I grew up in a very "Christian home", private school, church, sunday school, thewholeshebang. I memorized Psalm 23 and knew that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to die" for my sins. I knew I wasn't suppose to lie cheat or steal, drink or do drugs, and to honor my parents and keep myself pure till marriage. I knew that if i did all these things and "loved God" I got to go to heaven.  It never occurred to me thatthecreator of the universe wanted a relationship with me and for me to spend eternity in his presence. Yes, I sang "Jesus Loves Me" in Sunday school but my eyes were never opened to the realization that he passionately cared for me as a daughter of the MOST High King. 

So I spent the beginning years of my life, with out this relationship, and when it came time for the temptations of high school, I had no love to keep my from falling into sin, only a curiosity for the world and a background of following rules. The lack of this relationship with my Dad, my creator, and my best friend, effected my relationships with all others in my life. As christians the relationships we form with others reflect our passionate love for God  and he absence of this example in my life distorted the way I viewed those around me, my actions in friendships and relationships were self serving and as a result I miss treated and took for granted many people God blessed me with and began to fill the void in my life with partying and guys.  Much of my time in high school was lived for the friday nights I could go out with my girls, and all the guys and drinks I could get my hands on. 

When things went wrong I blamed this God I did not know for "punishing" me for the bad I had done and built up a great deal of anger towards him.  

After a while caught up in what I thought was "the life" I began to see a bad chain of drunken mistakes in my life and feel a void that was not being filled. I did what I thought was "returning God" and decided to once again be a "good" Christian. I began going to church more regularly and felt better about myself and started drinking less and less. However their was still a void in my life only now I began to fill it by keeping my self full of the things of this world, from work to school to sports I took up every waking moment of my days flooding my life with things I thought brought me joy, the emptiness I felt I chalked up to not making my best swim time, or not jumping as high as I wanted to in high jump. The money from my work went to new clothes so I would feel better and look better and hopefully next time I would do better in my race-the list of things for improvement went on and on. Once I had it all though, I was sure I would be filled. For months I went on doing good and being busy, successful, and " having it all together ". I attempted to create for myself a haven in this world. A place where I was finally content because of all the "good" I had.

"If you could have heaven, with no sicknesses, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human convict or natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven if christ was not there?" -John Piper

He sums up the reason for my emptiness best with this convicting question.

 I would have taken that heaven in a heart beat, I thought all christians would have. Heaven to me was good things for being " good christians " I even can remember when i was young being concerned at times that God wouldn't have the right things that I liked in my "room" in heaven. My walk with God had never been about God, it had been about me, I had tried to use God to get the life I desired, instead of desiring God to use me for the life he has planned. It was not till I made this realization that I was able tolet go of everything of this life that I was holding on to and give it all to my creator.