True Friendships

By: Kamaya

    During my childhood and teenage years my life really was all about pleasing myself and doing things that made me happy.  One of the things that made me happy was being surrounded by friends.  My life revolved around hanging out with friends.  As a child I spent every waking minute playing with friends, as a teenager I spent about four hours each night chatting with friends online.  Friends were my life and I began to find my security and happiness in them and the time that I got to spend with them.  Over and over these friends that I found my happiness and security in began to let me down.  They would do things I didn’t agree with or decide they no longer wanted to be friends with me, which led to no phone calls or invitations to do things with them.  I was crushed, unhappy, and had no one to turn to.

    One summer while I was in high school I attended a church camp for a week.  During that week I was reminded that God created this world as a perfect place; however, we as people chose to sin and go against what God had for us.  Our wrong doing caused us to be separated from God, but God loved us so much that He found a way to restore our relationship with Him.  God sent His one and only son to earth to live a perfect life and die on the cross to pay the punishment we deserved for our wrong doing.  I was reminded all we need to do is accept this gift God has given us because then all our sins would be forgiven and our relationship with God would be restored.

    I grew up learning about the gift of forgiveness God gives us through Jesus; I actually accepted this gift into my life when I was eight years old.  However, as I continued to grow I began to find my happiness and security in friends instead of God.  That week at camp really taught me that I am not perfect and neither are the people around me.  I realized people are always going to let me down and the only lasting friendship I would ever find was the one I have with God who loves me so much that He paid the penalty for my past, present, and future sins.  It was at this point that I completely surrendered my life to Christ and began a relationship with Him.

    After surrendering to Christ, I really started to grow in understanding how much God really loved me and had a plan for my life that was far better than anyone or anything else ever could be.  I began turning to God when things were hard, when things were going well, and everything in between because no matter what He was there.  This relationship with God caused me to be full of joy and I felt a sense of security with Him that I had never felt before.  I realized that my relationship with God fulfilled me like no other friendship could.  I am no longer motivated to spend as much time with friends as possible because my relationship with God motivates me to love and care for my friends, family, and people around me by sharing with them about this wonderful gift of forgiveness that God has in store for each one of them.