When I attended my first Journey, God did amazing things in my life. He gave me assurance of my salvation, and helped me deal with a lot of lies. When I found out that I could come back, I was thrilled. I had grown lukewarm, and although I didn’t know it, I had become a very hard and bitter person.

Whenever someone would say something that offended me, I would clam up. I had been holding so much stuff inside that I wanted to explode. I have always compared my relationship with God like my relationship with my family. Since my family didn’t ever talk about love, or ever hug me, I began to picture God just like my family. He couldn’t possibly have time for me, and even if He did, why would He want to? I believed that God couldn’t love me because I was a failure, I was unlovable, and I just wasn’t good enough.

On my Journey, God showed me from His Word that He doesn’t make mistakes; I am fearfully and wonderfully made. God doesn’t make ugly or stupid people. It felt amazing to not only feel God’s love, but also to know that even when I don’t feel like He loves me, He still does. It was incredible to just rest in the fact that regardless of how my family is, God never changes.

Then one day on my Journey, a friend asked me if I ever wondered why God had let my brother die instead of me. You see, eleven months before I was born, I had a brother who died during birth. All my life I had wondered why God let me live and my brother die. I mean a boy would have been so much more helpful on the farm than me. Then I was reading all those verses about thanking God for everything, and God asked me to thank Him for letting Samuel die. It took me a little while, but God finally got me to thank Him for letting my mom get so sick and almost die when I was born. I had always blamed myself for my mom’s health problems. I felt so free just letting God be in control.

Finally I came to the place where I realized that nothing I had was worth keeping from God. After listening to a sermon by Eric Ludy, I realized that the reason I hadn’t been on the best terms with my family was because of my pride. So right now, I’m trusting God to keep humbling me and drawing me closer Him.

~Priscilla K.