My name is Amy, and I am 25 years old. Growing up, my family rarely attended
church although I still believed in God. I prayed almost every night and
lived my life the best way that I knew how.

When I was a junior in college, I moved to a big city and started hanging
out with the wrong kinds of people. I did quite a few things that I am not
proud of. I also stopped praying, and therefore I did not feel God in my
life at all.

As a result of all of my bad choices, I became very depressed. During this
darkest time in my life, I turned away from God completely. I told people
that I was an Atheist. I figured that if there was a God, then He would not
let me suffer from such depression.

I thought that I had turned my life around somewhat in the past year. I got
engaged, and things seemed to be going relatively smoothly for me. But
depression has a strange way of creeping up on you when you think you are
doing fine. All of a sudden, everything was wrong in my life again. I was
unhappy with my fiancé and we fought all the time, I was unhappy at work, I
felt terrible about myself, and I often had suicidal thoughts.

I decided to seek help. I went on Prozac and started seeing a counselor.
Then one day after a huge fight with my fiancé about religion (he believes
in God), I thought, ‘My life would be so much easier if I just let God back
into it!’

All of a sudden, I felt ashamed that I had turned away from God for so long,
and I realized that the reason I had created so many problems in my life was
because I did not allow God to influence my decisions in any way. I was so
scared that God would not forgive me though. I sent e-mails to several
ministers that I came across on church websites and explained my situation
to them, asking them if God would forgive me for denying Him for so long.

Each of the ministers replied to my e-mails, and every one of them said,
“Yes, God forgives you.” These words brought tears to my eyes and were such
a comfort to me! That night, I prayed to God for the first time in almost 5
years! It felt so wonderful to talk to Him again! I instantly felt this
warmth in my heart, and I just knew that He was listening to my prayer.

Since that day, I have started to read the Bible and I talk to God everyday.
My relationships and work and self-confidence are all improving because I
let God back into my life. I am overjoyed to have religion in my life and
God in my heart once again. And just like my favorite poem “Footprints,” for
the longest time, I truly believed that God had abandoned me during my
depression when I needed Him most. Now I see that He was there beside me all
along…I am the one who made the choice to ignore Him.

God IS love, and God will forgive us because we are all sinners! Life is so
much better if you just let God in!

Thank you.