Last week, I began a series aiming to convey how my past's darkest moments and tribulations led me straight to God. This week, I would like to continue but with the focus being on what God did for me instead of how I arrived there.

Like I mentioned last week, I began to see a light at the end of the dark tunnel that had been my life for what seemed like centuries. I realized after a while that this light had a voice, and a name, and had been struggling to pull me in closer. The voice belonged to God and the light was His word. Before this, I had never really been one of those people who just "felt" Christ within them and in their lives. I always wished that I could but I had accepted that that just was not me and my life...until then.

When I sat down and evaluated my life and the choices that I had been making up until that point, I was able to better comprehend why God's word was so important and why living my life here on Earth according to Him was crucial to achieving everlasting life after this physical journey ended. Even more life-changing was the moment that I realized that if I didn't change, and soon, I would end up in an eternity filled with fiery nothingness, never to be given the opportunity to see my loved ones again.

After this terrifying reality set in, I decided right then and there that I would live the rest of my life according to Christ. In the past, I had always struggled with the generalizations and stereotypes that came with the title of, "Christian". My view as I grew older was that if someone was a church-going, Bible-reading, Christian, there was a good chance that they were also close-minded, judgmental, and stuck-up. Obviously, there are Christians in the world that do fit this description, but that goes with any group of human beings.

There will always be the small percentage of a larger group that gives that group a bad name. I was able to experience this in real life when I began attending a non-denominational church near school. I got to see what it was like to be automatically welcomed and loved despite where I came from or the mistakes that I had made. I immediately knew that God had led me there for a reason, and I have grown as both a Christian and an overall person because of it.

Without the love and support that I've received from God himself, I honestly have no idea how I would have gotten through this past year. Between the stress of finishing my last year of undergrad along with watching my grandma suffer through a gut-wrenching disease that ended up taking her life, my depression and anxiety grew to heights that I had never before experienced. Like I stated last week, I still struggle, sometimes more than I lead others to believe, but at the end of the day, I know that my heart and my life are right with God and that I am where I need to be, heading in the direction that I'm meant to go.

When I leave this world someday, I know that I'll be reunited with those who went before me; my grandma, great-grandma, unborn siblings, even family I never had the chance to meet. Being able to lay down at night and sleep knowing that I will experience this in the future is a peaceful feeling that I had never known before I found Christ. I thank God each and every day that in a world filled with hate, anger, violence, and sadness, each and every one of us can depend on His word and His promise for a beautiful and better eternity after our life ends. God has saved my life in more ways than one, and for that, I will never be able to repay Him. But for now, I will start with spreading His love and His word through every aspect of my own life, with every person I have the pleasure of meeting.