Message to Young People
If I was standing in front of a group of young people, I’d say to you “Don’t be like me..!! Don’t be like I was. It hurt too much..!!”
What you’re going through is nothing new. It didn’t start with your generation or with mine. Temptations to be like others, to do what they do, started a very long time ago. The desire to belong and to be loved is a God-given desire. However, the peer pressure you are most likely facing is not from God.
There is a devil who goes about day by day, and night be night, looking for someone to devour. Your only protection is in surrender to Jesus, who went to the cross for your sins (and mine), taking the punishment we so rightly deserved and giving us eternal life in its place. The temptations will still come after the surrender to the Lord, but you’ll then have Him with you 24/7 to help you. Any time day or night, all you have to do is to call on His Name and He’ll hear you and help with whatever you need help with. Isn’t that cool..!!
In my day, we used other words that wouldn’t probably make sense to a young person. Times change and people change. But God never changes. What He said to you once upon a time still stands. He hasn’t changed His mind, even though every person on the planet changes their minds at times…and He still loves you. He hasn’t ever stopped loving you. You’re so important to Him that He wants to have a personal relationship with you. Yes, you..!!
When I was your age, I didn’t know these things. I didn’t have anyone tell me that I could have a personal relationship with the Creator of the Universe. I looked for love in all of the wrong places, but never found it…until I found its Source, God who created the whole Universe and that includes you and me.
I thought love was found in the arms of a man. It wasn’t. They lied, saying that they loved me because they wanted something from me and I gave them what they wanted only to be rejected afterwards. But God will never, ever reject you. Not ever.
There were many times when I got drunk and used drugs. Sometimes I did it just so I’d fit in with my “friends.” At other times, I did it because it felt good. It was fun to get high. But after a period of time, it wasn’t so much fun any more. And it took a lot of money to pay for my habits. My life pretty much consisted of going to work to pay for my habits and then spending it on foolish living.
Along the path of my life, I know that I hurt a lot of people and I hurt a lot, too. I didn’t have anyone to tell me what would happen if I continued doing what I was doing until it was too late. I was on a so-called merry-go-round, not knowing my way off of it or out of my pain. A couple of times, I tried to take my own life…once by an overdose of sleeping pills and another time with a razor blade to my wrist. Thank God there was someone there to induce vomiting and take me to the hospital when I took that overdose.
When I put the razor blade to my wrist, I just couldn’t do it. I saw that it was rusty and that brought me to the reality that I didn’t really want to end my life. I just wanted the lifestyle I was living to end. My life did change on November 30, 1979 when I prayed to ask Jesus into my life to be my Savior.
I wish I could say that from then on everything was peachy keen, but it wasn’t like that for me. There were many struggles I experienced along this new path. Not everyone accepted me. I was a misfit. No longer could I fit in with my former drinking buddies or those on drugs. It was like suddenly they were no longer in my life. I don’t know how that happened that they were all of a sudden gone, but that’s what happened.
I became a new creature in Christ, one that never before existed. The old me died and I was brand new. It’s not that I never sinned again, because I did…especially two years later. It happened because of some faulty teaching I heard. One pastor taught that if you were married in your heart, it’s okay to have sex. That hadn’t sounded right to me, so I went for a “second opinion.” The other pastor said to me, “Well, if you need it.”
This kind of teaching is dead set against what the Bible teaches. In my mental state, I backslid. I went back to what I’d done before I was saved. Finding another backslidden Christian on a city bus, I went to where he was staying and spent the night with him. After doing this for 3 nights, I had another mental breakdown resulting in hospitalization. The Bible teaches that fornication is a sin against your own body. If a person tells you they love you, they won’t want to make you sick…by engaging in sexual relations without first being married to you.
I learned my lesson the hard way. I cried and cried in repentance to God for having taken him into that sin with me. Before I was saved was one thing. But afterwards, Jesus was with me. I was so ashamed and embarrassed for what I’d done. I can’t undo what’s been done. But I can now share with others my experience in the hopes that they’ll choose another path instead of the one I chose.
The Bible also teaches that through sexual relations, the two people become one flesh. I certainly do not want that to happen to me again. I’ve had to undergo a lot of prayer to separate myself from the men I’d had relations with in times past. I’ve had to do a lot of intense meditation on God’s holy Word in order to renew my mind and not allow myself to think the thoughts I once thought.
The good news is: If you’ve already done some of the things I had done, you can stop. Cry out to Jesus for His help and know how much He loves you. He will set you free like He did for me. It might take some work on your part to renew your mind to His Word, but it’s well worth the effort it takes.
Know that you’re loved, by the King of the Universe and by me. If I can help you by sharing more with you, young person, please let me know. Don’t play games with me, though. I only want to help those who are serious about wanting my help.
Love,
Ann