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There is something beautiful about the way God saves people. He doesn’t wait until we have cleaned ourselves up, figured out our lives, or become the kind of people everyone else thinks we should be. He doesn’t stand at a distance with His arms crossed, waiting for us to get our act together before He decides we’re worth loving.

No. Sometimes, He meets us right in the middle of the mess.

He met me there.

God didn’t find me with a perfect past. He didn’t find me with a heart that had never been hardened by hurt, a mouth that had never spoken the wrong words, or a life filled with nothing but good decisions. He didn’t find me loving everyone, forgiving easily, or doing all the right things.

He found me broken.

He found me lost.

He found me scared.

He found a girl who had been hurt, who had searched for love in places that could never truly give it, and who carried wounds that no amount of pretending could hide. He found someone who didn’t have all the answers, who had made mistakes, who had fallen short in more ways than she could count.

He found a sinner.

And He loved me anyway.

For so long, I think we have allowed the world to paint a picture of what a Christian is supposed to look like. We imagine someone who has always made the right choices, who has a beautiful testimony free of the ugliness of their past, who has always known how to love people well and who somehow managed to avoid all the things that leave the rest of us feeling ashamed.

But that isn’t my story.

My story is about a God who walked into the wreckage of my life and loved me enough not to leave me there.

I didn’t find God because I had finally become good enough. I found Him because, in His mercy, He came looking for me.

Romans 5:8 says, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

While we were yet sinners.

Not when we finally got it right.

Not when our past became presentable.

Not when we had learned every lesson, corrected every mistake, and made ourselves worthy of grace.

While we were yet sinners.

That means God knew exactly who He was dying for. He knew the things we would do, the things we would say, the people we would hurt, and the ways we would fall short. He knew the ugliest parts of our stories, the secrets we would never tell another soul, and the thoughts we would be ashamed to admit.

And He chose the cross anyway.

Sometimes, I think we become so afraid of what people will think of our past that we forget what our past can reveal about the goodness of God. We hide the places where we have fallen because we are afraid someone might look at us differently. We polish our testimonies until they sound pretty enough to share in church, leaving out the parts that make us feel uncomfortable.

But what if the beauty of our testimony isn’t found in how good we were before Jesus?

What if it is found in how good He was to us when we weren’t good at all?

I don’t share my story because I am proud of every decision I have ever made. I share it because I know what it feels like to be the person who desperately needs grace. I know what it feels like to be lost and not know how to find your way home. I know what it feels like to carry hurt, to feel unworthy, and to wonder if the broken pieces of your life could ever become something beautiful.

And I know what it feels like to discover that Jesus is not frightened by broken people.

He is not surprised by our failures. He is not intimidated by our past. He does not look at our scars and decide that we are too damaged to be loved.

He sees us completely.

And He loves us enough to call us out of the darkness and into His marvelous light.

That doesn’t mean God leaves us exactly as He finds us. His grace is not permission to remain in sin. His love changes us. It challenges us. It teaches us to repent, to forgive, to love people we once struggled to love, and to surrender the parts of ourselves we have spent years trying to protect.

But that transformation begins with grace, not shame.

We don’t become worthy of His love through transformation. We are transformed because we have encountered His love.

And, goodness, what a difference that makes.

I am still a work in progress. I still have days when I get it wrong. I still have things to learn, places where I need to grow, and moments when I must humble myself before the Lord and ask Him to change my heart.

Following Jesus has never meant that I suddenly became incapable of making mistakes. It means I now know where to go when I do. It means I have a Savior who reminds me that my failures do not have to define me, that repentance is possible, that mercy is real, and that the God who began a good work in me is faithful to continue it.

My salvation is not a trophy I earned for being a good person.

It is a gift I could never have earned.

And I will never stop being grateful for that.

There is a particular kind of freedom that comes when you stop pretending you have always been the person you are today. When you stop trying to convince everyone that you have always had it together. When you finally understand that your testimony doesn’t have to make you look impressive. It is supposed to make Jesus look wonderful.

Because He is wonderful.

He saved a sinner.

He loved someone who didn’t yet understand the depth of His love. He pursued someone who was lost. He offered hope to someone who was scared. He saw a life marked by brokenness and offered redemption.

He didn’t wait for me to become the finished product.

He met me in the middle of my unfinished story.

And if you have ever wondered whether God could love someone like you, I hope you will hear me when I say this: You do not have to rewrite your past to make room for Jesus in your future.

You don’t have to pretend you never struggled. You don’t have to hide every scar. You don’t have to convince Him that you are better than you really are.

Come to Him honestly.

Come with your questions. Come with your regrets. Come with your broken heart and your trembling hands. Come with the things you wish you could undo and the things you are still trying to understand.

Come as a sinner who needs a Savior.

Because that is exactly who Jesus came to save.

I am not the hero of my testimony. I never was. I am simply a girl who was lost and found, broken and met with mercy, undeserving and yet deeply loved.

My past is not proof that God could never want me.

It is part of the story that reminds me why I need Him.

And if there is anything I want people to remember when they hear my story, it is this:

God didn’t save me because I was a saint. He saved me because I was a sinner in need of a Savior.

And I will spend the rest of my life telling people about the God who loved me right where I was, loved me too much to leave me there, and continues to make something beautiful out of a life surrendered to Him.

All glory belongs to Jesus.

Not because my story is perfect.

But because my Savior is faithful.

“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” — Luke 19:10 (KJV)