Senior Essay Prompt:
Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?
My Response:
It was always about being the next best thing. How could I impress people with my speech? How could I gain attention, even for the simplest things I did? How could I make every situation about me? Beneath it all was a desire to be known. I carried scars from people and places so tightly intertwined with my past that I could no longer see beyond them. I sought gain, validation, and love, but ultimately, I sought them all for myself and from myself. Yet, I did not even know why I got out of bed every morning.
Something had to change.
I did not want to unravel the deep-rooted issues within my heart. I hated being called into the light. What if I lost control? What if everything I had buried was brought to the surface? The shame I imagined would come upon me felt like an unbearable weight. I was a restless, wandering husk, moving through life without knowing where I was going.
At night, like any teenager, I would lie awake and think deeply. The only things I had to hold onto were the words, “Everything will be okay,” and “You are loved.” But how could I truly believe them? Nothing felt okay. Nothing made sense. I had no answers, and even the people who loved me had let me down.
I could no longer live with the fact I was dying. I craved the truth about myself. I wanted to know why I was here, because everything I sought seemed to leave me emptier, even when I pursued it with all my heart. Time and time again, I felt as though contentment was neglecting me. Or perhaps I was the one neglecting true contentment.
What would it take to make me whole?
I searched through people, wondering if maybe one of them could be my other half. I searched through distractions, only to become more confused. I chased what I thought was fulfillment, yet I could not escape the conviction calling me to understand that it was never about me. Then, someone intervened.
Someone louder than my shame. Someone bolder than my lies. Someone stronger than my weakness. I asked for wisdom, and He said, “Fear Me.” I asked for direction, and He said, “Know Me.” I asked for joy, and He said, “Look at Me.” I asked for contentment, and He said, “Find your all in Me.”
His name is Jesus. Son of God. Wonderful Counselor. Prince of Peace.
He taught me that I was dead, like a skeleton lying helplessly on the floor. I could not raise myself. I had sinned, and my mistakes seemed to stretch from east to west. I was the liar and the thief He warned against—the twisted person within, the mind corrupted by sin. I had no hope in myself. Yet, there was hope in Him.
He promised that if I believed in Him, if I placed my hope and faith in His assurance, then the sins and fears my flesh clung to could be separated from me as far as the east is from the west. The things I had spent so long trying to fix within myself did not have to be carried by me any longer. So, I began to search for Him. What had He done? Why would He do it for someone like me?
I found that He reunited the broken. He gave abundantly to the undeserving. He reached toward people who had nothing to offer Him in return. And the more I came to know Him, the more I realized something that had been true all along: He had been knocking on the door of my heart my entire life.
I had spent so much of my life trying to make myself known, trying to make myself worthy, trying to fill the emptiness with things that could never satisfy me. Yet the One who knew me completely had been there all along. He did not ask me to become perfect before coming to Him. He called me to come as I was.
That is what I am grateful for. I am grateful that when I could not find a reason to get out of bed, He gave me a reason to live. When I was ashamed of what was inside me, He called me into the light. When I was searching for love, He showed me a love I could never earn. I found it all when I finally looked at Him.
Jesus did not simply change what I believe in. He changed what I was living for. I am beginning to understand that the life I was so desperately trying to build for myself was never what I truly needed.
I needed Him.
Love in Christ,
Willow Fredericks