All throughout my childhood and into my teen years, I was shy--shy to the point that if I saw someone I knew at a store I would go to the next aisle to hide.

Then the summer before my junior year in high school, something happened. Actually, several things happened. My mom fell into a depression--which made things at home a hard to deal with. Then, towards the end of the summer, I was told by my closest friend that the group we hung out with thought I was clingy and didn't want me hanging around any more. And, our family started going back to church.

At church, I heard things I had heard many times before--that God loved me and had sent his son, Jesus, to die for my sins. These were things I had believed since I was little. But I realized something that had never sunk in before--that if God loved me THAT MUCH, what others thought of me didn't really matter. It was at that point that God became real to me in a personal way.

Then, the last day of the summer at a youth group meeting, when they asked for prayer requests I asked for confidence.

The next day I came to school, knowing that I would have to walk the halls alone with no friends to walk with me. Though I didn't mind being by myself, being by myself in a crowd was always terrifying to me. But I walked the halls that day and did not feel alone. It was truly like Jesus was walking with me.

I would like to say I have felt that presence ever since. I am just beginning to climb out of a long, long valley where God has seemed very un-real and far away. And yet even in these times He has given me moments of light to remind me that He is still here, walking with me.