My Story- Jesse

I was born and raised catholic, which meant I was at church every Sunday until about the 9th grade. When I was growing up, I struggled with finding and keeping non-toxic friendships. When I was in elementary school I was with my best friend at that time almost every weekend. She and I would play with barbies and pretend that they would go on a date and then the guy would invite the girl over, that is when the “romance” would begin. After a little while, the dolls were no longer the ones role playing and it was she and I. She would also be the one to introduce me and begin my addiction with what I found on the computer screen. After I was able to build up the courage to tell my friend “No” after a few years, my body craved the images I looked at and the way that they made me feel. I would also start having dreams of men abusing me, which would turn into an addiction, because my brain would play out those scenarios without me choosing to.

    This led to me having a hard time finding friends who would be encouraging, but in middle school I thought that I had a great friend. I also had a “boyfriend” who would say he loved me, then the next week he would say that he loved my best friend. The week after, he would come back to me saying he loved me and I would go right back to him. In high school, I finally understood that I was worth more than he thought of me, so I broke up with him and I became closer and closer to my best friend, (yes the one who he had left me for). We were great friends until we got to the point that we would share everything together, even the fact that we both were watching those images on the computer screen. She took that conversation and then made a way for her to bring her boyfriend into the mix and see if we could experiment. I wanted to say yes, but every time, something kept me from meeting with them. Me continually saying no after I said maybe ruined our friendship my senior year.

    I may have lost another best friend in my senior year, but I also found my first true best friend, someone who wanted to be there for me, with no strings attached. In the spring semester of high school I started going to another church with my friends that I spent time with, and I gave my life to Christ on March 3, 2013. I finally understood that I did not need to work my way into heaven but that God loved me enough that He sent His Son down to die for my sins. That changed my life, and I was not going to let go of this new found relationship what I had formed. Just like John 15:15 claims, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” I finally had someone who would be there for me through everything and He could never stop loving me.
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    When I got to college, my relationship with Him and my faith in Him got stronger, but there were things that occurred to help build up my strength. Close to the end of my freshman year, my father was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, which later spread to his liver. I really had to seek God out during that time, because I was not home to be there for him, but I knew that God would see my father through. In my senior year, the first day of the last semester, my father passed away after his liver started to shut down. I struggled that semester with how to process my emotions and I fell into a deep pit that I could not drag myself out of. But God knew that this would happen, so throughout sophomore, junior, and senior year, God brought people into my life that would be there to help me when I forgot that God was always there. They helped me rely on God again to get me through my moments of anger, depression, self-harm, and distress/anxiety. I needed to be reminded of Matthew 28:20, the second part of it that says, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” That semester, God grew my strength and my character more than I could have imagined. I am eternally grateful that God was moving in my life, even before I gave my life to Him.

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