My search for acceptance.

Before I received eternal life I was filled with insecurities.

As a young child I would go to bed at night crying myself to sleep. My parents would argue loudly and I would think that I was the reason. It left me with such insecurity that I did not know how to escape it. It lasted well into my teenage years.

It was in my late teens when I received the gift of eternal life.

Since that moment where I have received eternal life I gradually began to see the insecurities disappear.

Depending on athletics to give me worth and acceptance most of my life, it took a while for me to realize that my true worth was not in my athletic prowess. It was only after a career ending injury and the inability to continue after rehab that I began searching for the real meaning of that decision I had made. It was a simple reading of the bible that I found the answer. In Ephesians 1:6 it said I was accepted "in the beloved." It hit me like an All-American linebacker. My receiving eternal life made me acceptable. It literally changed my life.

While I still want others to accept me and because the change that one verse made in my life, I no longer deal with the insecurities of my teenage and young adult years. It left me with full assurance that I have eternal life and that I will go to heaven when I die.