“I didn’t care anymore”
Changed By Jesus #54
By a female teenager at the Ballard campus
I was raised going to church every Sunday. I thought I was a Christian because I was really good at following rules and thought I was an expert on Jesus. But the personal, life-changing relationship wasn’t there.
This seemed to work for me in middle school, where I told everybody from my haughty position of “Christian” how wrong they were. Then high-school rolled around. Jesus became the last thing on my mind as I was swept up in a whirlwind of partying, drinking, drugs, and promiscuity.
At first I felt profoundly guilty and hypocritical, breaking all of the rules I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but it got to a point where I was just numb enough that I didn’t care anymore. I became fully immersed in my gods of vanity, popularity, self-hate, and self-destruction.
This downward spiral continued until February 7, 2009, when Jesus shook up my world. It was the day after I got higher than I ever had been before, and I felt like I should go to church so I wouldn’t feel so guilty. I couldn’t tell you what specifically happened, but I heard God’s Word at Mars Hill, and my heart began to soften.
I went home that night and flushed all of my drugs down the toilet and threw away my pipe and my alcohol. Jesus redeemed my body, and told me that I was precious, that I didn’t need to give it away to any boy who wanted it.
Over the course of the next couple of weeks, my friends were baffled. Who was this strange girl who listened to Christian radio, wore a cross, and stopped swearing. I think most of them have figured out that this “Jesus thing” is here to stay, and I just love them.
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