted, in order to feel these things, I became someone I wasn’t, and my values started changing. I started to do whatever I could in order to get attention from guys. This meant a lot of things. My wardrobe changed, and I started to show as much skin as I could get away with my parents. I was overly flirty, and I didn’t care about my body. I started to LIKE objectifying myself, and feeling like I was nothing more than a thing. I wanted to be looked at, and I really didn’t care about much else. But the high that I got from getting attention always left me feeling empty afterwards. Who I was was defined by what guys thought of me, and that was very unstable. I invested myself into every pursuit, and when things were going well I felt on top of the world. But when things didn’t turn out how I wanted, I was devastated. My image of myself was up and down all the time.
The worst part was that through it all, I felt so alone. Despite all the people who loved me, I felt like no one could really understand how I felt. And that loneliness crippled me. I remember crying so often. It was a regular thing for my parents to walk into my room and see me in tears, 99% of the time because of how my love life was going. I felt like since I had no one, I was no one.
My faith was on the backburner. I believed in God but that just meant praying at night and going to church on Sundays. My heart was nowhere near God. It was wrapped in another god. Boys. Although I had kept the “values” my parents had instilled in me regarding giving myself up physically, I didn’t really understand the extent of purity, and how it means not just giving yourself away physically, but also emotionally. My actions, at face value, were harmless. But my intentions were anything but pure. I thought I knew it all and because people couldn’t really see my sins or the struggle within my heart, I thought I was blameless. But God could see past that. 1 Samuel 16:7 “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” God could see the darkness surrounding me. He knew my heart was a mess.
My senior year I met a couple of girls at school who invited me to Crosswinds Church. I got involved in their high school program, EPIC, where I found a sense of community brought light to the depth of faith. My heart softened as I grew in fellowship, and I began to see that it was possible to have an actual relationship with God.
I began to realize that I wasn’t complete, and that boys weren’t going to fix that. I was longing for something more. Jeremiah 29:13 says “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.” And Luke 11:9-10 says "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.” Being around people my age who were thriving in God’s love made me start seeking, asking, and knocking.
That April I went on a road trip to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with Elise, one of the girls from EPIC. We talked about our faith, and she showed me parts of a journal she kept. I read through it and started to realize that there was so much more to God than what I had always thought. There was a quote that said “The worst thing that could happen to me today is that God could slip form my mind.” At first that was weird to me. How could someone be thinking about God ALL the time? But I discovered faith isn’t just something you believe, it’s something you live. Every day. Every second. Elise fought to keep God on her mind. My life had been oriented around the wrong things.
It was obvious to me now that I didn’t know it all. It was possible for me to grow in my faith, and get closer to God. Not only was it possible, but God wanted it. God was sitting there waiting for me, with arms wide open, and I finally realized it. Immersing myself in the world wasn’t enough. The only way to be fulfilled is to seek God. God is enough. I understood at I was doing, and what God wanted me to do. God didn’t want me chasing boys anymore. He wanted me to chase Him.
Through fellowship with my sisters I discovered the verse from Proverbs 4:23 “Guard your heart for from it flows the wellspring of life.” In my relationships with guys I had left my heart uncovered so many times. I had been hurt and broken. But now, by accepting God with my whole heart, I was made new. Romans 12:2 says “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
I started college at Santa Clara University in the fall, and my winter quarter I joined the school's chapter of Wonderfully Made. This made a profound impact on my relationship with God. Many girls told me to read Captivating. Elise had told me to read it a year earlier, but I really think God wanted me to wait a year, because it was only until a few months ago that I was ready to understand the answers I had been looking for for so long.
First, I learned about my heart. In Captivating, it says: “Our hearts are aching for God but we try to fix it by securing ourselves to a dangerous and unpredictable world.” I had been trying to fill the God-shaped hole in my heart with guys, and guys cannot give the verdict on my soul. We can’t let the world tell us who we are. Because if we define ourselves by how the world sees us, we will never get the whole picture. The world doesn’t know what is in our hearts, at our core.
I also learned about God. For so long I had looked to guys to make me feel worthy, and validated. It was such a joy to know that God, and God alone, can give us all the deepest desires of our hearts. Listen to these verses:
-Revelation 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.” God PURSUES me.
-Isaiah 49:1 “Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name.” God KNOWS me.
-Psalm 149:4 “For the Lord takes delight in his people.” God DELIGHTS in me.
-Songs 4:7 “You are altogether beautiful my love, there is no flaw in you.” God calls me BEAUTIFUL.
-Hebrews 13:5 says he’ll “Never leave nor forsake us.” God is ALWAYS there for me.
-Jeremiah 31:3 “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” God LOVES me unconditionally.
All the things that I longed to hear from guys, God promised faithfully.
God PURSUES us. He KNOWS us. He takes DELIGHT in us. He calls us BEAUTIFUL. He is ALWAYS there for us. And God LOVES us unconditionally.
Now, I have to admit that I’m not over guys. I still love to talk about them. I still get giddy when I’m around the ones that I personally believe are God’s masterpieces. I still have crushes. But I realize that God doesn’t want me to chase them. God is supposed to come first. Song 8:4 says “I want you to promise, O daughters of Jerusalem, not to awaken love until the time is right.” So I try not to strive for making things happen. I surrender my love life to Him and I trust in His perfect timing. I believe that as I go through life, God is writing my love story.
When we rely on God’s love, we experience true joy. Psalm 34:5 “Look to him and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed.” Once we realize how God feels about us, we become gloriously alive.
When we look to God for validation, we understand our true worth. Psalm 139 tells us that no one knows us better than the One who made us. He knows when we sit and rise. He knows our thoughts from afar. He knows the words on our tongues before we say them. He is with us everywhere, guiding and supporting us. He created our inmost being and knit us together in our mother’s womb. He fashioned us. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Only God can tell us that. Only God can tell us the truth.
Each and every one of us a brightly packaged, carefully wrapped gift from God. We see that every single one of us is precious, made with a purpose. Most importantly, for us women, we see that we are worthy of love. Because to God, we’re irresistible.
