“I will love you for you, not for what you have done or what you will become, I will love you for you, I will give you the love, the love that you never knew.”
—“What Love Really Means” by JJ Heller, from the album When I’m With You

There came a time in my life when I finally realized I was never going to be “worthy” enough to earn the love I desperately wanted from people.

Okay, hold up a second. I think I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Let’s go back and start from the beginning…

Like so many others in their early teens, I had a HUGE struggle with self esteem. I didn’t like who I was, and I never felt good enough. I saw all the other “popular” kids my age and I couldn’t figure out why they didn’t like me, or better yet, why I couldn’t be like them. That being said, I went through a pretty awkward time in my life trying to fit in. Buying the clothes others wore, listening to the music everyone else was listening to, watching the TV shows I should have been watching, and much more. My excuse was how much I wanted to ‘stand out’, when in reality, I was trying to fit in. I wanted people to love me for me, so I tried being exactly like them. 

Reminiscing about it now, I see how silly it was, but back then, I took nothing more seriously, even my relationship with God. The whole time I knew the things I was doing weren’t right, but all I could see was how much I wanted to fit in. All I wanted was the acceptance and the “love” of others, even if it meant doing what I knew was wrong. I didn’t care. Thank God He was patient with me because I could have easily wound up in a bunch of trouble, and while I didn’t take the severe path and wind up in juvie somewhere (it never even came close to that), I did wind up somewhere that could easily be considered worse: depressed.

How often do you hear adults tell kids, "it’s just hormones?" Yeah well, I was one of those kids. No one knew how miserable I was (well, expect God, but I’m getting ahead of my story again), and every time someone tried to write me off on the statistic of a moody teenager, things got worse. All the things I had been trying to do to get people to accept me not only hurt me further, but it didn’t make them accept me at all. From such self hatred and insecurity, stems one of the biggest lies of the enemy: we will never be good enough, our life has no value, and no one will ever love us. I’d bought into this, and big time. I began to consider things I had never considered before ever, including ‘is my life even worth it if no one cares?’

Alright, alright, so the first half of this story wasn’t exactly a bowl of sunshine, but I promise, it has a happy ending.

After all this, in the middle of all my insecurities and sadness, there finally came a moment in my life when I realized I wanted to be okay. I will never forget it: I was sitting in church, and I saw everyone in the sanctuary with their hands lifted, worshiping God, and something inside of me broke down. Not a break down like I’d been having with tears and anger (because my parents will attest to this—for about three months of my life, I was a walking train wreck), but a break down of myself. Something about seeing people worship will hit you unlike anything else. To see someone willingly surrender to God will mess you up—in a good way of course.

I knew God was there for me the whole time, but for the first time in the entire situation, I finally looked to Him. I acknowledged Him by lifting my hands and crying out to Him, I repented for my behavior and simply asked if He would forgive me and take me back. In that moment, something amazing happened. I experienced grace for the first time in my life, and in an instant, I’d felt something I’d never really felt before: God’s love. In recent years, God has completely changed my life. The moment I allowed Him to love me was the moment I realized I didn’t need to fit in to stand out. 

It says in Psalm 139:14 that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Another translation says, “You shaped me first inside, and out”. As I began to fall more in love with God, I also began to see who I really was, and why He loved me. He loves me because I am ME, because He made me—not because I have earned it, and not because I do what everyone else does. As God’s love for me became clear, so did my understanding, and when I finally saw that, I became content with who God made me to be. For the first time in my life, as funny as it sounds, I liked myself, because God made me, and more than that, because He loves me for me. 

This is something so many people today struggle with, possibly even you. Maybe it’s not with confidence or self worth, but maybe it’s with how you look. You don’t think your attractive enough, you don’t feel smart enough, you always feel like something needs to change so you can feel accepted. I know because I’ve been there. But I’m asking you to hear me out. You don’t have to feel that way. God loves you for who you are, not for who you think you need to be. He created you in HIS imagine and HIS likeness. You are fearfully and wonderfully made from the inside out, and nothing can change that.

There is a line at the very end of JJ Heller's latest single, "What Love Really Means," that says “I will give you the love, the love that you never knew.” This is so true. The very second you allow God’s love to infiltrate your life, you will never see yourself the same way again. His love will change the way you live. His love will change the way you see and treat others. But most of all, His love will set you free.

I encourage you today to take that first step, to let go of your pain and allow God’s love to take over. I can promise you…you’ll never look back.