I Placed my Worth in Relationships

What I hope to share with my story is parts of me that people can relate with, and provide

insight into how God can use our stories, and the power behind them. I really want to focus my

testimony on high school and the phase of life that I have gone through in that. High school was

amazing, and it’s really where I owned my faith. Freshman year was a super impactful year and

the year I got baptized. Most of this was due to the fact that I had an amazing community and

people like Mr. Busch. Mr. Busch taught me more about the Bible and the character of Jesus. I

learned terms like justification that redefined my relationship with Christ. To be frankly honest

with you, I never truly cared still about chapel or really taking time on my own to be with God. I

was like any other freshman boy or sophomore boy. I had a lot of growing up to do, and still did

not care to pay attention to the words said in chapel, or appreciate what Lutheran was for me. I’m

not saying all boys are like that, but I sure was that kid. That is the beauty of a testimony though.

I have grown and get to see how God has molded me over the years at Lutheran High School.

Junior year was truly the big year of change for me, as well as where I found myself beginning to

place my worth in high school. Junior year started looking good for me. I was becoming popular,

I was in worship class, track was a good year, and I wasn’t allergic to girls anymore. With all

that said, it was also a tough year and growing year for me. To be honest, I’m not sure I realized

the worth I was putting into all this until senior year. The real killer for me: relationships. I

believe God gave us relationships as a gift, and made us relational people, but that is what makes

relationships so tricky. It’s a fine line between putting your worth in what people think of you,

and being appreciative of what people think of you. I’m a very social, out there guy, but as soon

as someone hits me with a destructive comment, it sinks right into the core. Junior and senior
year to me were the most influential years I could ask for. Junior year, I had many relationships

with girls that really were difficult for me. I found myself always placing my worth in the

compliments received, or the things they would say about me. Receiving a compliment is not a

bad thing, but it was my need and constant desire for those things to fill me up that became a

negative thing. Senior year brought on a new romantic relationship for me. It brought on the

challenge of not placing my worth in that relationship. Still being independent and ultimately

realizing that the relationship would not be the thing that filled me. All these relationships come

and go, but my faith in God was the thing that stayed. I forget where I heard it, but a guy was

talking about the pandemic happening and said, “God comes when man stops”. We live in a

sinful world, and those relationships do fail at times, but that’s where God begins to move. After

a hard breakup, God provided me with tons of mentors and people to talk to. He not only

comforted me with His word, but delivered people to talk me through the pain and provide

healing. For me, it was learning that relationships do not define me. That relationships or having

a girlfriend will not make me “man enough”. What I had to pray about and seek healing for was

that my identity was placed in Christ. High School is an overwhelming time full of the desire to

seek approval. It’s important to be grounded in the word. To be surrounded by God’s word and

have that reminder that we are enough. To live in God’s calling for us to be children of God and

proclaim it boldly. I am a child of God and relationships will not define who I am. I still am not

fully healed from it all, but that’s the beauty of a testimony. It might not be complete, we might

not see the end result yet, but God is moving in it and it is clear.