Lauren Ehlers
Hello! My name is Lauren Ehlers and I am a sophomore in architecture here at Iowa State. I grew up in Des Moines and my parents took my sister and I to church every Sunday. But I was taught about Jesus as just a guy who lived a long time ago and died a sad death, not as someone important to my life personally. We never really got connected with my youth group so from about elementary school on, I didn’t really see my faith as a priority. My family always taught me to be strong and independent, so I thrived at being the best. Sports, music, theater, anything, I wanted to be the best. However, the independence and strength that I was fighting for turned into selfishness and pride. As I pushed harder and harder in these things people started to notice me, remember my name, and I started to build somewhat of a reputation for working hard and being “the best” at certain things. As my high school years went on I really began seeking gratification in the good things people said about me, awards I received, and, sadly, in seeing other people fail to achieve things I had. I wanted to get laughs from people and to hear them tell me how good I was at things. I also had set in my head on the people who I should be friends with, who could get me places and make me look good. I wanted to be included in certain groups and only those groups. I thought I was in control of my life, but I had become my own God.
I kept this going until senior year in high school and then things started catching up to me. I just felt exhausted from pursing empty things. I started to realize that the people who I worked so hard to please didn’t care and the people who didn’t care whether I was the best or the worst were the ones who would love me unconditionally. When I got to college it started to become the same routine again. I fell back on trying to be the best at schoolwork, sports, anything I did. And pretty quickly I was feeling exhausted and alone. It became very apparent that at a school so big I couldn’t be the “best” at anything. I looked back a lot on the friendships I had in high school and why those were strong and began to realize it was because God was present and those people had been putting themselves after others. I had always been taught that God would love me unconditionally, but since I was so caught up in worldy things that I could touch and feel, I had dismissed God. So I decided to turn to God as a Plan B. I joined Cru and a bible study and those people began teaching me that I needed to be searching for God first. I felt accepted and loved by these people.
Over the past year it has been a pretty slow process putting others before myself, but God has been teaching me a lot, though the Bible, other people, and especially at TCX that I cant find happiness in the way I used to be living. By letting God lead, its not that He has given me more opportunities to make friends than before, but almost like blinders have been lifted and I have genuine friendships that I would have passed up before. I still care what other people think, but those thoughts aren’t controlling me. I feel like God has given me the guidelines for my life in the Bible and when I strive to follow those I can really be myself. Even when I fail to achieve certain things, I find that I can’t disappoint God because Jesus has already paid for all my sins and failures. It’s a constant struggle, but I am discovering daily that my significance is not in how others view me or being the best, but by significance is found in God.
