One year ago this week, I shared my testimony at my local youth group. For anyone who doesn’t know, a testimony is your story on how God saved you and came into your life. This was maybe two years ago, but it was still the most impactful day of my life.

As time has gone on, I haven’t lived up to God’s plan for my life. I haven’t followed him as much as I wanted to, and I haven’t listened to him as much as I should. It isn’t easy. Choosing God was never said to be easy. It’s the best path but definitely not the easiest. With life, college, classes, trying to make friends, it’s not easy following him and making a consistent effort to pray, read and think about Him and His plans for me. I get so caught up in my plans and my life and find myself not spending the time I should on God.

For any other college student struggling with their own journey with God, let’s both make a conscious effort to deepen our relationship with Him. It’s the best relationship there could ever be in this world and I too am at fault at maintaining it.

Looking back on my testimony, I remember how moved I was. I really felt God in my life and stirring in my heart. I remember how much I read, prayed and just thanked God. He’s an incredible Father, and I guess I just lost track of that time. I look back on my own story, my own testimony, my own commitment to God, and want to try again. I want to try to deepen my relationship with Him again, and for anyone else who’s struggling with that same thing. Here’s my testimony. I hope it reminds you of your own and pushes you to continue that fight for God.

I was raised in a Christian home, but I never really felt God in my life. I knew he was real because that's what I learned from my parents and my church, but I never truly relied on him or felt like he was a part of my life. I had always wanted a deeper relationship with God but I didn't know how to get that. I didn't know what I had to do to fix my relationship with Him, and I felt like a bad Christian because of it. I started thinking that I'm unworthy to be in my family, my church and this youth group. I felt like I had to fix myself in order to be good enough. Then I was at youth group like usual and Nick played this video about Barabas. If you don't know who that is (I didn't either) he's the criminal that stood next to Jesus when the crowd was deciding who Pilot should kill on the cross. Obviously, the crowd chose Jesus and Barabas was set free. In that video, the preacher said that I am Barabas. I am the criminal who Jesus died for. Jesus took my mistakes and flaws and said that he loves me anyway. God spoke to me through that video and showed me how much he loves me as I am with all my flaws and mistakes. This was the moment I was saved. I was crying my eyes out in front of so many people I barely knew (which is really hard for me to do) because I was just so impacted by this video. I finally saw myself like God does. He called me his and told me he loves me. He showed me that I don't have to fix myself to be loved, and that, Him and His love, changed everything for me.