In April 2009, I was lonely. I had finished college, started my career, gotten married, and gotten divorced. I had tried to find happiness in everything surrounding me. I was not happy in my marriage. I was not happy out of my marriage. As a nurse, I loved my patients, but hated my job and most of the time I spent at the hospital. I had great friends and a great family, but nothing could fill the void that I felt in my life. I considered myself to be a “Christian."

I grew up in church and was very involved in youth group when I was younger. I was even “baptized” when I was seven. That made me saved, right? I was pretty sure that I was OK, and I was going to Heaven. I spent a lot of time with other Christians as a teen, and I heard them talk about their relationships with God. I even heard them talk about “hearing God,” and in all honesty, I thought they were nuts! The more I spent time around them, the more I realized that I was not getting the same thing from church that they were getting. I began to hang out with a different group of people and at times really questioned what I had been brought up to believe. As a senior in high school, I was getting ready to head off to college, and I was pretty sure that there wasn’t anyone or anything called God paying any attention to me. I had so many questions and doubts that I just stopped thinking about it. I was ashamed that I wasn’t sure what I believed, so I didn’t voice my questions to anyone. I just quit.

In 2006, I spent half of my year separated from my husband, and my marriage ended in divorce. I was mentally and emotionally broken. I turned to anything and anyone to mend my broken heart and thought that I had done a pretty good job of it. I was young and having fun. I didn’t realize that I was doing a very good job at avoiding the reality of my life. I was using anything and everything to ignore the pain that I was going through. I was working extra shifts, having fun on nights that I had off, and going full steam ahead, pretending like my life was great. I dated a few different men, and those relationships ended with me feeling humiliated and ashamed. I was doing anything that I could to find someone to love me even though I thought that I was fat, ugly, and unlovable.

By the time summer 2008 rolled around, I had the pretending thing down. No one knew (or so I thought) that inside I was a complete mess. I was very stressed out at work, and it was starting to take a toll on me. I couldn’t sleep and didn’t think that I needed to. I started taking over-the-counter diet pills in an attempt to lose weight and began training for a 5K race that was coming up at the end of the summer. One day at work, I collapsed. My heart stopped beating. I didn’t see a bright light or my loved ones on the other side of a tunnel. The experience scared me, but I didn’t really change anything (except the diet pills). I recovered and kept on going with life as usual. I was still hurting, still lonely, and still desperate to be loved.

I have a very good support group of friends, and several of them had invited me to go to church with them throughout the years. One particular friend had invited me several times to come to church with him at Center Point Church. I kept giving him excuses as to why I didn’t want to go—that I wasn’t comfortable in organized religious situations. I said that I had my own belief in God and that I didn’t need to go to church for that. On Sunday, April 5, 2009, that belief changed into so much more. I joined my friend at Center Point and listened as Tim Parsons delivered a message on the Cross. On that day he spoke of how Jesus suffered for me. That’s right, ME! What stood out to me that day was that Jesus was not a victim and that He chose to take on this suffering for me. He did this so that I can spend forever with Him, so that I may never be separated from God. In doing so, He saved my life. I realized that I knew a lot about God from the time I spent in church when I was growing up, but that I didn’t know HIM. That day, I prayed and asked God to come into my heart. I acknowledged that I was a sinner and that I needed to be saved from my sins, and I asked God to forgive me. I asked Him to show me how to live for him for the rest of my life. God spoke to my heart that day, and instead of believing only in my head that Jesus is Lord and Savior, I began to believe in it my heart. I had peace.

I now live my life with knowledge of how much God loves me. I’ve finally found the love and acceptance that I have spent my life searching for. The void that I was trying to fill is a void that can only be filled with the love of God. He wanted to heal my heart and my soul. He wanted me to know that He loves me, and He wanted me to turn to Him. I have given myself over to Him, and my life now is full of joy, love, and peace. I will never again be alone. I am genuinely loved beyond my own comprehension, and I am no longer hurting. My heart has been healed.