At my high school we have a retreat called Search that students have the opportunity to go on once they are Juniors. There are three Search retreats every year, and Seniors who have already been participants get to be leaders. One of the main elements of this retreat is the opportunity for the leaders to share their testimonies.
I was a leader on Winter search in 2017, and my talk was called “Prayer in my Life.” While I have added and changed a couple pieces, this is my talk. Some parts might sound a little different than my usual posts because it is in a talk format and not a blog post format.
It is very vulnerable. I was grappling with whether or not I should post this in such a public way, but I have increasingly felt called to share it. For you to better understand me and where my faith comes from, it is very helpful if you know my story.
So here is my story:
God is searching for you.
Jesus is searching for a personal relationship with you.
It took me a lot of brokenness and a lot of struggle to realize this, but once I did, it changed my life.
I grew up in a grounded, faith filled, big Catholic family. With two charismatically Catholic parents and eight younger siblings, my childhood was filled with retreats, Catholic summer camp, praying nightly rosaries and going to monthly confession. I could count on one hand how many times I had missed Sunday Mass, and faith was an integral part of my life without any of my own personal decision. I thought I had it all together.
The issue …. was that while I knew so much about Jesus, I did not know him.
But, by the time I got to 7th grade, with God secondary to my life interests, I was feeling great about everything.
I had a strong friend group at my Catholic grade school, was a lead in the High School Musical school play, didn’t struggle in school, and my family life was solid. I was also stoked to make my first club volleyball team – life could not be better.
Fast forward three months into 7th grade. November 2013.
Volleyball could not be worse.
I loved the girls on my team, I loved the sport, but my coach for some reason had it out for me in most aspects of playing.
During practice, she would purposely criticize my hitting and passing, constantly throw me dirty looks, and gave me close to no playing time at each 8 hour long tournament. Throughout the time of a seven month season, it sucked. Her name was Whitney. I did not like Whitney.
I thought to myself: What am I doing wrong, why does she hate me, why am I not good enough? These questions plagued me.
I am a person who likes to have control.
In this situation I had none, and I hated it. Even more, I hated myself for it.
On top of this, I was a 13 year old middle schooler who was already dealing with insecurity, not feeling worthy, and that my life wasn’t good enough.
I was oblivious to the abundance of blessings in front of me, and instead only focused on the negative.
So, with these things combined, I decided to punish myself for not being good enough.
In December of 2013, I began to cut myself. I would close the door to my room after everyone went to sleep and used razor blades to cut my wrists and legs.
Outside factors were hurting me so much, but this was one area I had full control.
Externally I was fine, and as someone who keeps my emotions boxed up deep down inside of me – everything appeared okay to my friends and family. Externally.
Internally? I was broken, I hated myself, I was spiritually lost, and any prayer in my life was forced family prayer at night and mass on Sunday, where I didn’t pay attention and just wanted to go home.
To me, God was someone who was clearly disappointed in me because I wasn’t good enough for Him.
I remember the day after the first time I cut myself.
I went to school and walked into my algebra class, and a boy noticed the scar on my wrist and said, “oh, are you cutting yourself now?”, and everyone laughed because I would obviously be the last person to do that. I laughed too but to myself I thought, “they cannot find out. I have to hide this better.”
I began wearing only long sleeve uniform sweaters and hid my scars well, and cut myself high enough on my legs that my volleyball spandex would cover them.
Another way for me to express my self hatred was through writing.
I love to write, especially in journals, and I have about 20 journals on my bookshelf right now. Back then, I would write about what a worthless person I was.
Eventually I wrote a suicide letter in one.
If any of you have siblings, you know the reality of them sneaking into your stuff, so I wrote at the top of the letter a disclaimer that it was fake because my siblings were bound to find it. They never found it and I never attempted suicide, but that was my lowest point.
Some people might claim that people who self harm do it for attention, but, as a very private person, I never told anyone about this struggle- not my parents or friends or anyone. The first time I told someone was when I practiced my talk at a Search meeting, and then when I gave the talk to about 60 people on Search. I also gave my parents this talk printed out on Christmas. But back then, I was extremely secretive about it.
At the end of 7th grade the physical self harm faded out because I was so embarrassed about it, but the mental and emotional self harm were still present, and I still did not feel worthy.
In the summer before freshman year, my parents had me attend Steubenville Northwest, a Catholic youth conference in Spokane.
On Saturday night, we listened to a talk by the keynote speaker, and in the dark auditorium with 2000 other teenagers, the speaker told us how his wife had lost a baby through miscarriage, and he told us how he was tempted to lose faith in God but instead decided to surrender to God’s plan.
This story touched me very deeply. As many of you know, I have a lot of siblings, and 8 of them are alive today. But, I also have 14 siblings in heaven who died from miscarriage.
And listening to the speaker tell about his experience resonated very deeply with me
and that night my relationship with Jesus changed.
During that talk and during adoration later, I broke down crying when I realized how much God loved me, not as someone he wanted to punish, but as his daughter.
I was lost, I had emotional scars, but I was the daughter of a king.
The daughter of the God who created the world. And he loved me.
He loves you. So much.
Before this, I was trying so hard to control all aspects of my life on my own, and I didn’t even consider God as an option for healing.
I still struggle with control all the time. I plan, I strategize, and I lay out a whole agenda of what I want to do (shoutout to the ENTJ in me), while often forgetting to ask God for His input.
But that night I finally let go.
Faith was no longer a duty, requirement, or burden.
It was peace, it was joy, it was my choice.
This changed how I prayed, and it healed the broken feelings inside of me.
I was free.
After this, my faith life grew, and I began to pray because I wanted to.
I am not saying my life became perfect after this experience, but through every struggle I now encountered, from not making a volleyball team to not getting the job at a summer camp I wanted to an abundance of other small struggles, I knew I was not alone. You are not alone.
The struggles were present, but God was also present to walk me through them because I had prayer.
His strength overcame the weakness I encountered in life, and by talking to Him and telling him, “Hey, I’m struggling, can you please help me out”, I was able to get through every difficulty.
The next phase of my prayer life was realizing that prayer is a two way street.
It couldn’t just be me asking God for favors, or turning to Him in times of need.
You guys all know this reality. You’re in a sports game or difficult situation and you want something SO bad, so … you start to bargain with God.
“Please God, let me win this game, and if you do, I will pray 15 rosaries a day for the rest of my life. I promise.
Just let me win this game. Just let me get this job. Just let this boy like me back.”
But prayer is a two way street.
I learned that it meant praising God through the good times too, and listening to what he had to say to me.
When I started to talk to God more and invested in my relationship with Him, I started to receive even more blessings.
I started a video production business, I became a counselor at my favorite summer camp, and I realized how big God’s plan for my life was.
Fast forward to 2017.
A couple months ago, I discovered a mission trip organization called the World Race Gap Year through Adventures in Missions. It sends students on gap year mission trips to different parts of the world to serve the poor and broken.
In October I decided to apply but was very unsure if I would be accepted.
Part of the application process includes a phone interview, and during my interview, I began to have feelings of uncertainty and unworthiness, that I could not possibly have the skills to go do this mission work.
The woman on the phone assured me that I was worthy, and she said she felt called to share Joshua 1:9 with me. She said the verse, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go”, and it sounded very familiar.
I realized my mom had gotten this bible verse for me to hang on my wall for my birthday about a month before, so I already knew the rest of the verse.
I smiled because God’s timing is so perfect.
As you know, I ended up getting accepted to the World Race, and next year will embark on a 9 month mission trip to Guatemala, Thailand, Malaysia, and Swaziland. I will encounter broken people, but I am no stranger to brokenness. This kind of prayer will be bringing love to the lost, by serving and bringing prayer to others.
I like to block out my past and not think about it. For an orderly person like me, blocking it out sometimes seems easier. But without that struggle, I would not be as strong as I am today.
You might be wondering how to find healing in your own life.
I promise you, if you commit to spend even 5 more minutes a day talking to God, and letting him form your life, it will change you in ways you could not dream of. He will open doors you didn’t know existed. In so many aspects of life, prayer can be present if we only make the choice to do it.
If we go halfway, God will meet us there.
A phrase that we hear on Search is “never stop searching”. While it’s important for us to never stop searching for God, I also like to remember that it goes both ways, and that God is searching for us.
He is searching for us in our brokenness.
He is searching for us in our weakness.
And he will never stop searching to heal us.
He will never stop searching to heal you.
So, through prayer, if you trust Him and listen to Him and search for Him,
you will find his love.
If you got this far, thank you for taking the time to read all of this, I hope you all gained something from it, and please continue your prayers for me and the rest of those on Route 4, we need lots of it. If you feel called to donate, I am still far from my requirement, and the place to donate is at the top of my blog! 🙂
Peace
MG
