I Found My Purpose In Jesus

{via}

We all have had those times in life when we've felt absolutely worthless.
Scared, broken, alone, and tired.

I know that I have. Plenty of times. 

But I have found my purpose. In Jesus.

I lost my way earlier this year. It started around December, probably.
It was when I first realized how broken I truly was. There were scars from my past that kept coming back to haunt me and nothing that I was doing at the time felt good enough. Not for anyone; my parents, my friends, my teachers, not even God. It felt like I was slipping into this dark hole and that there was nobody who would be able to bring me out of it, because it just felt so hopeless.

I guess you could say that I stopped participating in life. I would go to school and hardly talk to anyone and come home and hardly talk to anyone. I was sad and breaking and I felt like no one saw that. I felt like no one could see the way my heart was shattering, or the way that I struggled to breathe sometimes. And that only made it hurt worse. It hurt that no one seemed to care enough to see through the walls that I'd built up. It hurt that no one just came up to me and said "hey, Shiloh. I know you're not okay. What's going on?" I just wanted someone to understand, to see how hard I was trying to make it through. But nobody was doing that.

I didn't start to feel better until this month, not really anyway. I'm good at pretending now, to be honest. But then Jesus got my heart again. He got my attention. I was at Winter Jam in Lexington, and Tenth Avenue North was doing their set; singing their song "The Struggle" and these were the words I was hearing:

there's a wreckage, there's a fire
there's a weakness in my love
there's a hunger i can't control
Lord, i falter and i fall down
and i hold on to the chains you broke 
when you came and saved my soul
...
hallelujah we are free to struggle
we're not struggling to be free
your blood bought and it makes us children
children drop your chains and sing
...
hallelujah death is overcome
and we are breathing
hallelujah our stone hearts become
flesh that's beating
hallelujah chains have been undone
and we are singing
hallelujah the fire has begun

And it was during that song that I just felt Jesus telling me that he's been there. He was there the entire time, even though I didn't realize it. He was there when I was in my room crying until three a.m. He was there when people made off-handed comments that stung more than they should have. He was there when I didn't want to wake up, and when I even thought about giving into the temptation to hurt myself. He was there through all of it; the good days and the bad ones and He continues to just be there.

He was the person I was looking for; the one who said: "Shiloh, I know your not okay. I know that you're hurting. I'm here for you and I love you." And I can't tell you how much that alone healed my heart. He's taking the broken pieces of my life and constructing them back together in a way that has started to change me. And I'm not so afraid anymore. His perfect love is casting out my fear. The fear that I had constantly had for the past few months.

I have a purpose. I'm not too far broken. I can be fixed and I am being fixed.
Because of Jesus.
I found myself there,
in the arms of a savior who wants nothing more than to love me.
In the arms of a savior who gave up his life for me.
To save me from myself.
I found my purpose in Jesus.
And I'm getting better and better every day.

xx, Shiloh.