Have you experienced the love of God and the fruit of the Holy Spirit of joy before? It is a feeling like none other! Nothing in this world can compare to this feeling of knowing that you are loved by God unconditionally and the gift of joy we get to experience while in the presence of God.
Let me give you a few examples of what I mean by this. When I turned 21, it wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that I went out with my friends and tried a margarita. My birthday falls on Thanksgiving break so most of my friends were at home so there was a delayed celebration. Nonetheless, I tried a frozen peach margarita, a shot of schlager that tasted strongly of cinnamon, and a few sips of wine. I wasn’t drunk but I was buzzed. I learned a few things that night like what a chaser was, and that I couldn’t digest alcohol naturally so I got an Asian glow and my face was lobster red that night. It died down after I took an allergy medicine but I loved that feeling of being buzzed because I didn’t care what people thought of me. For most of my life, I have been a people-pleaser so that feeling of not caring about people’s thoughts was relieving. However, the point of this story is that even though I felt that buzz and happiness, I knew in my heart that it did not compare to the joy I have when I am with God and when I am spending time with Him.
The thing is, with that experience, I knew that the buzz and happiness were not going to last forever. I knew that being in the presence of God and experiencing God’s gift of joy was eternal because God is eternal. The morning after, I immediately went to spend time with the Father because I knew the truth that He was like none other and that He is the one that I seek after. I had the option to continue to seek after that buzzed feeling or the option of choosing to live in God’s presence and delight in it and knowing that the gift of joy was abundant in Christ. I’m not saying drinking is bad but personally, I don’t want to consume it with the intention of finding this buzzed feeling if I already get to experience the fullness of joy in the presence of God. Not everyone gets to experience this beautiful gift but I want to invite you into this journey and I pray that one day if you have not already experienced it, you would be able to experience the fullness of joy.
Transformation of My Heart
I want to invite you into the transformation that God continues to do within my heart. You may not have lived my past life with me, and what I mean by past life is that I am now a new creation because of what Jesus did on the cross for you and me. We live in a broken world and there is going to be suffering. Because of the story of Adam and Eve, the Original Sin, where they believed that they knew better than God and disobeyed God’s commands led to a separation in relationship with God. Every one of us has disobeyed God at some point in our lives and turned away from Him because we thought we knew better. But God so loved the world that He sacrificed His only Son (John 3:16) so that you and I can have a relationship with Him. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we get to live in the fullness of joy through reconciliation with God and we get to receive the gift of eternal life. All we need to do is confess and repent of our sins and receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
My Loneliness without God
I never experienced or knew who God was until I got to college. When I was in 7th grade, I went through depression. It all started when a friend of mine thought that I was crying for attention, but I was actually crying because I was trying to help her feel better. I didn’t know how to do that and she reacted in a way that I did not expect, and I was hurt by that. I didn’t exactly know what I was feeling at the time. Our friend group believed her that I was crying for attention and began to be very mean to me throughout that time period. I tried to become friends with other friend groups but it felt like I was not needed (I would like to clarify that it was a small school and everyone knew/grew up with each other. It was like 20 students in each class). I felt alone and unwanted.
When a few girls noticed and saw that I was crying, I didn’t accept their help because I didn’t want it to seem like I was crying for attention. Although, I do not want to blame that girl for assuming that I was crying for attention. We have forgiven each other ever since and I wish the best for her in her future endeavors. And I do not need you to pity me for something that I got to experience because it shaped me into the woman I am today. Even though I didn’t know God at this period of time, I know that God knew me and I am thankful that He entrusted me with this struggle and suffering, and delivered me through resilience.
It was probably until the end of 7th grade when it resolved but it was not until the friend group realized how serious the depression was when they saw that I drew a visual representation of how I felt at that time. I am not going to describe what I drew, but I thank God that I am afraid of blood or large amounts of blood because it stopped me from doing anything about how I felt. However, I remember the feeling of deep sadness and the negative mindset I had during this time period. It feels like a vicious cycle that you can never get out of and at the time, I felt like everyone was attacking me. I had grown this victim mindset, but that was my subjective reality, not the objective reality.
I know not everyone gets out of depression this way, but I experienced a traumatic doctor visit when I was questioned about why I drew that visual on a piece of paper and when they drew out 6 vials of blood from me. I felt misunderstood and felt that it was unnecessary to draw out a large amount of blood from my arms, but I never wanted to experience that feeling again. It wasn’t officially over until one day, I became so sick of being in this negative, victim mindset that I changed this perspective into a positive one through positive affirmations on Instagram. I trained myself to transform these negative thoughts about myself into something positive. I’m not saying you should do that, but it did help kickstart an optimistic mindset.
However, just because I thought more optimistically doesn’t mean that I never felt alone. In high school, I felt the most alone. I never was able to process all that I went through and the past hurt led me to become angry with what I had gone through. Because of something I had written in a letter to that same friend, I lost my friendship with her and I had a hard time recovering from that. From my perspective, she was one of the factors why I came into my depressive state and I have forgiven her out loud but internally, I was still angry with this hurt.
After this fallout, this feeling of loneliness carried into my high school years, specifically in my AP English Honors class where I sat alone because no one wanted to sit with me. I dreaded this class because I felt that my presence had no importance and that no one would even miss me if I wasn’t even in that class. What gutted me was the fact that there was a group chat of everyone in the class to discuss assignments and I was not included in it. However, I do not believe this struggle and suffering was a waste because now I get to make a difference with the people around me so that they may feel known and loved by me. I am not perfect at it, that’s for sure, but it had created a desire in me to make sure that the people I encounter may not feel the way that I felt all those years.
The other thing was that I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t allow myself to share all of who I was because I was afraid of judgment from others. Most high school students do not know who they are, but some of them have the privilege to be themselves and learn from there. I held a part of myself back in order to fit into this mold of what everyone thought I was: a good girl who was quiet and innocent. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I always felt misunderstood and wasn’t able to share my real self with others.
Meeting Jesus
It wasn’t until I came to college that I met Jesus. Externally, I felt great. I knew what I wanted and what I was looking for. You might have thought that I wasn’t dealing with any problems. However, it wasn’t until Jesus pursued me and showed me who He was and the unconditional love that He gives so freely. He showed me what a relationship was like with Him and He continues to do so because I am human and I forget many things. Through these past few years, He has gifted and blessed me with a community and friendships where it is encouraged to be vulnerable and to reveal how you are feeling, rather than to hide it and shove it behind or beneath something. Through one’s obedience, I was able to experience the love of Christ and the freedom that He openly gives. Through my relationship with Christ, I know that I am known and loved by Him. My confidence is in Him and I know that whenever I am alone, I am never truly alone because “He is always with me until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
Can you imagine someone loving you so unconditionally even when they see the worst parts of you? To be exposed means you cannot cover your sins, mistakes, or thoughts up. That every thought that you have and even before you would begin to form those thoughts, He already knew what you were going to say or think. That He chose you before the beginning of time and knitted you in your mother’s womb! How crazy is that? That concept may be too much for you to grasp. I know that it can be hard for me to grasp sometimes. You may accept it or reject it but after many rejections, I felt and understood the grace of God and received the love of God through salvation and faith in Jesus Christ.
These days, you might see me as an optimistic, joyful, upbeat, bright ball of sunshine, but I was not and am not always like this. I still have cry sessions. I still struggle with past hurt and fears, but what I know is that I now get to walk with God in these hard moments. I am far from perfect and you can see that with the words written above. Whenever people say that I am always so joyful or this bright ball of sunshine, I always give the credit to God because it is because of Him that I get to experience His goodness, His kindness and grace, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit, joy. It is through Christ that I get to experience His joy by resting in His presence, in His Word (scripture), through worship and prayer, through community and friendships, in nature, and in an abundance of other things. God is everywhere and He is with you and me always. That is the beauty of being able to abide in Christ. The truth is that we are never alone and that we get to relate to a personal yet powerful God.