If you have read my articles before, you probably have picked up on some of the most common themes of them: beauty in struggle, loving oneself, loving others. These themes are common because they cause my heart to beat and give me purpose.

I find my purpose in loving others. In making myself available to others.

The last thing I would ever want to do is to build a wall between myself and others. The last thing I would ever want someone to think is that I was judging them, condemning them, rather than loving them.

So, I have been afraid to talk about my faith, and my God, in my posts.

The other day, after I had gotten done with my morning devotions, I had felt this overwhelming sensation of adoration, and I thought, “how backwards is it that I am withholding my faith in my writing so that I never make anyone feel unloved, when my relationship with God pours the most love into me, when it is my relationship with Christ alone that has taught me just how beautiful love is?”

Unsurprisingly, it isn’t hard to understand why I am afraid of sharing this area of my life, or any other sensitive area. As people, we go through things, and we mess up. It is hard. We get hurt. We feel shame. And, we genuinely are afraid of sharing ourselves, who we are, and getting rejected. This is normal.

But, if I find my purpose in making myself available to others, how available can I truly make myself if I hold who I am in secrecy?

Sadly, when people think of the word Christian, they think of the following terminology:

bigot, polished, hell, homophobic, condemnation, holier-than-thou, prude, self-righteous, hypocrite.

The reason why this is so heartbreaking to me is because when I think of Jesus, when I sit back and think about who Jesus really is, the only words that come to mind are: grace, mercy, unconditional/unrequited love, beauty, value, joy, equality, intimacy, passion, friendship, father, forgiveness, unashamed.

Why is it that when we think “Christian” we think the first description rather than the latter? Why do we not typically think of Christians as those who are rooted in imperfection, in humanitarianism. Why do we not think of them as flawed, approachable, understanding beings? Why is it that when we think of Christianity, we primarily think of individuals who are too submerged into religious dogma and ritualistic rule following to be in touch with society, pouring their hearts into the world around them, into people of all faiths, life styles, social classes.

Now, please, PLEASE, don’t think that I am saying that all or most Christians fit the description of the previous passage. I have met many people who identify as Christian and are terse, who have hardened hearts. I have been hurt and judged by many Christians, but I have also met Christians who have held my hand, prayed with me, cried with me, never questioned my heart or spoke a word of condemnation when I was in the midsts of a train wreck, when I was acting in hatred that stemmed from my brokenness.

If you are looking for a Christian who is a perfect person, you are not going to find one. Just as, I’m sure, if you spent enough time looking, you’d find absolutely extraordinary, and outright disdainful people who practice Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism. We are all people, and we are all imperfect. There are going to be people with various intents on their hearts from ALL walks of faith.

But why do we, as a society, believe Christians to be the most out-dated, unreliable, perfectly polished, out of touch individuals?

I believe that this is because many Christians are so focused on how “together” their life is, how polished they are, to revert back to, and show others, their “before” picture, or where they once were, and thus allow themselves to become unattached to, as well as unable to relate to, the world and it’s people.

So today, with a very nervous, raw, loving heart, I am going to write about my “before picture.” For a long while, I have been inspired to write a blog of faith, love, healing, and resilience, but I have been afraid of writing about my faults. About where I “once was”. This is because I know that people who know me in real life read my blog, and they would find out, and I am ashamed, and I am scared. Or, at least…I was.

But not anymore. Because there is no shame in Jesus. There is no shame when someone is loved unconditionally by the Creator of the universe. How can I expect people from all walks of life to come to me, shameless, unafraid of judgment, knowing that I just want to love them, when I can’t present myself and make myself personal to people out of fear of sharing who I once was? I can’t. So I am done being ashamed.

I am not polished. I have been bruised and broken. I have caused brokenness in others.

I had been born in a Christian home. I had always been raised with Christian ideology, but I didn’t really personalize that for myself. It was always more about religion, about church on Sundays, than a relationship with someone who loves me.

I have always had anxiety. I will always have anxiety. When my parents got divorced, when my family began to struggle, when I lost my dad, when my anxiety spiraled out of control, when I had to grow up too quickly, I turned into a complete shadow of who I was.

First off, I broke up with my best friend, and boyfriend. This is not wrong per-say. But I broke Kieran’s heart because my concept of love had been shattered, and I wanted to exercise what little control I had. So I hurt him over and over again, every time he would try to talk to me. Someone who had been my best friend since thirteen years old, someone who loved me unconditionally, someone who had never been anything but kind to me, who saw the beauty in me, was ripped alive by my words, and my coldness. And I did it on purpose.

I then began to look for myself, and my lost worth, in places of hollowed out emptiness. I looked for myself in people who didn’t care about me, and it landed me right in the situation of an instance of gut-wrenching sexual abuse.

This incident completely obliterated any sanity I had left. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t feel clean. I did not feel whole. I began having anxiety attacks around the clock. I was afraid and in pain. I began pulling out my hair, frantically searching to find what I had lost. To cope with this, I began taking sleeping pills. Originally, it was a few before bed every night, so that I could sleep. And then it was when I woke up in the morning. And then it was every time I got stressed. Before I knew it, I would be taking two or three sleeping pills in the morning, a few at lunch time, and then four or five every night before bed.

I started experimenting with prescribed painkillers. And it wasn’t uncommon for me to take seven or eight pills at night. It wasn’t uncommon for me to run to the bathroom, holding my aching, half-poisoned gut, throwing up what tasted like battery acid, in a state of delirium. It wasn’t uncommon for me to not remember what I did that day. It was not uncommon for me to forget a period of days, of weeks. It wasn’t uncommon for me to wallow in my sadness and balm my shame with a concoction of sleep aid and depressants and alcohol.

Naturally, my parents freaked out. My mom locked up all medicine, and I was monitored constantly. I was not trusted. But, where there is a will, there is a way.

An addict always has a will, so there is always a way. I always found a way.

I always found a way to slide handfuls of toxic little pills from the palm of my hand into my body that I no longer saw as sacred anymore. That I had grew to be ashamed of. That I hated. That I wanted to whither. Through all of this, I was Activities Coordinator and then President for my high school’s National Honors Society. I had a job. I had friends. The two friends I had that truly loved me were the only ones who noticed, and I terminated both of their friendships. But mostly, I was polished, and “put together”. I was a time bomb that had been coated to look like a pearl, with lots of potential, college acceptance letters, and promise.

And then I overdosed.

The thing is, I don’t even remember OD’ing. I don’t even remember how much medicine I had taken (I was told later that it was close to half a bottle of sleeping pills). I woke up at 3:30 in the morning after urgent attention and lots of induced vomiting. My dad was in the room, sitting, with his hands rubbing his temples nervously. My mom was in the room. And Kieran, who I had shut out and abused for months, who I had shot down and discouraged and broke repeatedly, was right next to me.

A few days later, Kieran and I were downtown. It was rainy, and the streets were entirely empty. I remember kicking a pebble down the street as I looked down. I was afraid to look at his face, because if I saw his eyes I was going to own up to myself all of the things he was, and all of the things I did.

“I would have taken you to someone else’s house,” he said. He looked at me, with tears in his eyes, and said again, “I have always loved you, and I would have literally driven you to another guy’s house if I knew that you were somewhere safe. If I knew that you were happy and that he loved you and you were valued, I don’t care how much it would have hurt me. Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you let me get you out of that situation?” Why did I hurt something that was so loved, that was so so loved?

Kieran had always loved me. He had always been there.

And then a Bible verse came to mind. Psalm 45: 10-11, 13-14, 17.

With broken, broken, desperate, broken hands I turned to this verse, and sobbed. I held it to my empty chest, and I wept. It was still there. It had always been there. God had always been there.

It reads:

10 Listen, daughter, and pay careful attention…
11 …Let the king be enthralled by your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord.
13 All glorious is the princess within her chamber;
her gown is interwoven with gold.
14 In embroidered garments she is led to the king.
17 I will perpetuate your memory through all generations;
therefore the nations will praise you for ever and ever.

And that is when I had realized. Jesus didn’t die for the polished version of me. He did not commit an act of unconditional love and sacrifice

for the “after” pictures.

Jesus is a friend, and a father, and a lover to and for all of the “befores.” He is a lover of the befores. We are never more or less beautiful to God. We simply are, and he simply loves. Jesus looked at me, addicted, broken, weak, anxiety-ridden, hopeless,

and he was enthralled by my beauty,

and he wanted to dress me in glory, in a beautiful gown of gold,

because I am a princess. I am his. He knows me.

He created me. He is enthralled by me.

Why did I hurt something that was so loved, that was so so loved.

And that is God. That is Christianity. That is Christ.

Jesus knew that I couldn’t make it on my own, so he placed Kieran in my life, to show me the teeniest glimpse of what love His love is like. So that I would be pointed to Him.

To find a love that would eclipse all of my brokenness with the unfathomable adoration that we reside in when we know who He is.

Unrequited, unfaltering, unwavering love. No stipulations, no conditions. Just love. For all I am, in all places that I am. When Kieran loved me, he showed me what Jesus looks like.

We are never closer to seeing God than we are when we are loving another human. The Bible literally says in John 13:35 that, “everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Because that is who God is. He is love.

And we don’t have to be ashamed. We don’t have to be afraid. Because:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1John 4:18).

So we are imperfect. We are messy. We are broken. And we are loved. We are wholesomely loved. Fervently loved. Passionately loved. Blindly loved. Every single one of us.

Every Christian.

Every Jew.

Every Muslim.

Every Atheist

Every straight/homosexual human.

Every CIS/Transgendered person.

Every Race.

Every Ethnicity.

Every heart, every leg, everybody, every inch of skin, every piece of hair.

Every human soul.

This is who I am. This is who I belong to. And this is how I love, and who I love, and what I love. No matter who you are, you are not the things that you have done, you are not the places you have been, you are not my inferior, and you are not judged by me.

Only loved.

Only Loved.

On a side note, this was me then, and this is me now. Happy, healthy, engaged, blessed, imperfect, and learning. Day after day. That's what Love can do.