FROM WORTHLESS TO VALUABLE!

by Keren

 I grew up in a Christian family. This is not as great or easy as it sounds. Many people think that because you grow up in these circumstances, with the Christian influence around you 24-7 it i

People took it that because my parents were Christians that automatically meant that I was one too.

s all easy going from the start. I hope that by the time you finish reading this your views will change.

 Growing up in a church, things are expected of you. People see you as a person of your surroundings -if you saw someone in the street, sleeping rough, you would automatically put a character, a label on that person. Well it is the same in the church. You go to church you are a goody-goody and love Jesus. You could never put a foot wrong!

 I grew up going to church practically every day of the week. We would go on Sunday mornings and evenings. Tuesday or Wednesday nights, and Fridays when we were old enough to the youth group. Also my Dad was an elder of the church - someone who is a decision-maker for the church, a godly man, and with my Mum, was the youth leader too.

 Now with Dad being an elder there were certain standards we (as his children) had to match up to. At the time we went to a brethren church. The only thing this meant to me was I had to wear a skirt and a hat to every meeting and I was not allowed to take part verbally at all till the end. We would sing old hymns and there was, to me, no life!

 

Church and school were like two different lives I led...

People took it that because my parents were Christians that automatically meant that I was one too. Well I guess they fooled me too. I took it that that was the way it worked. Because they knew Jesus I did to.

 Church and school were like two different lives I led. Church, no matter how dull or boring I found it, I knew that people really cared for me. School, on the other hand, was a nightmare. I was bullied from the moment I it

...School, ... was a nightmare

started to the moment I got through my door at 4.30 each weekday evening. I changed tutor groups twice, and as a result, my school work suffered. I got put in all the low sets, which didn't help because the people in my classes would just mess around and cause havoc to the teachers.

 I would dread going to school each morning. It wasn't so much the physical it was more the mental. The other young people at school would taunt me and call me names. I was fat! I was ugly! I was

I was fat! I was ugly! I was useless! I was a waste of space!

useless! I was a waste of space! This stuck. Their words would go over and over in my head. If I walked down the street and a group of people would be coming the other way, total strangers, all of a sudden they would burst out laughing. A voice inside my head would say it was me they were laughing at, and the things people were saying were true. Even my best mate, the girl I grew up with from the age of two, would just stand back and watch it happen. Sometimes even join in.

 My family and friends at church were oblivious to this. I didn't tell them and didn't plan on them finding out. I just struggled on, taking it a day at a time, hoping that one day the nightmare I was stuck in would end.

 It wasn't till the age of 12 that I really began to think more seriously about this guy Jesus, my Mum and Dad were so in love with. I went to a camp, the same camp many of you guys go to now. Back

He made Jesus look so amazing and loving that I knew I wanted to know him better.

then it wasn't called CCYC it was PSS (postal Sunday school camp). We had a speaker down for the week. -Peter Brandon is his name. This man, in my eyes, was man of God. He made Jesus look so amazing and loving that I knew I wanted to know him better. One evening in his talk, he said something that hit me like a hammer. His exact words were “Just because you grow up in a church, or your

“Just because you grow up in a church, or your parents know Jesus doesn't mean you do too"

parents know Jesus doesn't mean you do too". I knew then, at that moment, that I had lived a lie for the last 11 years of my life. I didn't have Jesus in my life. That very evening, with my tent officer in the Padre's little room, I asked Him to come into my life and take away any sin. I thought from there on my life would get better.

 God has used me and still is using me. But it hasn't been easy to get to where I am today.

Despite the bubbly happy appearance I showed on the outside, on the inside I could still hear the same voices in my head - the ones that told me that I was dumb and stupid etc. I wanted something to take the place of the hurt and frustration I felt. I was

I was driven to self-abuse

driven to self-abuse. I would cut myself with anything sharp I could find, to get that little bit of satisfaction it made me feel. People would see the cuts on my arms, and when they asked me where they came from, I would say a cat scratched me.

 

That night God spoke to me

It wasn't until I was in America, on my Discipleship Training Course, that God really spoke to me and healed me from this. One night I felt so lonely and helpless inside I got to the point where I felt so gross that I didn't think that God would want anything to do with me. I felt lost and alone. I cried myself to sleep. That night God spoke to me. I saw Him in a dream. He had tears running down His face and his arms were outstretched to

...so much that he died to save me and give me everlasting life

me waiting to embrace me. I woke up and knew that God loved me and, because I was made in His image, I was amazingly and wonderfully made!

 I still have the scars on me to this day to remind me what I did to myself. But they are nothing like the scars Jesus bears They remind me how much he loves me - it was so much that he died to save me and give me everlasting life. Most of all, they remind me that I am worth something - I am worth millions!