"It was a feeling of deja vu -- it was so memorable that I just knew I'd felt this feeling before. Except this time, it was better."

My story isn’t all that elaborate. To some, it likely isn’t even that special. But to me, my story isn’t just mine – it’s how my story has been intertwined with His story and how through His unfailing love and persistence to love me despite me turned into the greatest love story of all time.

Growing up, I always felt different. I had a “tan” daddy and a “white momma.” I had really dark brown hair, tan skin, and dark brown eyes that my mom would say looked like two brown M&M’s. I wasn’t really that tall but you couldn’t have convinced me otherwise back then. I always felt bigger than the other girls and it’s likely that I was; but, I know my insecurities heightened my awareness of my body. I knew that I was Mexican but not Mexican enough to hang out with the kids I favored most in looks. And, I also knew that I was white but not white enough to feel like a true part of the group. I didn’t blend in anywhere and I so desperately wanted to blend in. I was desperate to be like everyone else.

The one place I did feel right in was church. I’d grown up in church all my life, not to mention my mom taught at a Christian school, too. I was well versed in the Bible stories and enjoyed being in youth group and youth choir. I went on mission trips and song tours. I hung out with the kids in my youth group who were nothing short of my best friends and for the most part – I felt like I belonged. I felt like I had a defined place that made me special and important. Except, I had a secret that no one knew about and I truly believed that I could hide it from God, too. My secret probably isn’t all that unfamiliar, unfortunately, because I know how much it has affected every aspect of my life since and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone else.

I lost my virginity as a fifteen-year-old freshman. Having grown up in church I’d been taught that my “purity is precious and valuable” and that “I should save myself for the right one.” But, I hadn’t really thought about either of those things until I’d given up a piece of me that I knew I could never get back. I came home that night, climbed in bed, and cried – believing that, like I’d been taught in my Southern Baptist church, I was going to hell for committing the ultimate sin. I felt the absence of my virginity almost every day and in some ways, I felt like I wore it on my chest as a Scarlet Letter instead, especially at church. I wasn’t proud of myself when I realized that the guy I gave myself to had no intention of guarding my heart. Although I did eventually heal from what felt like betrayal, the next couple of years I formed an unhealthy attachment to boys. I was more guarded with my body but I still wanted to be wanted.

I wanted to be accepted by everyone – my parents, my teachers, my friends, my boyfriends, my church … everyone. I didn’t care what I had to give up to be accepted; I wanted it that bad. Aside from the boyfriends that lasted all of about one month, I had one serious relationship that carried me from my junior year to the end of my senior year. I believed that I had truly won the jackpot with this guy – every girl thought he was hot and I couldn’t believe he liked me. He really wasn’t a bad guy and our relationship wasn’t always about sex, but I would certainly say that I used sex unhealthily to keep him around. I began to find my worth in guys and in what I could give to him to make him want me. I still went to church despite feeling like I wore that Scarlet Letter on my chest everywhere I went; however, once I had the chance to run and “find myself,” I ran as fast I could and threw my secrets out the window on my way out of town.

That relationship was never really meant to last and I decided that college was as good a time as any to start over; this was going to be my time to be anything and anyone I wanted to be. I was newly single when I entered my freshman year at the University of South Carolina Aiken. I was a nursing major who had no desire to be a nurse whatsoever. I didn’t know what I wanted but I knew that I had the opportunity to be anybody I claimed to be even if it was nothing more than a facade. This was my time, right?

I had stopped going to church that first semester of my freshman year of college and I really had little to no guilt about it because I thought I was happy. I joined a sorority and studied the bottom of a bottle more than I studied a book for class. I smoked, drank, acted immorally and had thrown the Bible to the wind and convinced myself that, “God is totally okay with me living like this. He wants me to enjoy life, right? The Bible is outdated anyway.” I stayed out late, slept in beds that weren’t mine, woke up with a hangover every morning Thursday-Sunday, and worst of all, I believed that the way I was living was “okay.” My grades were failing. Rumors were flying around because of a lapse in judgement on my part. I didn’t know who my true friends were. I couldn’t talk to my parents. I was in academic bad standing with my sorority. It’s seriously a wonder that I wasn’t arrested for doing half the dumb things I convinced myself were okay to do. I should have looked at all of that and said, “something’s gotta change” but, instead, I gave into a relationship with a new guy who had been chasing after me for months because I believed that would give me a sense of peace and place and would make everything okay again.

I won’t go into all the details of that four-year relationship but I will tell you that hindsight is 20/20 and even though I didn’t know it then, looking back, God was all over that relationship. What I will tell you about that relationship is, we were toxic for each other. I don’t know that that was always the truth for us but it certainly proves true as I reflect on the last couple of years of our relationship. Cheating, lying, manipulation, obsessive-compulsive, insecurity, unhealthy sexual behaviors, depression, anxiety, weight problems … these are just a couple of handfuls of the issues we had in our relationship. We weren’t meant to last but man, did we try. We really did. Even until the very end when he’d cheated on me for the last time and ultimately found himself in a situation he had lost complete control over – we still fought for our toxic relationship.

When we inevitably broke up, I blamed God. I wanted to be a wife and a mom and He knew that. Why did You take him away from me? Why do You want to see me hurt? Why can’t I have anything that You won’t take away from me? Why me? I was bitter. I was angry. And, really, I blamed myself for God giving up on me but I was stilled more mad at him than at me. I blamed myself for the hurt that I was going through – broken relationship, bad grades, no friends. I was alone and it was all my fault and that was just too much to bear.

For a year, I lived in bitterness. I lived believing that the world owed me something because I was hurting. I believed that I had a right to be angry and a right to hate guys. I was so selfish it’s sickening. My only goal was to make myself better than myself and better than everyone else while I was at it. Over the course of that year and the next, I joined a lot of committees and made my name known on my college campus. I finally got my grades together and had found friends that truly made me laugh again. But, then I graduated, and even though I’d been awarded a lot of awards, earned my diploma, and had gained a lot of great experiences, my life looked nothing like I thought it would.

This past year after graduating has been challenging. I’ve cried many nights because I still didn’t have a job and had no prospects for a job in line either. I was angry every time I saw someone else get a job and I didn’t. I felt lonely, depressed, and in some ways, rushed to figure it all out as if my life was a ticking time bomb. I was afraid that yet again I was going to be a failure. I prayed to God, mostly out of anger, to stop withholding things from me. If He was such a good God, then I wanted Him to be good to me. I never actually expected Him to hear my prayer and I really didn’t expect for Him to reveal Himself the ways He has since, but this is where our story really began.

I stepped back into church on a Sunday in June of 2016 feeling uncomfortable about being there because of all the bad things I’d done in my past but, it was also like a feeling of déjà vu – it was so memorable that I just knew I’d felt that feeling before. Except this time was better. My parents wanted to start going back to church as a family and I figured what did I have to lose? I never expected less than a year later to be serving as a youth leader in our high school ministry or to be spending hours each week with a women’s group in fellowship over God’s word. I never expected to have “church friends” again and I never expected to find a place that accepted me and loved me exactly where I was at. I never expected to find God again. But, most of all, I never expected to realize that God hadn’t abandoned me all those years before … it was me who had lost sight of Him.

You see, all this time I’d been searching for love, acceptance, my worth, my purpose … and all this time, it’s been right where I left it. That phrase “you can always come back home” replays in my mind often because that’s what happened for me. I set out on my own one day to live life the way I saw fit. I sought my own understanding and my own selfish ways in hopes that it would get me what I wanted. I let go of God’s hand because I thought I was better off on my own. But, there came a moment when I finally had nothing left to lose and everything to gain – and that’s where He found me. In the midst of my frustration and confusion about the future, He found me. He’d never taken His eyes off me and His hand had always been on my shoulder whether I wanted to feel it there or not. All He wanted was for me to look at Him longer than I looked at me and the mess I’d made so He remind me that I am His child and He is for me – there is nowhere far enough or deep enough to escape the love He has for me.

Recently, God revealed the Book of Romans to me. If you’ve never read it, it’s going to change to your life. Don’t take my word for it, take His. The Book of Romans is about how we all fall short of God’s glory because of sin. We all make mistakes. We all fail. We all do things that we can’t take back. But, God loves us not in spite of ourselves but despite our self. The verse Romans 5:8 hit me like a brick wall when I read it and quite honestly, it hits me in a different way every time I hear it: “God demonstrated His own love for us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” I realized in that very moment that I was searching the Book of Romans for words that I wouldn’t find. I was looking to read “your sin has tainted you for eternity,” “there’s no coming back home once you’ve been gone for so long,” and that “I couldn’t get back in God’s good graces” but, I received Romans 5:8 instead. No matter what sins I’ve committed in my past and no matter what mistakes I make in the future, Christ died for me, my past, and my future because God loved me that much that He’d give his only begotten Son. He couldn’t imagine a life without me so He saved me not for me but for Him.

If you want to know what love looks like, take a look at God (Romans 5:8)

If you want to know what acceptance looks like, take a look at God (Ephesians 1:3-6)

If you want to know your worth, take a look at God (Psalm 139:14)

If you want to know your purpose, take a look at God (Jeremiah 29:11; Matthew 28:18-20; Romans 8:28)

If you want to know that God exists, look inside of you (Genesis 1:27; Collossians 3:10)

I don’t know what my future holds and I don’t know what struggles will test my faith in the future but I do know that I found my way back home and that’s where I’ll stay. I do know that I don’t need to worry about tomorrow because He’s got that covered. God’s love for me will never change even when my circumstances do. God’s love for me will never fail even when I’ve failed myself. God’s purpose for me will always be found in His word and brought into fruition in my life. My worth will never be found in anyone else but God – He made me and He loved me enough to save me, not once but probably a million times over. I don’t look back at my past and see failures and mistakes anymore, I just see the breadcrumbs He was laying out to bring me back home to Him. This life I’ve been blessed with, is just that – a blessing from God. Every moment was a blessing because it ultimately allowed me to grow closer to Him. I’m forever thankful for a God who loves me like that. Home is where the heart is and the fire is always burning (Song of Solomon 8:6).