You are Enough
Yana’s testimony: I searched for meaning in everything except God – but at my lowest point, He found me.
Issue 2 | October 2024My name is Yana, and I’m 20 years old. This is my testimony: God transformed my life by showing me how much He loves me, in the very moment I felt that I was unlovable.
Before 2023, I had a very shallow understanding of who God was and what His role should be in my life. My family used to gather with other Christians, but after Covid, we decided to stop doing all the things that had reminded us we believed in God.
Personally, my own relationship with God was stuck. I was also facing problems from being part of a dysfunctional family. Fear and anger had grown within me, and I was filled with resentment. I could not understand why a good God would not help my family out of its toxic cycles. In the end, I concluded that He didn’t care about me.
During high school, my Christian label was nothing more than that. A label. I was anxious, self-centred, judgemental, and afraid that everyone would see through my perfect act. I struggled with my self-esteem and sought every opportunity to prove myself, thinking that my worth was based on the things I could do.
When I was 13, I began getting into relationships but hid it from my parents. When I was 15, I started questioning my sexuality, thinking it was something that would make me feel like I belonged somewhere. I remember feeling content as I convinced myself that liking girls was going to work out for me. And when that blew up in my face, and my parents did not know how to deal with me, I felt like an alien in my own family and my own body.
I tried to get into more secret relationships. I wanted to erase the past and prove myself to be ‘straight.’ I read every self-help book I could find. I tried to fix myself so that I could stop feeling empty. In every relationship I delved into, searching for meaning and purpose, I found nothing. I found darkness. I found hurt.
During my first year at university, I was nearing the end of another relationship that was mostly sexual. It had become my entire life. My worth was dependent on this relationship, so when it was ended, I felt as if I was sitting at rock bottom, completely crushed by everything in my life that had gone wrong. I was so defeated; I didn’t want to keep going.
It was at that point that I started getting small reminders of who I was running away from — God. An old friend of mine came back from a Fiji mission trip, glowing, and I asked her, “Why are you so happy? What do you have that I do not?” She told me that God had changed her life, and I became curious. How could God change my life?
I asked my mother about her journey with God, and she told me about the time she had first been changed by feeling His love. I see now that those moments pointed me in a different direction and made me think about God.
So, when my relationship ended, instead of looking for a rebound or distraction, I started searching for God. I ended up fasting for three days, and I remember sitting on the floor of my bedroom at 2:00 AM, waiting for Him to show up. I always tell people that I went searching for God, but I did not find Him — He found me. He was always going to find me. I sat there at 2:00 AM, terrified of what was coming, and then I experienced my first personal encounter with the Lord. I heard His voice. I knew it was Him. He said something that I do not think I will ever forget: “The whole world could say all these things about you, but it would not matter. Because of what I say. You are enough.”
Anyone could have said that to me, but it felt like, for the first time, I believed it. It was as though all the times in the past I had cried out to Him, He was always with me. I felt more seen and loved than I had ever felt in my life; as though a blanket of warmth was draped over me.
His presence was with me, and days after that, I felt the joy of the Lord like a fire in my heart. He poured His love into me, and it overflowed into everything I did. Everything was a song for Jesus; everything was precious. I felt like a new person.
The Lord really blessed me with that experience, and He knew that I could never turn away from Him again — not after everything He had done for me. He showed me the work of the cross that is in me. I was broken, imperfect, and unworthy, yet Jesus died for me, calling me his. That imperfect girl belongs to Christ, and He is the one who makes me whole.
I no longer need the world to know who I am. Jesus is enough for me. If you have been in my situation, I would say that it’s okay to be struggling — as a Christian or not. I find that God uses everything for His good, even when that’s unknown to us. If you are doubting whether or not He is real, or if He cares about you, ask Him to show you.
It’s true that those who seek will find what they are looking for. I asked God to be real to me, and He is real, and much more. “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).