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Not afraid to die “One day I’m going to kill myself”, I thought to myself. This was the time of my rough early teenager years. My life consisted of school, hate, pornography, and video games. I felt betrayed by my friends and family, as if they had always been against me. At age 12 I felt I was not too young to die. It was around grade 8 that time. I lived in a family of four including my sister and was classified as the loner and computer nerd. I only had a few friends, who were old childhood friends that didn’t have classes with or share lockers next to. I spent most of my recesses walking around the field alone, because I didn’t want to play with my friends in the playground. At the time, the family situation was deteriorating as my parents got angrier with my older sister. They felt she was becoming too rebellious and would complain about how she would come back home at 1:00 in the morning. About two times a week I would hear my dad screaming at my sister for her behavior while she would constantly talk back to him in a never ending battle. Nobody noticed me, nobody talked to me, I felt nobody cared for me. My life was such a confusing mess. My condition became worse as I moved onto more immoral things. I started doing pornography, as I felt it was the only thing to satisfy the loneliness in my heart. I was introduced to drugs and cigarettes, but I watched enough videos in health class to understand a thing or too about them so I stayed away from those. All I wanted was the care and compassion from other people. One day my sister invited me to go to a meeting on Fridays for young people at the church she went to. “Whatever” I thought. I didn’t really think about church meetings. I didn’t need religion, I set my own goals. I didn’t need help – that was for old people. Every Friday there was nothing to do but to play video games or watch TV. Video games seemed to fill the empty space a bit, but you can’t play video games all night! So that Friday night I sat in the back row of a stuffed small room, surrounded by completely unfamiliar faces as some guy in the front row played some music. Afterwards I was asked by the people to introduce myself. I was completely flattered and barely mumbled some words out. Then a girl approached me and introduced herself as “Rita”. Rita was unlike any of the friends I had known at school, including everyone else there. They were friendlier, always smiled, and loved to extend out handshakes too! The impression I felt was that they were like a family. Oh how I wanted to be like that too! I wanted to find out what was their secret formula, so I continued attending the meeting (which was called Kyrios) and every time I went I felt much better than the miserable person at home. This became a turning point in my life. At a summer camp Kyrios went to, along with other churches (that I had no clue even existed!) the speaker, known as Ed, told me how he had found Jesus. “Oh not another religious freak”, I thought. But he talked about how Jesus died for him personally, and for each of us. He explained how Jesus was like his best friend, and that he felt really free for the first time in his life. He said that if we let Jesus into our life, we too, could feel free. I realized that I too needed Jesus in my life. Ed also mentioned that I needed to respond to that, and to allow Jesus to change my life around. With tears in my eyes, I asked God to forgive me, change me, and enter my life. I promised to stop living life my way. That night I felt a light happiness in my head. I found it easier to get over my addictions, overcome difficult situations, and understand people better. My life was slowly transforming. Even with Jesus by my side it does not make my life any easier. I still struggle with friends, family, school, work, and many other things. There’s this inner peace I’ve never had before. Now I feel accepted and not often lonely anymore. Click HERE to return to the edited story Click HERE to create a banner that links to this story! Your e-mail address will be kept private!
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