I was raised in a Christian household that regularly attended church, and I thought I became a Christian when I was 8. Even though I tried, I thought that it was really hard work to be a Christian as it was just a lot of following rules and I always seemed to fail.

I drifted away from Jesus Christ when I was heavily bullied during high school. My parents moved me to a different school in year 8 but the bullying continued. At the new school I turned to drugs as an escape and in an effort to be accepted. I ended up trying to take my own life when I was 14, but even though I should have died, I didn’t. So I felt this was God’s way of telling me he didn’t want me to die which is why I didn’t try again.

I left school at the end of year 10 and joined the Army when I was 17. I was physically & emotionally bullied through basic training in the Army and in the first few years at my army unit. This combined with the bullying in high school made me believe that I was worthless, but also led me to think that if I could just be ‘better’ people would like me more.

I was posted to a new army unit and became heavily involved in the drug and nightclub scene all in an effort to fill the emptiness inside. However, this left me feeling more and more empty and as soon as the high wore off I would feel worse and even more worthless. I finally realised that I couldn’t go on like this, so I turned to exercise as a way to beat this lifestyle & to feel better.

In 2010, whilst deployed to the Middle East, the feelings of emptiness returned as I kept thinking that there must be more to life than this. As a consequence, after 13 years of service I left the Army, got a job and bought a house, all in an effort to fill the emptiness inside of me.

I now had a great house, good job and a personal training business, and even though I kept telling myself that I should be really happy and content, I was becoming more and more depressed and insecure. This lead to problems with my friends and family as well as at work.

Until one Tuesday when I woke up and just couldn’t make myself go to work. I didn’t see the point and didn’t see the point in living in general anymore as I felt I had nothing to look forward to and no purpose in my life. I called in sick and spent the whole day sitting in my room trying to come up with a good reason as to why I shouldn’t just kill myself. I had worked through every reason I shouldn’t kill myself, but I hadn’t come up with a valid one, as I was sure in the long run people would be better off without me. So, I had decided to go ahead with it, and was thinking about the best way to go about it. Whilst I was thinking this through I heard a voice say clearly in my head “God doesn’t want you to die”. It was immediately clear to me that this wasn’t my own internal voice and left such a powerful impression on me that I immediately stopped thinking about killing myself and went to bed.

Following this incident, on the indirect advice of my father, I started reading a book by Kyle Idleman called “Not a Fan: Becoming a completely committed follower”. Prior to reading this book I thought that I was a Christian, just not a very good one, since I had become one when I was a kid. But the book made it clear that I wasn’t a follower of Christ, and that I was just a fan. The book explained how only through surrendering to Jesus Christ could I find happiness and fulfilment, and there was no way I could earn a place with Him in heaven, it was only through the gift and grace of God.

I prayed to Jesus and completely repented of my old life and surrendered to him fully for the first time. As soon as I did this I felt an overwhelming feeling of love and acceptance flow through me and was immediately unbelievably happy.

Since then I still have day to day problems and stress, but now that I have Jesus with me none of these seem nearly as hard as they used to, and I know God hears me and helps me when I ask for help.

I now know that the reason I felt empty was because God was missing from my life. With this knowledge comes great joy for me as I have finally found my reason and purpose for living.

My heart grieves for those that don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus as life is empty without this. My greatest desire is to share with others about who Jesus is and how much He loves them, so they too can know the joy and security of being one of His children.

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Bronwyn