God is good!

by Michaela
(TX)

Let me set up the story for you first:

*I wasn't raised in the Church, I wasn't even raised in the building. My family and I were kind of Agnostic, with references every now and then to Jesus/God.

*I don't remember calling myself 'ugly' until I was 9 years old. I suffered from low self esteem.

*I was and still am kind of quiet, and didn't (and don't) have a lot of friends. In the 4th grade, I had maybe 2 or 3 friends, but one of them left me for another crowd.

*In 5th grade, I managed to make more friends, but I also started drama between two of them - it was entertaining to me.

When I turned 11 and entered sixth grade, I had 2 main friends, and other friends I wasn't as close to. However, by the time December hit, I had lost almost all of the friends I wasn't as close to, and "kept" the 2 main ones. I lost the others through arguments, not spending as much time with them, or just cutting off our friendship (because one of my main friends was annoyed by them).

However, one of my many lies landed me a suspension and an expulsion, and I lost everything I had worked so hard to keep. I already had low self esteem, but the suspension added to it, and I fell into a deep depression and attempted suicide 4 times. I had to start all over at another school, but that school and I didn't work out because I was bullied often, the thoughts of which I still remember and sometimes still get to me.

My parents took me out of that school, (now we're at school 3) and they entered me in another. This school was better, but my depression never left. It never seemed to leave until 7th grade, when I made friends again. My younger sister later told me that she was praying that I would make friends.

However, these friends I made, I had to leave behind because my family and I were moving again. At this new location, I didn't make friends. I would get depressed over there, I wanted friends, however, that depression wasn't nearly as deep as it was in the 6th grade.

However, it was in that place, the summer after 8th grade, that I found out about Jesus, and accepted Him as my Lord and Savior. No one had ever told me that Jesus loved me, and that He would be my friend. On the first day of 9th grade, as the other students talked to their friends, I talked to mine in prayer :).

That's not to say that I still don't suffer from low self esteem sometimes, or that I don't get down every now and then. But I have prayer, and I have Jesus!

God bless you!