I was so curious to learn
I didn’t grow up in a Christian family. My parents were both kind of Christian for their parents and my brother and I were baptized as babies, but the religion never stuck around in our family. In elementary and middle school, I made friends who were Christian, and being exposed to it made me curious. For Christmas, my number one request was a Bible. I was so curious to learn and pursue Jesus but the Bibles my parents would give me were just little kids Bible story books in Russian. We spoke Russian at home, but I wasn’t fluent in reading it so reading those Bibles was tough. Ever since that young age, I always kept Jesus in the back of my head but never really giving much thought or attention to him.
Freshman year of high school, I started dating this guy which first started off as nothing but eventually became one of my biggest life lessons. As our relationship grew stronger, my priorities shifted and my personal relationship with Jesus got weaker. We dated for 4 years, all throughout high school and running-start years of college. Our lives became intertwined and we became dependent on one another to determine our futures as a family. That was until he got an amazing opportunity to go to university in another state. Long distance didn’t work out, and I found myself left alone, in Washington, with a life I no longer knew the future of. It was scary and I felt alone. But I realized that the more distant I felt from everyone else, the more I felt myself looking to Jesus for comfort in my uncertainty.
After high school graduation, I applied to several different universities. Shortly after the breakup I got my acceptance letter to SPU and I knew it was a sign. God wanted me to be there. I felt that God was in control and at that point I realized that God had me. He is going to take care of me and lead me on the path in my life I have to go on, even though I don’t know what it is yet.
In 5-10 years I am hoping to have healed and found someone else who can make me happy, someone who will share my beliefs and help me grow in my faith. I want to be a travel nurse helping those who have little. I want to better the lives of those who have lost hope and feel like they have nothing more to live for. Something that seemed like such a bad thing is turning out to be a part of my testimony with Jesus and for that I am thankful.
