Student Voice

Megan’s Jesus Story
Nov 29, 02:51 PM
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I grew up in a small town near Grand Rapids (a.k.a. The Bible Belt of Michigan). Almost everyone went to church including my family. I always knew about God and the Bible.

For about 6 years my parents sent me to summer church camps. I was in 4th grade when I went to camp for the first time. There, I prayed with my counselor to accept Jesus into my heart. At the time I remember really wanting to do that, accept Jesus into my heart and go to heaven, but I didn’t understand doing so meant surrendering my life to Him and having a personal relationship with Him (even outside of Sunday church).

After that summer, I continued to be a role model teen. I was involved at church, got good grades in school, participated in numerous extracurricular activities, and was “that nice girl” everyone got along with. Life was pretty good as far as I could tell. Throughout junior and senior high, I tried to do things I know I should like pray and read my Bible. That would last a couple days, and then I would forget about it and move on with the other “great” things I was doing. I didn’t see a need for a relationship with God in my life, and I didn’t have anyone really teaching me what having a relationship with God should look like.

The week after my 16th birthday a giant cyst was found in my left kidney. It was really serious. I had to have a long surgery to remove my kidney immediately and it kept me in the hospital for a few days (and recovering in my bed at home for a couple more weeks). During that time, I realized how short life can be. I thanked God for keeping me alive and safe and had a new desire and passion to follow Him (whatever that meant).

To me that meant going in front of my church and answering a few questions the pastor asked me declaring I wanted to commit my life to Jesus. It wasn’t just a private prayer anymore; it was a public announcement now. I really, really wanted to commit my life to God, but being a junior and senior in high school had a lot of demands and more fun things that grabbed my attention.

My junior and senior years in high school were consumed with a boy. I began dating a boy, and I was definitely more committed to him than I ever was to God. I also studied hard to get really high grades in hopes of some great recognition and a sweet college scholarship. I loved politics and history too. I would surround myself with news and historical knowledge so I could debate these issues with my peers and those older than me. My ultimate goal was to be a politician one day. I was pretty social as well, going out with my friends every weekend.

The winter of my senior year I believe God really tugged at my heart hard. I knew for a long time I should break up with my boyfriend. We were too involved with one another, and I knew deep down it wasn’t pleasing to God. It took me five months to finally do it too!! After our breakup, I was really sad, but I felt a burden lift from me. It was hard to really let go of that area of my life. I still didn’t really understand at the time that God was leading me in the decision, though.

I had a pretty crappy summer before coming to CMU for my freshman year of college. I tried to have fun with my friends and forget about my boyfriend, but I wasn’t happy. At school I became homesick for the first time ever. I didn’t feel like I fit in with any of the kids at school. I tried partying, but I hated it. Everyone else seemed to love it, but I just hated myself for doing it.

I visited a few churches in the first month at school, but none of them seemed right either. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Then, one morning at Kaya Coffee House, I heard a staff member from Grace share his Jesus story. He didn’t go to church or believe in God until later in high school. Now he was so passionate and in love with God. I had gone to church and “believed” in Jesus for a long time, yet I never was in love like he was. I was interested. I began to visit the church he went to more and more. I heard other people’s Jesus stories. The people I met loved God so much and desired to live every part of their life for Him. They seemed to have so much joy.

In October 2003, I was baptized at Grace Church. I didn’t magically become perfect. I have messed up since then, but my life is different. The change in my life happened when I truly realized I needed God to be in control of everything I do. I need to seek out the way He wants me to live this life. I don’t need to be some super great human being, I just needed to accept that I am weak and in need of help. I needed to accept God’s unending love for me.

All my life I knew about Jesus dying on the cross for my sins. I even accepted it as truth, but it was merely some historical thing to me. It wasn’t a love story. A story of how God so loved me that He sent His only Son to live and be tortured here on Earth and then die on a cross all because He loves me. He did this because sin was keeping me from spending eternity with Him and He wanted there to be a way for me to be with Him. All I needed to do was accept the fact that I sinned and ask God to forgive me and believe that He has.

God’s love has changed my life. From the outside I may not look much different, but on the inside I know God has changed me. My heart beats for God’s will in my life and in other people’s lives as well. I don’t have to prove anything to Him. I merely just love Him because He loved me. Everything else in life just falls into place after realizing that.

— Megan Vander kooy


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