Jenna’s story

Hi! My name is Jenna and I never knew how much God loved me until I tried to walk away from him. I grew up embraced in God’s blessings and I knew who He was from a very young age, but not personally. I thought God was a judge, and the bible was a checklist of rules that I needed to check off in order to make Him proud. Growing up without having that relationship with Him, I didn’t know who I was and I tried changing myself to fit the socially acceptable mold. Without an identity in Christ, I was trying to find it out in the world, only to be let down time and time again. Trying to carry all these burdens on my own was exhausting. It was only when I heard the words of Matthew 11:28 that I came to Jesus and fully surrendered my life to Him at the age of 16. Hearing the words “come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I (Jesus) will give you rest” made me realize that Jesus wasn’t wanting me to be perfect, He just wanted me to come to him so He could be made perfect through me. The biggest change in my life was that I now felt like Jesus was walking beside me every second of every day, instead of the judge sitting on His throne that I used to see Him as. Understanding that Jesus cared about me just as I was, I now knew my identity. The reason I couldn’t “find myself” before was because, as I now understood, that apart from Christ I am nothing. Dying to myself and my will daily, though I still struggle and fail, is the only way that Christ is able to live through me and I am able to live out the words of Galatians 2:20, that it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me!