This is a story about the Man who saved me from the deceitful desires of my heart, and replaced those desires with purpose, joy, and true love. This one’s for you and before you exit or decide to skim through, I just thought I’d tell you that I was once a strong disbeliever in God for a solid 17 years of my life. But thanks to the riches of His glory and grace, I was granted with the greatest gift of all, the acceptance of His Son into my heart.

Here is the story of how I came to know the Son of God, Jesus Christ, as my Lord and Savior.

Growing up, I’ve lived in a home unfamiliar with God and His grace. Every time people would bring His name up I would wonder how they could believe in something that couldn’t be seen with their eyes. I was so caught up in the world and with everything that I could see that I couldn’t come to recognize the greatest of these, the God of all, loving me through every triumph and tribulation, waiting for me to love Him back. I was so caught up in all of the things this world provided; friends, a social life, education, etc. and all of these things meant the world to me. Every friendship, every member of my family, ever social event, how others perceived me, how I looked, and every grade I received seemed to define me. And because of that, with all of these distractions, if something failed, I would resort to something else to make me happy in hopes of finding happiness that could not fail.

But God showed me.

He knew I was so lost in all of the things surrounding me, that my vision was too blurred where I was, I simply couldn’t see Him. So He decided to give me a HUGE eye opener- by making me move to Texas. My life changed instantly the day I moved. I no longer lived 5 minutes away from my very best friends who I had known my entire life, but instead, I lived a 24 hour car ride away (I only know that because my family literally drove to Texas- good times)

Anyway, back to the story. I didn’t know a single person when I moved, and Plano, Texas is NOT a small town, like Morristown was. Singling out a new person was like trying to recognize a familiar face in the crowd of an audience at an Ed Sheeran concert. Simply put, I had no friends the first week of school. I was completely out of my element, uncomfortable and unsure of how/where to start my my life in Texas. After the first week, I met a few friends and we quickly became very close. However, I relied on them for every need and went to them for lasting happiness, but people simply cannot always satisfy the human heart. I was finding my worth in people that simply could not satisfy my needs, because we are all imperfect people.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

So every time something went wrong, it seemed as though my world began to crumble. Little did I know, that was God’s hand moving, removing yet another layer that clouded my vision of His light. After sulking in my room for hours on end each day, binge watching netflix while munching on my nutritious diet of nutella waffles and pirate’s booty, I felt my heart growing darker and darker. I couldn’t feel love, I felt sorrow. Happy days no longer existed. Even if something felt good or right, I still felt the weight my insufficiency and emptiness weighing down on my heart. I felt unloved, unwanted, hopeless, and unsure of what life was about. The question of faith began lingering in the back of my mind, but I decided to resort to other things instead, by getting a job and working out every day, to keep myself from thinking about the people who didn’t seem to want me around and those who made me feel inadequate, naive, and foolish for believing in their empty promises- something i’ve learned today are just a result of our inability to be sufficient beings on our own. I began working out to clear my mind,and decided to get a job, hoping that both would keep me busy and keep me from thinking about the people who seemed to clog my mind. With all the time I had however, and with the results I never seemed to achieve, I began to work out more and eat less until I was working out about 3 hours a day and eating like a rabbit on a strictly timed diet and perfectly proportioned meal plan. This health nut attitude led me to snap at others, to grow even more hangry(simultaneously hungry & angry), and it continued to make me feel unfulfilled and hopeless when I continued to want to look better to live up to the impossible standards of this world. Long story short: Excessive exercise + low caloric intake= not a happy or healthy girl. After dropping 10 pounds in 2 weeks and recognizing how unhealthy, weak, tired, and insufficient I felt, God kept me from going to the gym or work by having my parents ground me from both places, so I could focus on gaining my weight back and focus on my school work rather than image and money. That summer, my mom signed me up for therapy, where I was told that I have severe anxiety and depression. My mom refused to believe it and we stopped going and she finally recognized the truth of my illness that summer when I would burst into tears out of nowhere, or snap at her for buying me biscuits after I had just finished working out. I was never happy, but I was always anxious and worried. She knew it wasn’t me speaking and that my mind was in a very dark place. This was when I realized that what I was doing wasn’t leading me anywhere. My goals were impossible to achieve because my image of myself was distorted. I wanted to be perfect- a goal impossible to attain for an human being. I had no purpose, and I had no clue what the purpose of life was. My heart and mind began to wonder- is there something more to this life?

At this point I knew I needed faith in something greater than myself.

Luckily, about a week later, my senior year at Plano West Senior High started and I began seeing a familiar face around from my junior year- my friend, Jared Stover. We happened to walk through the same hallway everyday on the way to our classes, and would say hi to one another. The following Saturday, Jared texted me and invited me to a bible study. I was thrilled to be invited because I had been thinking about faith and wanting to know more about the possibility of their being a higher power. That Wednesday, on September 2nd of 2015, I learned about a God I never knew- a perfect God who stepped down from His throne to experience the destruction and brokenness of all the things in this world, in order to show us His glory, in hopes of saving us.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

That night I had a spiritual revelation. That night, everything clicked. I could finally see the bigger picture and began to see that all along, God’s hand was moving. Through every difficult circumstance and through the entirety of my fears, He has been leading me towards Him. I thought I could do it all on my own, but I couldn’t. I now understand why we have a desire for perfection in our hearts, and it’s because Jesus wants us to seek Him in the midst of this troublesome world, because only a perfect God like Him could fully satisfy the desire for perfection in the human heart. It cannot be found within, but through Him. I discovered my purpose: to live for the Man who died for me. This is Who I find my worth in and in His presence, I have been made whole. That night, I was saved by Jesus Christ, deciding to follow Him and glorify Him for the rest of my life.

Heavenly Father, thank You for this wonderful opportunity to share my faith in You. I’m so grateful that You’ve saved me this year, calling me all the way from New Jersey to Texas, guiding me through every circumstance, and ultimately leading me into Your arms. I know that Your grace is sufficient for me, for Your power is made perfect in my weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9) I pray that you would bless this blog, and that others may be touched by You. Please use me, Father, for Your glory, that others may be able to get a glimpse of Your grace in my blog posts. Jesus, I love You and thank You for dying the death I deserved, and for that, I will praise Your name for the rest of my time on this earth. Bless all who read this blog and all who don’t. I love you Jesus, and it’s in Your holy name I pray. Amen.

If you don’t know Jesus and have any questions about my faith in the Lord, I encourage you to message me on social media or to shoot me an email!

ellika.rezvani@gmail.com

No question is silly, I’ll do my very best to answer your questions and I hope this post has affected you the way the Lord has affected me.

God bless you all,

Ellika