I have to admit it’s been pretty hectic in my personal life these past few weeks. But really, as much as I hate to admit, months actually. There’s been a lot of anger, bitterness, guilt, shame, loneliness, any pessimistic adjective you can think of. But the worst feeling of them all was how distant I was feeling from God and His presence.

As a Christian, it’s worst thing imaginable. Feeling like you can’t grab onto God’s hand because you’ve done too much, walked too far away, sinned so much, or whatever happened. This has been weighing me down so much lately. College is a complete 180 for everyone. I told myself before classes started that I wouldn’t lose sight of my God. But I did. And it felt like I was so far away from Him and His love. This feeling made me sick to my stomach so often just thinking about how far away I had strayed from my Father. The only One who could fill any void I have and it seemed as though He was so far out of reach.

It wasn’t until this past Thursday that I realized I was doing everything wrong. It’s not that I couldn’t reach God, it’s that I wasn’t reaching God. The whole time I thought I walked too far away that He gave up on me or that I was too ashamed to come back to Him with hanging my head low. During Bailey’s message this week at FAM (s/o Bailey you da best), we read Romans 8. While going through his message, I looked over a page in my Bible and I realized I had highlighted verses Romans 8:38-39 awhile back. The verses read: “(38) For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, (39) neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (NIV).

I kid you not, I read that verse maybe 6 or 7 times in order for it to stay in my brain. I mean read the verse over for yourself. What do you notice?

This verse, I won’t even hesitate to admit, hit me really hard. I’m pretty sure I’ve made it very clear how distant I’d been feeling from my Father. But after reading this verse. It made me realize that I can’t outrun His love for me. Look at the list in the verse. There’s literally nothing that disqualifies you from God loving you so incredibly much.

We’re so undeserving of God’s love. But it’s through Jesus and cross, a death we most definitely deserved, that we receive grace and love and mercy daily. I’m not perfect. In fact, I’m broken and I'm always going to fall short. I’m always going to struggle, have fears, make mistakes, go through trials. But the upside to all of this? I have God on my side, and He loved, loves, and will continue to love me relentlessly. And in knowing that, I’m pretty darn confident that I can take on anything because at the end of it all, God is still there and He is still good and He still loves me. And for as long as I’m a daughter of the King, I will never stop pursuing Him and His kingdom and striving to be more like Jesus everyday.