Clarksville, TN - Grace Community Church

....To me, in order to be a true follower of Christ, you have to experience Christ in your own life, on a personal level, because if you truly invite him into your life and into your heart, he will show himself to you in one way or another, at some time or another, and if you are really seeking him, then it's at this time that you'll see him, and then that's when you will really KNOW, that he's here, and that he's real, and that he loves you.

I've been going to church since I was born, and I've always believed in Christ, but it wasn't until I was in middle school that I really understood the power of God's love and the impact that he could have on my life. I remember I used to always get made fun of in school. I was always an outcast, always bullied, and of course therefore always depressed. I didn't have many friends, the ones I did call friends were really just people who were constantly trying to change me into something I was not. I never had the new clothes or whatever new thing was going on at the time. Somehow though my locker was located right in the middle of all the popular kids' lockers and on Valentine's Day it was gut wrenching to see all the flowers and letters taped all over the place from boyfriends to girlfriends and etc, with mine being the only empty one like always. There was a boy that I realllllyyy had a crush on - but he hated me so much! I can laugh about it all now, but back then you know those things are so "important" and it was all so devastating! I was so depressed and so miserable that eventually it got to the point that I would be so mean to everyone I came in contact with just because I not only already expected them to be cruel to me, but because I thought if no one came close to me then maybe I wouldn't get hurt anymore. Random people that I'd never met or even saw before could pass by me on the opposite side of the street and I would just start crying because all I could think about was how they were probably making fun of me in their heads. I'd sit in my room alone at night and listen to "Delilah's Love Songs" on the radio and just kind of cry myself to sleep at night wondering why my life was so dang miserable.

Well, I dont know what it was that finally triggered it but one night I just couldn't take it anymore and I competely broke down. I sat there in the dark in my bedroom and just started crying my eyes out. And I just started praying. And I just kept repeating over and over "Hold me. Please hold me." I must have sat there on my bed crying for at least two hours straight, just praying and praying. And then, suddenly out of nowhere, there was this indescribable feeling, just like an entire world had been lifted off of my shoulders and I could breathe. And I promise it felt at that exact moment like someone had wrapped me up in their arms and just held onto to me. And just hugged me and held onto me and made me feel like everything was going to be ok, and was just there with me and I stayed like that, in that moment with that feeling, until I fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning .... and everything had changed. My whole life changed. I had this incredible new self confidence that I'd never had before. I no longer cared what everyone thought about me or what anyone said. I had a better personality, a better perspective and view on life. I was nice to people again, I made new friends who actually cared about me, and I stopped caring so much about the people who didn't. It was like I had become a completely different person overnight. And it stayed that way. Everything that had been so miserable and wrong just dissapeared. I had somehow jumped over the fence to that greener patch of grass that everyone's always talking about.

Over the course of one night, I became a completely different person. No one changes who they are overnight. But I did…. and you can too.

All it takes is to stop trying so hard to do everything by yourself. It's ok to ask for help sometimes.

When you open your heart to the Lord, and you let him in, he will show you that he's there for you, that he always has been, he's just waiting on you to invite him in.

People say that you have to see it to believe it, but that's not always the case ... sometimes you have to believe it in order to see that it's been there all along.

That's how I know for myself that God is real, and that he works in me, and through me. I thank him everyday for everything that he does for me, because I know that without him, my life would be nothing compared to what it can be with him.

When people ask me why I believe in God or how I know that it's all "real," I tell them that too many things have happened in my life that have no other reason of explanation than to have happened because of him.

Laura