Jan

I started first grade and immediately noticed that I was different. I had orange hair, (surprisingly I was not the only "ginger" in school, but in the top three). I was also half American, I was the only one there if you didn't count my brothers, and a Protestant (also the only one there if you didn't count my brothers). I mention all these differences because no matter how different I was, I wanted to be part of society, but I didn't know how to enter society and whether it was even necessary to be part of society. Little by little they saw that I'm not as weird as they thought. This allowed me to see what they were talking about in these groups and to be a part of it. I realized that every group contains the same formation of people, there is always someone who is in charge, and then on up to a captain shall we say, and then the others. I also noticed that in each group they talked about events and their subjective opinions about other people. I didn't like it because I didn't see those people like that and I knew that their opinions were based on some bad experiences with that person that are not actually a good indicator of that person.

Elementary school ended and high school began. I hoped when I enrolled in high school that I would find people who think the same as me and whose main goal of the group is not to gossip about others, but I was wrong. There was gossip not only about people from our class but also about people from other classes. Most of the gossip was about the physical appearance of others. Since they judged others by their physical appearance, they also judged themselves. The combination of physical appearance and hormones brings us to another big topic that revolved around a lot of circles I was in, and that is sex. There were more and more sex jokes to behavior and other things and I, being insecure about myself because of all my differences, started to research what they were talking about and that led to a feeling of excitement and curiosity. That adrenaline rush lasted maybe two minutes, and the feeling of anxiety and regret after realizing what I had done lasted much longer. I noticed that with the others, they lived for the weekends for that adrenaline that gives them when they did things they shouldn't, but the thing about adrenaline is that after those feelings "hit" them and the tension leaves them, there follows a decline in those feelings so that the organism is rebalanced. Because of this, I knew that this happiness was not long-lasting, and from somewhere those principles of faith that I had learned as a child came back to me. I realized that these principles are not as improbable, or impossible as I thought them to be.

That's when I started to think more about myself, about the world, about religion and about the purpose of life. Then I came to the big lie, which is that I need to be perfect in order to come to God. It caused me a lot of stress, and so I went back to the things that gave me that adrenaline rush and a feeling of relaxation, but after doing those things it made me even more stressed out because now I was stressing about why I had just done those things. It was a long battle, and it lasted until the realization that I can never be perfect by my works, but by the works of Christ, - and that only through Him can I be perfect.

This is where I am right now, striving to give to Christ more and more aspects of my life that I have closed off from others due to feeling ashamed of myself, and to accept the truths about me that I have through Christ. These truths are valid for me as well as for each of you, and they are the truths that you are enough such that he does not ask you or me to be anyone else but ourselves, that we are chosen and that he is looking for you, not your brother or sister, but you -  and that you are loved, that no matter how many bad things you have done, he loves you and gives you a new chance, a new life. You just need to accept that these truths are true.