I woke up one morning feeling… dirty.

Not on the outside—but deep within. I felt evil, bad, and weighed down in a way I couldn’t explain.

But honestly, that feeling wasn’t new.

Growing up, I struggled with verbal abuse from family members—people who were supposed to love me. They called me awful names. Implied I was dumb. And for a long time, I believed them. I battled with something that confused me deeply: how could the people who said they loved me make me feel so bad? I grew up thinking that love was supposed to hurt. That pain and love just came together.

So when I woke up that Sunday morning feeling the way I did, I carried all of that with me.

For some reason, I felt led to go to church.

I didn’t have a church home.

I didn’t know where to go.

No one around me my age was going.

But I got dressed anyway.

I got in my car and told myself, “The first church I pass, I’m going in.”

And I did.

I sat through the entire service, but I couldn’t tell you what was preached. I don’t remember the message. I don’t remember the songs.

All I remember… is the moment at the end.

I found myself walking up with tears streaming down my face—real, uncontrollable tears. I didn’t fully understand what was happening, but I knew one thing:

I wanted Jesus.

I raised my hands, and in that moment, something happened that I still can’t fully explain. It felt like love—real love—rushed through my entire body. It was overwhelming, almost like an out-of-body experience.

And for the first time in my life, I knew… I was loved.

All of me.

Not parts of me. Not the cleaned-up version of me. But all of me.

For someone who had grown up never truly feeling that—who had been told through words and actions that she wasn’t enough—it changed everything in an instant.

From that moment on, I believed.

I didn’t understand everything, but I knew I couldn’t go back to being the same person. Even things that once felt normal to me—like how I spoke—began to change. I used to love profanity. It was a part of how I expressed myself. But after that day, I couldn’t even bring myself to speak that way anymore.

It was like something in me had shifted.

I started going back to that church—it was right down the street—but I didn’t stop there. I wanted to know more about Jesus, so I visited many different churches. At the time, I didn’t even know I could just open a Bible myself. So I relied on pastors and what they taught. Until eventually, I started reading for myself. Attending Bible study. Asking a lot of questions. And the more I learned, the more my life changed.

All I know is this: I was filled with a love I had never experienced before. A love that didn’t hurt. A love that didn’t have conditions. A love that didn’t call me names or make me feel small.

Just… love. Pure and real.

And if you’re reading this and you’ve never felt that kind of love—maybe you grew up like I did, wondering if you were even worth loving—I want you to know something:

You are.

That love is real, and it’s available to you right now. Not when you get it together. Not when you’re good enough. Right now, exactly as you are.

If you’ve never given Jesus a chance, I’m asking you to consider it. You don’t need to have all the answers. You don’t need to understand everything. I didn’t.

All I did was show up.

And love met me there.