LIFE STORIES
GAYL'S STORY
I HATE MY LIFE
by Gayl Fredling 
I woke up on the bathroom floor again. All my friends had to leave because
they couldn't get in and I was alone again. I hate my life, I thought.
I had for a long time. As far back as I can remember all I wanted was to
be loved and accepted. Instead, I was ridiculed and put down for my looks
and my so called "lack of brain power." I ended up with no personality,
nothing that would cause anyone to want to spend time with me.
YEARNING FOR LOVE
How did I get here? Even when I was young, I didn't fit in. I wasn't pretty, I was too tall, and at one point a little behind all my classmates in a new school. That new school was where I first experienced the rejection that would scar me for life. When I had to go into a different school the next year, I just knew no one would like me, so I acted out. I rejected them before they could reject me. I just wanted to disappear off the face of the earth but life kept happening, and I was a very unwilling participant.
My heart was crying out to be loved and accepted, but I couldn't believe that would ever happen. No one seemed to care if I was even alive other than my family and sometimes I even wondered about them.
COLLEGIATE MISTAKES
After high school, my parents told me I was going to go to college. By this time, I was a super non-achiever and definitely did not want to go to college. I had no choice but to go, but for the first time in my life I set a goal for myself. I was going to be accepted and popular. I didn't know how I was going to meet that goal, but who cared? As it turned out, I became well known, but not necessarily popular.
As I was growing up, my parents would have their little parties on Saturday nights and go to church on Sundays. I couldn't handle that and I grew to hate drinking and anyone who drank. Well, that all changed in college. During the fall of my first year, a popular guy asked a friend and me to go to a bar with him and some other friends. I did not want to go, but decided that was a way of getting to know people. My plan was to have a Coke and let them drink what they wanted, but their plan was to get this naive freshman drunk. They succeeded and I lost, literally. I wish I could say that I was in control, but from that night on, alcohol took over. I was hooked! For the first time in my life, I could talk to guys and feel like I could be a part of the group. I could hardly wait for the next party to get drunk and have fun.
Later that fall, I went out with a good-looking guy who was a few years older than me. I was very flattered that he would want to take me out, but I wouldn't have been if I would have known what he planned. I became his special little plaything if his girlfriend was unavailable. I soon found out that the only way I was going to get invited anywhere was to give the guy what he wanted. I ended up hating men and myself.
HITTING BOTTOM
This downward cycle continued to include pretty heavy use of drugs and consuming enough alcohol to make myself sick and pass out every night. I hated myself. I had nothing to live for.
About this time, a friend started telling me that I was killing thousands of brain cells as I drank straight bourbon. I told him I didn't care, there wasn't much to kill. But he started getting through the fog and I decided that maybe I'd better get out.
I moved in with my sister and after about a month, my sister asked if I would like to talk to someone. I agreed—even though that person was a Christian counselor. I didn't have much use for Christians but I was desperate. She told me that God loved me. There was no way I was going to believe that. She then told me that I was a sinner and I shot back at her, "That's nothing new!"
I was surprised that God hadn't struck me dead years before. The third thing she told me was that God had a plan for my life. I was so low, that I knew I had no future on my own. That day I told God that if He wanted this mess I called life, He could have it and do with it what He wanted. More power to Him! God took this very angry, messed-up person and just kept showing me His love.
FINDING ACCEPTANCE
Life used to be all about me. Why don't people love me? Who will love me? What do I have to do to make people love me? Why can't I find peace and love? I looked for the answers to all those questions in all the wrong places: booze, sex, and drugs. Those answers almost killed me. But when God touched my heart, I found the answers to all my questions.
God has given me such joy and peace in the past few years, something that I despaired ever knowing. He has opened up my life to aspects of Himself that I had only read about before: His love for me, His desire to bless me, and the fact that He could truly love others through me.
Praise His name for taking me, a very rebellious child, and loving me and never giving up on me, even when I wanted to give up on Him. But, most of all, I praise Him that He has set me free—free to know Him, free to live the life He planned for me before the world was ever formed. John 8:36 says "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." This verse has become a reality for me and I praise His name!
