LUCY'S JOURNEY

So for as long as I can remember, I’ve loved Jesus. Well, I’ve been a Christian. I’m pretty sure I said the prayer when I was around 4 or 5, never missed a church service and hated missing Sunday School. I would be first to volunteer to answer questions in the quiz and loved being part of my church family in the Elim at the time. I even remember getting up in front of my P4 classroom in Carrick PS and trying to tell them all about Jesus, giving a mini sermon on how I didn’t believe in ‘luck’ EVEN on my birthday because ‘God gives us what we need’, much to the shock of all my friends. So yeah, I found growing up as a Christian quite simple and easy. 

That was until I reached Lurgan Junior High. It started off quite well. I had a decent group of Christian friends, we went to youth together and some of us even went to the same church. But as I reached third year, I remember finding new friends who maybe weren’t as good an influence on me. I loved them as friends but I knew that I didn’t really fit in with them. It was the kind of feeling where I knew I wasn’t part of their group really, but I tried so hard to be. I wanted to be cool and be one of them, and so I tried looking into what the differences between me and them were so I could FINALLY feel like I belonged somewhere. 

I started to blame my relationship with God for all of this, so I tried to distance myself from that Christian side of myself as much as I could. I thought that maybe that would make me fit in more, but if anything it just made me feel worse. As you can imagine, this sort of thing had a huge impact on my mental health. I started feeling anxious in group situations and I hated the idea of actually having to speak out in crowds. I went from literally preaching to my 7-year-old peers to avoiding any kind of religious talk whatsoever. I just began to feel anxious all of the time and was really only happy when I had one or two of my closest friends with me at all times. I remember my family seeing a big difference in me, and all I wanted was to sit alone in my room and not talk to anyone. I cared so much about what everyone thought about me all the time, and it was so harmful at 14 to be focussing so much on my appearance and my reputation and my weight (and being literally 4 foot nothing). 

Once I started college, I started to get closer with my Christian friends and started going to Emmanuel on Sundays with my brother. I still didn’t have much of a personal relationship with God, but I was going to all the right places to look like I did. Through all the youth events we all went to, and going to a church with pastors that I actually listened to, I started to slowly build up my faith. I started to enjoy going to youth and although it didn’t happen immediately, I started to enjoy God and his presence more and more. 

Looking back at all of this, I’ve realised that no matter how far I tried to run from my faith, God’s love ran further. Although I really struggled through that time, I never got too far that I couldn’t find my way back. I realise that a lot of testimonies have a big God moment where they finally see how lost who they are and how they need God right there and then. But for me, God never really left my side at all. Slowly but surely, He brought me back into relationship with Him. So many people within Collective at Emmanuel and even in school had such an impact on this, and somewhere along the line, I remember realising that I wanted to live my life in full abandonment for Jesus. I signed up to be a leader in kids club and decided to go on a mission team with Exodus to Spain. Step by step I was finding my feet in how to really live for Jesus and his kingdom.

It definitely hasn’t been easy since the time that I decided to get back on track with God, but I can say that having a decent relationship with God has made things a lot easier than they would have been without him. University struggles and huge decisions that come with those struggles haven’t been the nicest, but throughout all of it, I’ve seen God's hand at work. I suppose that if you were to get anything from this lil blog thing, I would want it to be this; no matter how far you feel like you are from God right now, His hand is at work in your life, and he’s with you. Always. I remember hearing that you can never go too far for God not to see you, and if He sees you, then he instantly cares for you. If you’ve never had a relationship with God, then I really hope that over this quarantine time you consider it, or even look into it, or ask a Christian friend about it. I can safely say that I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am without Jesus or my relationship with him. 

Happy quarantine,

Lucy.