Profile: Justine
The kind of person that I am:
When nobody’s watching, I’m quiet, introspective, hard on myself, with high standards. And I can be pretty selfish!
I can be pretty content on my own and don’t need to have people around. Many of my friends laugh at me when I say that because they think I’m extroverted! But that’s only because I’ve had the time to myself to recharge so I can go enjoy company… If I haven’t had enough down time, I’m pretty snarky and am no good to anyone, including myself.
I dream of starting a card company that will communicate good news, encourage and challenge and touch people with words and truth, and open people’s eyes to different perspectives.
I also dream one day of helping other women learn how to be solid in who they are, and to be free from comparison to other people and free from expectations from themselves, their friends, from media…
My room matches me — it’s plain, simple, and has the bare minimums. Like me, it’s always on extremes, either completely clean, or looks like a tornado ran through it. It’s usually a reflection of how much control I have in my life at that moment in time.
>My favourite tunes or type of music: everything but country and metal.
Food I would consider dying for: anything white chocolate. Fruits and veggies! Japanese and Italian.
My spiritual journey:
Mind, body, spirit. We’ve heard the phrase before. In university we focus heavily on our mind and intellectual development. Some people take good care of their physical selves, while others trash themselves with all the alcohol and junk food they put into their bodies.
But I think it’s harder for people to take care of their spiritual self and pay attention to unseen things, spiritual things.
I tried to satisfy my spirit by filling my life with achievement and acceptance. Doing well in school, having a prestigious job, making lots of friends, filling my social calendar… I’m goal-oriented and driven to achieve and look for satisfaction in such things.
I had learned about God in church growing up, but when I got to university, I questioned his value and tested him out.
Mostly I was running my life myself and treated God like a tap, turning him on when I needed his help in an exam or some other tough spot. Then I’d turn him off when I wanted to do my own thing and when I could keep myself together just fine on my own.
I eventually got tired of being so inconsistently back and forth about God. So I decided to completely reject and remove God from my life. For two months I lived with some friends and worked hard, played hard, and did my own thing.
At the end of the two months, I was physically tired from work and partying. Emotionally I was weak and had made a few bad choices in relationships. I was giving parts of myself away that I was too weak to hold onto.
Spiritually I was dead. I felt so disconnected from God. Going my own way made me run opposite of God, and prevented me from being in close relationship with God. I felt the emptiness and heaviness in my spirit that was the consequence of my turning away from God and looking for approval from people.
I didn’t know God very well before, but I realized that the little I knew of him (the few times that I had experienced his love and presence personally) was surely better than the things that I thought would satisfy. I knew that I had to turn away from my own way and turn towards God.
I knew I had to give him my life completely, not just the bits and parts I wanted to give him at my convenience only when I wanted to. I knew I needed to give him my life because he had given his own life in the form of his son Jesus, to pay for mine. He came to live a perfect life on earth and die an undeserved and brutal death for me. I needed to let my independent selfish way die along with Jesus’ death so that I could spiritually come alive by knowing and loving God intimately.
I reached a turning point and decided to transfer to a university at the opposite end of the country to start my life over again. I knew I needed to disconnect myself from the things that were draining life out of me and let God breathe new life into me. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I arrived in a new city, new school, leaving all that I knew behind… the only thing that I could depend on was God.
Walking with God hasn’t always been easy, but his strength in me grows most when I am weakest, in the most challenging of situations because that’s when I realize he’s God and I’m not! It’s when I realize that he is my only constant, the only source of never changing approval, because it’s an acceptance based not on what I do or what people think of me, it’s based on what Jesus has done… and it’s a done deal! I’m forgiven and accepted!
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