My name is Suri and I am from Venezuela. I grew up in church. I was a church girl; my parents were youth pastors. I grew up thinking that if I didn’t make mistakes, read the Bible every day and learn scriptures, went to church every Sunday and was that perfect church girl – Jesus would really love me. He would really love me more. And how I wanted to be loved! So, I learned to perform, and was very good at it. The problem was that the better I performed, the more I isolated. From me, from Jesus, and from others.

I always felt drawn to other girls. At first, when I was a teenager, I didn’t understand it; I thought that I just admired them. As time passed by, I realized I liked them. But I didn’t want to act on it because I knew lesbians weren’t “good church girls.” So, it all stayed in a dream.

In 2014 my family and I moved to Europe. In 2016 or thereabouts, I started to experience my dream and my life progressively changed. I started doing everything I always wanted to do, but never had the courage to do before. Dating girls, smoking, drinking, sleeping around with different “Tinder” people, and so on. I went mad because I was angry at Jesus, at myself, and at the church. It was some sort of revenge for all those years I thought I had lost. And it felt freeing. It felt good. Until it didn’t.

Every breakup hurt more than the other. I experienced mistreatment in my romantic relationships. I was damaged. It didn’t fill the void anymore. I didn’t want to deal with the void. I remember myself crying and having anxiety attacks; feeling lonely; feeling helpless; and feeling like my life didn’t make sense anymore. I remember myself wanting to die. From relationship to relationship, trying to quench my thirst with someone’s body. Trying to find my Creator in someone’s bed.

In 2019 I got covid on the first wave and I almost died from it. It caused me many side-effects. Some of them are still present to this day.

But Jesus had a plan. He always has. In the middle of the upset, He progressively started to come close to me in a way He only knows. With love and grace. The love I had been looking for my whole life, in the wrong places, with the wrong people.

At first, I felt ashamed. I didn’t know how to accept His love because I didn’t deserve it. He slowly showed me that there is absolutely nothing that can separate me from His love. Not my past, my present, nor my future. Not my pain or turmoil. Not the consequences of my actions. Not even hell. He gave me an identity, a name, and purpose.

All He wanted was to have a relationship with me, from the beginning, before I was even conceived in my mother’s womb. And He was never going to stop until He could show me the wonders of being loved by Him. I’m glad He didn’t.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here telling this story. Jesus loved me while I was still a sinner who wanted revenge. He gave His life for me so I could enter His throne of grace with confidence; sit at the table; hug my heavenly father and say: “Abba Father!” And oh, how He loves us so, oh how He loves us, how He loves us so.

To this day I can say with my all my heart that nothing and no one can compare to Him. He already went to Sheol looking for me and I don’t want to ever be away from His arms again. The one I was looking for found me. My safe place, my hope, and my home. Today, and for the rest of eternity.