How Jesus Changed Me - Anna
Growing up my biggest struggle was with a fear of abandonment. To me the biggest instigator for this was my parent’s divorce when I was 4 years old. As a young child I remember my dad taking my brothers and I to church and him reading me the Bible before he tucked me in bed at night. However, when my dad remarried to my stepmom when I was 6 it seemed to me that all of this stopped. We no longer went to church and he never shared stories about God with me anymore. With my mom we often jumped from church to church and we’d go through periods where we would attend church every Sunday and other long periods where we never even went.
For me, my dad’s remarriage was extremely challenging. Though my dad and I had a very strong relationship I often felt as a little girl that I was left behind. I remember feeling like I had to fight for my dad’s attention and try to push my stepmom aside so he would notice me instead. Once I started to settle into the swing of things through elementary school my dad and stepmom surprised my brothers and I one night at dinner by telling us that they were having a baby. This news was especially difficult and I remember often thinking that I would surely be forgotten.Growing up with my mom wasn’t easy either. Along with the typical challenges of growing up with a single mom including an unsteady income, and moving houses almost every year. My mom had a huge struggle with depression and when I was in 5th grade she decided to go to a rehabilitation center in Arizona for a couple of months. I was happy for her because I wanted her to get better but at the same I missed her so much. It was only a couple years later in middle school when my mom told me the news that she was diagnosed with cancer. I have never been more scared in my entire life. I was frightened for my mom’s life, and that I might lose her. I feared I would be left behind and not have her in my life.In the midst of these issues at both households I never really leaned on God for strength. I prayed every now and then but I didn’t have any faith in Him. Instead, I had my two older brothers to lean on. I always had them to look to, for company, and laughter. They had become my role models and my heroes during the tough times. But they were 7 and 9 years older than me so there came a time for them to grow up and move along. One of my brothers moved to Texas when I was in 4th grade and the other one left for the Navy only two years later. Their departures completely crushed me and I felt as if I no had no one to depend upon and once again I felt abandoned.
"...all of my anxieties and fears could have been easily solved through God’s beautiful love."
Since I didn’t grow up in strong Christian homes I decided I wanted to learn more about God and finally build a strong relationship with Him. While all my friends in middle school continued onto the public high school, I made the decision to go a different route and attend a Christian high school. Here I learned more about God, gained a better understanding of the Bible, and even started to attend a chapel service the school held which was the closest thing I had to a church service. Though these were all great improvements, I found myself getting into a bad relationship at the beginning of my sophomore year.Through each of these struggles I realize that all of my anxieties and fears could have been easily solved through God’s beautiful love. It wasn’t until my freshman year of college when I began to actively live out my faith and to truly follow Him. As I’ve continued to develop spiritually I’ve realized how God’s been there through every step of my life and has taught me many things from each of these stages. He’s blessed me with a little sister who I now consider God’s greatest gift in my life and a stepmom who really loves me. He’s shown me that just because someone new has been added to the family doesn’t mean that my dad will forget about me. With my brothers leaving he’s taught me not only that I need to lean more on Him and less on others, but also to trust Him that He will keep my bonds with my brothers strong. With my mom’s battles through depression and cancer I can proudly say that God got us through that too and she is now a strong and beautiful cancer survivor. It was through coming to TCU and meeting my current boyfriend in which God showed me what a genuine, loving, and godly man really looks like. God helped me finally find my courage to leave that horrible relationship behind and to still stand strong and confident.Looking back on my life it’s not that God wasn’t there to help guide me through those difficult times but I just wasn’t looking for him. I still carry this fear of abandonment with me today. I see it in my relationships with my friends at school, my relationships back home, my boyfriend, and even with close family members. But I now recognize that these are my insecurities that I might have to work through for a very long time. However, I’m now confident that I’m not alone. It’s a huge relief knowing that no matter how lost or abandoned I might feel I can always simply run into God’s arms. For it is in His comfort where I know I will always find true peace, happiness, and love.
"For it is in His comfort where I know I will always find true peace, happiness, and love."
Anna is a member of the Tanglewood City Group.Anna was baptized in September. Our next baptisms will be in 2013, contact Nick England if you would like to be baptized.