God is Good

This post has been in the works for quite some time. Mostly for two reasons. One; I am scared to share it publicly on the internet. And two; I keep thinking that it is not quite perfect.

After a whole lot of prayer, I have come to the realization that God want me to share my story with the world (or whoever even reads this blog) and that in His eyes, my story is perfect. Please read! My prayer is that any person who stumbles across this post will hear my story, and see the Lords awesome power and love for them.

This is the story about how I found God. 

I was lucky enough to be born into a Christian home; constantly being surrounded with the message that God loves me and that I am perfect in His eyes. I attended church every Sunday with my family and went to youth group, sunday school, etc. Essentially, I was being set up to live the perfect life with Christ.

When I turned 9, I started to attend a Christian based sports camp in Pennsylvania that has changed my life. I loved that place so much. It was my first real encounter with people who were really living out their faith. 

Though I "accepted" Christ into my heart when I turned 11, my faith never had any true meaning to me when I was younger. (But hey, I was barely double digits.. can you blame me?) I was basically living in a cycle where I spent one month out of the year (the month after camp), on fire for Christ. But then it died off. I spent my entire childhood/early teens going through the motions. I did quiet times, I learned all of the important bible stories, I prayed regularly and did everything else that a "good" Christian girl would. On the outside, I probably looked like my relationship with God was going pretty well, but in reality, my faith could not have been more shallow.

Once I hit high school, my life changed drastically. I went to a school where I knew a sum total of 8 people. I had to learn how to fit in all over again. All I wanted so desperately was to be good enough for the people around me. I started to buy into the lies that, "if I do this (whatever this was...), someone will like me." Therefore, I joined cheerleading, I ran for student council, I stressed myself sick about grades, I woke up early to fix my appearance, I attended parties, I tried to be a sports star...... and the list goes on... Believing this lie for so long led me into extreme self-esteem and anxiety issues. I was constantly feeling inadequate. This led to so many problems, but the biggest was my eating habits. I thought that if my body looked a certain way, people would accept me. I lost an very large amount of weight and was really unhealthy. I fell into a really dark place and no matter how hard I tried, I never found anything that made me feel like I was living correctly. I put so much pressure on myself to turn into "perfect Kieran" and I could not have been further away from God. 

I went through the first two years of high school in this state of mind. I started to find my worth in trying to be perfect. I had it down to a science. I could float through my days, and everyone was under the impression that I had my life together. I dated countless numbers of boys because they would, even if for a short time, ensure me that I was "good enough." I fell into the party scene for a while, because I felt that being invited to parties meant that I was doing something right. I spent months crying myself to sleep and battling anxiety attacks because of the fear of never being good enough. Frankly, the life I was living was exhausting. But; I would wake up in the morning, put on a smile and attend school like everything was perfect. I spent the first half of high school trying to be "fake Kieran" so that no one would know that "real Kieran" was not "perfect Kieran."

Then, summer after sophomore year, I attend work crew at the same camp I had gone to for four years of my childhood. It changed my life. I was exposed, for the first time, to a group of girls who had their eyes set on Christ and Christ alone. They were the most encouraging people I had ever met and I am eternally grateful for them in my life. I remember listening to a talk on the third day of camp about God's acceptance for the broken. Then, after the talk, the song "Worn" by Tenth Avenue North was played. For those of you who haven't heard, the lyrics go like this;

I’m Tired I’m worn

My heart is heavy

From the work it takes

To keep on breathing

I’ve made mistakes

I’ve let my hope fail

My soul feels crushed

By the weight of this world

And I know that you can give me rest

So I cry out with all that I have left

Let me see redemption win

Let me know the struggle ends

That you can mend a heart

That’s frail and torn

I wanna know a song can rise

From the ashes of a broken life

And all that’s dead inside can be reborn

Cause I’m worn

Wow. I sat in tears thinking to myself that, "I don't have to handle this by myself anymore." I was on the porch that evening until well after midnight crying into my counselors arms. She poured into me about God's love and I will never forget how thankful I am for that. I could just feel God's presence in abundance around me and I was at complete peace. (I like to think that in that moment, I was experiencing exactly what true love felt like; God's love.) That night I accepted Jesus as my true savior. I came to the realization that I would never find happiness or worth in the things I had looked for it in, but only in God. I had been living with a God shaped hole in my heart, and while searching for things to fill my life, I never found anything because what I needed was Him. In God's eyes, I am His perfect child. He loves me, the "real Kieran," endlessly and boundlessly. From that night forward, I found so much comfort in the fact that the creator of the universe chose me to be on this earth, because He loves me. The coolest part about all of this, is that God had been waiting all 16 years of my life for me to turn around and realize all of this, and He welcomed me with open arms that night.

I am not saying that from then on, my life was perfect. I have fought many of the same battles that I dealt with before finding Jesus. But; this time around, I knew that I had the Lord to lean on. And that has been the biggest blessing in my entire life. 

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."