Gabby’s Story
My name is Gabby. I believe that inside all of us there is a longing for something deeper and richer than the things we merely see and experience in this world. In many ways I feel that my life has been made of moments of desperation, times when I felt my weakest—but have resulted in the most beautiful thing I have ever known.
My story begins stepping off an airplane on a dusty evening in the middle of Central Asia. My parents moved my family to Uzbekistan as humanitarian workers and as people who love an unchanging, faithful God. Although this was too much for my 7 year old mind to grasp, I understood two things: that God was somewhere out there, and that He was important enough for my family to live in a mud house for the next nine years of my life.
Those nine years in Uzbekistan were incredibly lonely for all of us. I learned to comprehend at very young age that my girl playmates would be married off to strangers whom even after a lifetime of marriage they would never know, while I would return to the States and enjoy an education. I felt frustrated. I felt that it was unfair and so in order to keep myself from feeling the pain of my friends’ futures I alienated myself.
God was always this person that I was suppose to love. But really I had no concept of what that looked like. I would feel guilty when I wouldn’t love him as much as my parents seemed to. I did not understand who he was. He was distant and my soul longed for something that I couldn’t understand how he could offer.
When I was about 14, I gave up on God. I had no evidence of his existence in my life and I was tired of constantly feeling guilty about not loving him as I was told I should. I remember sitting in my room in almost-physical pain because I was yearning for something that I felt did not exist. I wanted meaning greater than myself, and I was angry at God for abandoning me. I will always remember what I prayed with angry tears that night, “God, if you exist, MAKE ME LOVE YOU. I don’t. I barely even have the desire to. But I am desperate and so if you are real, come find me because I have no more strength to look for you anymore.”
And He did. At this point in my life going to school involved trying to please my peers by being a cool, western, MTV-inspired American. I had no real friends, boys would slam me into the wall and not let me go until a teacher told them to stop, I spent my time telling myself that if I just looked pretty enough that maybe people would love me more. After I gave my heart to God, I asked my parents to take me out of school and they did. I became friends with some other American girls my age who loved God deeply and showed me what it meant to live in Jesus’ love. I experienced joy like nothing I had ever felt before. My life didn’t get easier on the outside by any means, but on the inside I had peace. Jesus had pursued and found me just like I had asked Him to!
Since then I have not been perfect my any means. And I still have times when I am in tears because the pain in my life. But because Jesus died for my sin, He opened the door for me to know Him personally. My best friend is the same person who created the universe and that never ceases to amaze me. And because of that I have the peace I longed for so ardently in my life and in my heart. Thank you for reading my story.
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