Created For a Reason

I remember being about fourteen years old when I started questioning why I was born. The world around me seemed so pointless and repetitive. I was raised in an abusive home, and also watched people get hooked on drugs, become alcoholics, cheat, fight and betray each other. One day my mother sent me to the store for her, and I remember walking up the street, and looking in the sky and telling God that if He was real, then he needed to let me know, otherwise I was out, because life seemed to have no point to it.

My demand of God did not come from brokenness or hopelessness; but from the realization that I did not ask to come into the world, so why should I stay, I didn't like it. While on that walk to the store, and considering the world around me, the world that I was born into, I realized that I could step out of it. Just as soon as I realized that I could leave this world, I remembered God. Although I did not intimately know God on a personal level, other than the times I prayed during the fights in our home, and asked God to change my father. Yet at that moment God popped into my head, which lead me to demand that He reveal himself to me or else I was quitting life.

After that walk, I went on with my life, and forgot about my demand of God or my realization that I didn't have to stay in this world. But God did not forget my heartfelt cry to Him, and He began to make Himself known to me in little ways. I remember there was this little red church on the street behind my childhood house, and you could here all kinds of noise coming from that church, and I would tell myself that one day I would find out what was going on in that building, but I never did.

I finished school, went to business school, obtained a full-time job, started dating, and eventually had my heart broken emotionally, which led me back to wondering what is the point of it all? During this time of questioning the point to human existence, I remembered that little red church and started mentally planning on going to a church. It was during this same time, that a co-worker invited me to her church. I agreed to come because I was already considering going to a church.

In 1991, during one church service, one message, my whole world made sense. Finally, someone explained who God was, and I found out what Jesus had done for me. When I went home, I remember sitting on my bed and praying to Jesus for the first time; I never knew Him or what He had done for the world, and that He has always been watching and listening to me, waiting for me to want Him. I learned the truth, that I was created on purpose, my life was not in vain, and although the world that I was born into was hard and painful, I had never been alone and always loved!

So began my life long love affair with God! Eventually I joined that church, I took three buses and walked a distance to get to the church, and I would be the first one there, sitting on the steps, waiting for the church to be opened, why? Because finally I knew that my life mattered, and I was placed here for a reason, and I had found my never ending love, Jesus!

You may feel that you don't matter, or wonder why you were created, but you can rest assured that you matter to God and He created you for a purpose! Jesus never said that we would not suffer or be hurt in this lifetime, but He did promise to be with us, and deliver us. Remember that we have and enemy to contend with as well, Satan, but Jesus defeated Him, and therefore we can live in Jesus' victory. Talk to God, trust Jesus, and watch your life change, day by day.

Alva Williams

01/09/2021