As someone having faith in God, I can say life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. Following Him doesn’t mean I am always going to have an easy life. In fact, I feel like it gets harder. Faith gets tested. There have been moments where I’ve strayed away from the path God intended me to walk, and I thought I was doing well. That thought is only because I didn’t question Him. I didn’t even bother dipping my hands into religion. God for me, in those moments, was non existent. That soon faded.

I was born into a Christian household. I have heard about Him everyday of my childhood. I always went to Sunday school. I had a relationship with God, but I broke it off. I left Him. I rejected Him and abandoned Him. I pushed Him to the side. I wanted to do my own thing. Have control of my own life. If I can say anything about God is that He seriously won’t accept that rejection. He constantly is in pursuit. He’s relentless. He wants you. He wanted me back then. He wants me now. Something happened where I found myself falling at His feet. Life got too ugly for me. Everyone noticed I wasn’t the same. I hated who I became, so I let myself be transformed by Him. Ever since then, I knew life can’t be done without Him.

It’s not that I have rejected and abandoned Him lately, it’s that I didn’t reciprocate. A relationship involves two people. My good friend said to me, “Our relationship with God is like any other relationship you have with your friends or family. It’s a two way relationship not a one way. Like would you want one of your friends to constantly talk and never give you a chance to talk? No absolutely no I don’t think anyone would like that. That’s not a relationship if that’s what’s happening. That’s what God wants. He wants His say in the conversation. A lot of times we forget to stop and let Him speak like really stop and listen because we’re always trying to get answers…” The conversation was mainly about prayer but it opened my eyes to see that my relationship with God was really crappy. I wouldn’t let God have a say or a turn to get what I needed.

I was just receiving and hardly giving back. It was take, take, take. “Gimme, gimme, gimme because You love me.” I realized in that moment that even though I didn’t reject God, I still pushed Him to the side. I didn’t give Him the time of day He deserved. I wasn’t putting Him first like He wants. Life wasn’t working the way I wanted it to, and I had no idea until that very conversation with my friend. Reading my devotional every day isn’t enough to maintain a relationship with God. I would small talk Him, like “Hey, today sucks. Fix it, will ya?” But it would feel like He wouldn’t. Sometimes He would do this thing where he lets me think He doesn’t heat me until the next day where He does some crazy miracle. He laughs at me like “Ayy, you thought I left you. You’re funny. I’m here.” When he does things like that, I am so surprised. Like “Yo, Big Man upstairs, You love me. You really do. You the real MVP.” He loves me. He always manages to let me know just how much. Let me tell you, it’s a lot. I have come close to death, but that Man. That Man loves me tremendously.

I’ve really struggled with figuring out who I am. What makes me? What defines me? I know what I’m not. Sometimes I do something and I feel like that one simple action defines me. I found this quote that says, “The things that we love tell us what we are.” That hit me hard. God is supposed to define me. He is my Creator. My Maker. He knows me better than anyone else. I am His work, His doing. His hands molded me a certain way. Who better than Him knows who I am? Who besides Him can tell me who I am? Nobody. No human being can tell me who I am. The problem was, I kept looking for people to tell me who I am. I don’t know who I am, but people seemed to know me really well. They could tell me who I am, right? Not exactly. So my next problem was, how come I wasn’t hearing anything from God about me?

That’s because I wasn’t listening. I would say, “Speak, I’m listening,” but I wasn’t. I was deaf. I actually wasn’t giving Him the time of day to talk. It was all one sided and I would get frustrated with Him. I’m ridiculous. Eventually I realized that I wasn’t loving Him like He deserves. Don’t get me wrong. I love the Man. He saved my life from the burning fire, multiple times. I just wasn’t loving Him as greatly. I wasn’t prioritizing properly. So when I kept looking for answers on who I was, I obviously wasn’t getting anything.

Currently, I am learning to love God. Learning to love new sides of Him. Life is actually really hard right now, but He promised it would be worth it. I have faith in Him. I am learning patience, grace, elegance, softness, and many other qualities of a queen. I am a queen. I was made queen for such a time as this. I am learning to put Him first. 

In no way am I trying to get you to convert through this post. I just wanted to convey a side hardly anybody hears from believers. I also want to let you know that He loves me. He really loves you, no matter where you are in life. I love you, you beautiful human.