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from since. By the time she was a young teenager, though outwardly<br />
popular, she was still inwardly broken, regularly crying herself to<br />
sleep, and overwhelmed with the sense that her dad didn’t love her<br />
enough to stay or return. To mask the pain, she sought other people’s<br />
approval, and started excessive underage drinking.<br />
During this season, despite her mum becoming a Christian, she<br />
hated church and had become intellectually convinced that the<br />
Christian faith was untrue. All this began to change when she was<br />
invited to a youth meeting. There, for the first time in her life, she<br />
sensed God speaking to her and recalls how at that moment<br />
‘everything I didn’t believe about God was blown out of the water’.<br />
She immediately began a ‘scientific’ exploration to see if Christianity<br />
could be true, and whether God was indeed good, kind and loving as<br />
Christians claimed. She read the Bible, beginning with John’s Gospel.<br />
As she did, she realised that this ‘all adds up – that there is a God<br />
who knows us better than we know ourselves’. One morning she<br />
decided to say yes to the risen Jesus and give her life to him. From<br />
that moment the healing process began, as God ‘showed himself as<br />
a loving Father who was present all along’. This journey has continued<br />
through her teens into her 20s: ‘Not only does he know about my<br />
childhood, my present, my future, he knows my name. His love has<br />
just completely redefined everything.’<br />
PAUSE AND PONDER<br />
How do you respond to the thought that Jesus is not only<br />
alive but is interested in you – that he knows your name,<br />
wants to reveal himself to you and show his unconditional<br />
love to you?
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