When I left for college on my 18th birthday, life was about being too cool to be 'normal.'
I knew all the coolest underground music and writers. At the same time I had been suffering from severe depression and alcoholism since I was 13, though at the time, I didn't know there was a name for the rage at the world I'd felt. I just thought I was a deep thinker, a bit serious, but still loved a good party.
I also sought fervently a mate to affirm my depth, uniqueness and beauty. I continually filled my brain and emotions with spiritual, mystical media and people. I was certainly seeking answers to life's questions, and respite from a tormented, confused soul.
Through several wrong choices of intimate boyfriends, drugs, and the Grateful Dead, I made it back to college to begin doing "the right thing." I was determined to become educated, find a good man, get physically healthy, and then I would start over in the next era of reaching goals in my life.
My grades were great, I saw no logical reason to stop smoking weed, and my perfect boyfriend started dating someone else behind my back. With all this going on, I was having several breakdowns. I often felt like I was losing my mind and would panic alone in the dark in full misery with a million crazy thoughts plaguing my mind.
Regardless, before the guy was out of my life for good, in one of our last two hour long phone calls at two in the morning, we fell into the subject of reading the Bible.
I was taking a class that compared some gospel books in the New Testament Bible. I had grown up in the church but my experience with Christianity as a child consisted of religious ritual.
"Yeah, I like to read the Bible. It's got some good stories," I said in my 'I'm so cool' attitude. To my surprise this guy boldly reprimanded me right then and there on the phone.
"Girl, you better recognize you need to get on your knees and ask Jesus to come into your life and forgive you and save you!" he scolded. "That ain't just history, girl, that's your life!"
I was taken aback and speechless. Being a stubborn hardhead, it took this type of in-your-face confrontation to get me to pay attention to anyone.
I immediately hung up on him. Unable to deny the truth that God's Holy Spirit had communicated to me through this young man.
And then something from the Bible came to mind: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one," it says in Romans 3:10-12.
The message was so strong, so obvious, so clear. I could not deny the voice of God. I fell to my knees, prayed and asked - rather, I begged - that Jesus would come to me right then and start ruling my heart and ruling my life.
A month later I signed a card at a Christmas production that presented the gospel which told these church folks that I made the decision to trust Jesus. These people church took the time to explain the phenomenon of Jesus' gift of the Holy Spirit, and the other changes that occurred to me because of this decision.
Finally the answer became so clear and simple. I could stop seeking the wrong spirits.
Life didn't immediately become peachy and happy. It's still not always like that, actually. The difference in my life between the before and after is twofold: some changes were immediate, some have been the longer processes made by God in his perfect timing to change me to be more like him, to refine me daily into the image of Jesus Christ - the perfect image of God in a man. He gives the fulfillment and satisfaction that all people are looking for.
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