My past was no joke. There was a time in my life when I was hurt by nearly everyone. Unfairly mistreated by companies and bosses. Abused and abandoned by countless “friends” who were only pursuing what would benefit them no matter the cost. I was legitimately hurt and facing struggle around every corner.

With the goal of trying to save space in my house, I’ve been typing up old journals from years past. It’s been eye-opening. We are beings created to love and for a desire to be loved and these old journals hold story after story of me just wanting to be loved and accepted. It’s incredibly sad and embarrassing to recall the great lengths I went to achieve this love. To read how I responded and coped in immoral ways. Desperately seeking love from people who continuously let me down time and time again. The ways I sought it were displeasing to God and detrimental to my character. But instead of surrendering to a God who was faithful to me, who did love me and did care for my every need, I poured myself into whomever would give me attention, whomever I thought might provide reassurance and show me how valuable I was.

People are sinners…unreliable, foolish, selfish, self-serving, prideful, mean and arrogant but we will go to the extreme to prove ourselves to others, to gain their love and respect and to be accepted despite always ending up hurt and broken because people were never meant to replace God.

When people continue to disappoint us, we lose hope in everyone, even God. We assume because people’s love fails us then God’s love does too. His love must be like ours: conditional, emotionally derived and temporary. But He is the Creator and Designer and Sustainer of love—God is love.

Genuine love is rooted in faith. And my faith is strengthened when I remember who He is; the One who knew every breath, every event, every attitude and every heartache of my life from before I was created in my mother’s womb. The God who’s been there since the beginning of time, who made promises that’ve never been broken, whose prophesies of old came true, who loves the unlovable and shows mercy to the cruelest of the cruel, who understands our struggles, comforts our pains, forgives our ugliest sins and gives strength to the weary and brokenhearted.

His mercy never ends, nothing separates us from His love, His grace is sufficient. Every step of the way. Every moment of our day. Every heartache, every tear, every pain, every betrayal. He is faithful to His perfect plan. He works and weaves our lives with a delicate thread of love, carefully stitching in others’ lives so that there is purpose to every situation and circumstance. There is meaning; there is an objective: to bring us back to Him. For us to see Him as the love of our life, to love Him with a commitment like no other, to worship Him every moment of our day and to bring Him all the glory and honor.

God allows hardships and struggles—though we are quick to blame Him for them—but in those hurts and pains are lessons. It’s so easy to play the victim, playing it over and over in our minds, but I see now that He was teaching me. I can choose to proclaim the title bitterly and pridefully or I can use the difficulties and hardships to grow in the love and grace of God. I can live on as a victim of pain and struggle, holding fast to my self-pity and sadness, or I can claim victory—in Jesus’ name—over the pain and struggle, turning my self-pity into a redemptive story of God’s amazing grace and strength in my life. I choose to turn my heart from inward to upward, praising God through the storm.

It is amazing though to look back now on God’s tremendous mercy and forgiveness upon a poor sinner like me and see His gracious, loving hand through it all. To see how He patiently watched as I made a mess of things but gently led me away from toxic relationships, closed doors of opportunity, worked in difficult situations (preparing me for similar future difficulty) and led me to where I am today.

God’s will for your life is not very complicated. Obviously, living a Christlike life is hard work, and what following Jesus entails is not clear in every situation. But as an overarching principle, the will of God for your life is pretty straightforward: Be holy like Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, for the glory of God.

—Kevin DeYoung

If I could give advice to my younger self, it would be:

Day after day, circumstance after circumstance, person after person, you will be tempted to search for love in all the wrong places. Do not be conformed to this world, young friend. Stand firm on the Word of God. Hold fast to your faith. Do not sacrifice your devotion to God, your honor, your decency, your morality for anyone else just to earn their approval and acceptance. Only be willing to sacrifice for the purpose of pleasing the Father, who stopped at nothing short of killing His own Son to show us just how much He loved us.

Colossians 1:10
so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.