I was sixteen that summer. Some girls my age were stepping from youthful innocence into womanhood gently, taking tentative glances and testing the waters of independence. Not me.I had decided sometime earlier to jump in with both feet. At sixteen I found myself in an on again off again relationship with a man/boy. The relationship was unhealthy in every way. He was much older but not any wiser than I. Not long after my sixteenth birthday party, I tried to break things off for good. He wouldn’t leave. He showed up at my school, my home, the store where I worked, and he was always the lovely young gentleman to those around me.
No one knew that when they weren’t ‘t looking, he would beg, plead, yell, punch, kick, throw tantrums, break things, control and manipulate with his words until I would agree to stay with him and try the relationship again.
I’m not sure what made me finally turn to my family for help, but near the end of 10th grade, my mom listened carefully as I told her that I wanted to be free from the relationship and about what had happened each time I had tried. With no judgment and through many tears, we resolved that I would live with a relative for a while, and she would deal with him when he came around.
The last weeks of school were challenging as I moved back home and heard through friends that he had attempted suicide and had ended up in the hospital. I was numb.
Finally it was summer. I was home, alone, safe; he was gone, and I was exhausted. Through it all, I had maintained a child-like faith, praying the prayers of a baby believer and going to church when it suited me.
Partially in an attempt to feel something again, I prayed the first honest prayer of my life that summer, and I prayed it over and over and over again. It was something like this:
Dear Jesus, I need you. I have messed up my life already on my own. I get it. I make bad choices when I’m on my own without you. My friends can’t help. They don’t have answers. They are empty and numb like me. I know the answer is You, but I am too weak and lonely to follow You alone when I go back to school this fall. Send me a Christian friend Lord. Please send me a Christian friend to help me on this journey.
The summer days passed peacefully, healing my heart and warming my soul once again. I memorized Galatians 2:20 and repeated it often to myself. The knowledge of the power of Christ in me made me feel alive. And while God was breathing His Word into my heart, he was saving another 16 year old girl at a church camp 100 miles away.
That girl would move to my town, transfer to my school, sit beside me in band class and would come to share with me the unbridled enthusiasm of being a brand new believer. We would spend nearly every waking moment together for the next two years, devouring God’s Word together and even being baptized together.
The summer of my sixteenth year, God opened my eyes to the mess I had made on my own. He sent me His Word to heal my heart, he miraculously answered my prayers for help by saving the soul of another, and he brought us together to form a life-altering friendship that revolved around growing to know Jesus daily. That was the summer my landscape changed forever. [...]
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