This is going to be long, but for any teenager who grew up feeling unseen and unappreciated, this will help. Growing up, I longed to feel loved, appreciated seen, and feel like somebody. From my early childhood years I’ve always been a huge superhero fan, a fictional addict overall, and I also loved to play video games.
I was your average child, but I was also very shy, and this is something that lasted for a while, until high school. Moreover, I was someone who wanted to be in relationships. This is something that started from primary school. I’ve been in my fair share of relationships in primary school, some being online, but I still didn’t feel anything, because nothing happened. I was so shy that I never asked them on a date, neither did I kiss them.
The closest we got to being a couple was when we were texting but it’s like in person we aren’t even a couple, as for the online relationships they made me feel good as well, but I still never met them, so I was just in relationships while not doing what couples do. The period where I longed to be in relationships started when I traveled from my country to another country (starting from Primary school), and being new, my shyness was definitely growing, but overtime I got used to the kids.
I had my moments of being picked on for my bald head and some boys would hit my head, or if my hair was grown, they’d make fun of my hair by calling it “peasy” because of my hair type and other things would occur like when this girl made fun of my mother and I cried, and experienced rejection from this girl in front of the other youth, and many other embarrassing moments, it’s like I couldn’t escape the embarrassment, even from my kindergarten years, though it was really one thing that stuck with me but I won’t get into that.
But even through all that, I had my moments of feeling cool (in primary school) because of the girls I dated (Even though nothing happened in the relationships) and being fast and one of the best basketball players and hanging out with my friends and playing basketball with them, who were highly esteemed by others. Though they sometimes made fun of me too and claimed to be “just joking” and that including the other things I went through took root in me. But I did leave primary school feeling good because I was dating the pretty girl and I got a good grade for the big exam we had, going to high school and I managed to get in the A class. It was A, B, C and D classes that you went to depending on the grade you got.
Now getting into high school, I already had some wounds from primary school, so my fears were great because now I was going to be surrounded by bigger kids and I was wondering “what if they take advantage of me” and other things but fortunately none of that happened, but I still did face things from my year group.
The girl I came into high school dating was playfully flirting with one of my friend while I was on the other side of the classroom and one of the girls looked at me and was smiling but also had a shocked look because my girlfriend was doing that, you know how girls react to things sometimes, and I just sat there. It’s not like I felt an obligation to do or say anything because we never even went on a date, kissed, nothing, so I don’t even think my friend knew that we were dating because it didn’t look like it, since we barely spoke, neither were we really that romantic with each other, but it still hurt.
So I was going to break up with her but my best friend already told me she wanted to break up which was okay with me but then weeks later she was dating someone else who I knew and one boy dissed me for it, and then other times it would happen where I was dating a girl and she would be all touchy with some other friend and one of them claimed “it’s not like we were official anyway” when I confronted her about it, and this other girl let a boy put his arm around her while next to me and I thought to myself “maybe it isn’t like that they are just friends” but then I thought about it and then confronted her later about it and she apologized.
And many times I’d feel like the black sheep since I didn’t really hang out much with those “highly esteemed” friends anymore since they found their new group and they would invite me to play basketball sometimes but I’d decline because I stopped playing over time, one of the reasons being is I found a deeper addiction for superhero content and fiction overall to escape from my life from feeling small and overlooked.
I’d daydream about being Spider-Man or other superheroes to feel like someone, and being loved by the world. And my heart was longing for love so much that I’d binge romance videos and listen to girlfriend ASMR videos to feel loved. I too would listen to all kinds of music, especially oldies nostalgic music to wallow in my imaginations about myself being a superhero and fiction overall. I was just a shy, timid mess who also didn’t get good grades.
Hearing the other teens and my friends do things that cool teens usually do while I was mostly by myself just feeling sad and daydreaming, it stung, so much that my teacher would see that I was sad that it affected my grades and he thought that it was because my parents separated (Which I got over) but he didn’t know truly because I was too ashamed to share anything, neither did I know how to explain why I felt the way I did.
Now about my basketball skills, those faded since I stopped playing for a while and the boy who once used to be great at it got worse and I’d always play weird when playing with the teen boys and they’d just curse me out or make me feel bad if I didn’t do something right. I also got slower where I was once fast, and then covid hit and I put on so much weight. I wasn’t fat but I was thick, and my friends and teachers recognized it. And the same things went on; so called friends making fun of me for being a virgin, not being in a relationship (I was but nothing happened so it’s not like I could say much), others picking on me sometimes and me just being the black sheep and experiencing embarrassment like always, all the way to graduation. Everyone who got up got cheers and got something close to a reward (like if they got a high grade for a subject, or they improved), others got big gifts, while I got nothing.
This girl (my ex coming into high school) also didn’t get anything but she was highly esteemed so she still got cheers, so for the rest of the graduation, I just kept my head down in embarrassment and shame because I didn’t get great grades nor was I said to have improved in anything, or got rewards and to make it worse, my friends including my best friend took a picture without me, but I did take one with my best friend though. I just went home and cried after telling my dad how shameful I feel for not getting cheers and he did comfort me but I was still so sad. I cried for many things, like me not being apart of the big groups, or doing the “wordly” things but I know God allowed everything for a purpose.
Now I went back to my country and went to this school but unfortunately I had to repeat two grades because I was transferring from a different country and unless I had a sports scholarship, I couldn’t go in my respective grade. Now it’s an all boys school and I heard it’s one of the best schools in the country which is why my parents sent me in the first place but I also heard bad things about the boys so that is when I started to read Psalms and pray to the Lord because I didn’t think I could manage an all boys school by myself, especially because of my shyness and feeling timid.
So all those times my dad called me to read psalms with him and his friend he called on a phone and all prayed together planted a seed, even though I didn’t like doing it because I never knew the Lord, even though some part of me wanted to serve him, but because I never got a supernatural experience like others when I asked the Lord to reveal Himself to me, I got nothing, so I felt like he hated me and I just didn’t seek Him.
I remember my pastor prophesying over me that God is calling me to be a prophet, and I would sometimes try to please the Lord, so I’d tell her I struggle with lust and stuff in order to change but I just didn’t know how to live righteously. I didn’t know about reading the word and meditation on scripture, dying to self, nothing, I was blank, so I just kept living in sin and indulging in worldly content and just being sad.
Now in this new school I went to, I didn’t really feel like I fit in, because even though it’s my country I didn’t have their accent, because I picked up the accent from the other country I moved to, so I tried to lower it a little, sometimes even trying to imitate theirs because I felt like they would make fun of it, but then this other boy came with the same accent as me, and he was a tracks boy, and he was what you would call “cool” and he didn’t care about expressing his accent and others esteemed him, so I expressed mine to feel esteemed as well, and me and him grew in a friendship because we were the only ones who had the accent, until another came who played football.
He was my age but didn’t repeat because he played a sport. But those two did get recognition and I automatically gained it as well since we all had the same accent, and everything felt like a fresh new start. I was still wordly like trying to get girls with that “cool friend” while also trying to become a better Christian and I did give him and others a vibe that I was a player in the other country because I dated this girl and that girl but they didn’t know truly anything, and I’d sometimes find myself talking to a girl because he’d push me to and it didn’t get anywhere but I felt better about myself because I was overcoming my fear, since the previous relationships were either online relationships with girls I never met, or relationships that were arranged with the help of friends but I didn’t really know how to talk to girls.
But overtime things got better, I’d even sometimes talk about Jesus with the boy with the same accent as me but not so much because I didn’t truly have that deep relationship with the Lord but I would see God making my days “good” and helping me get out of things and not being picked on anymore, so that was my drive to keep on reading Psalms and praying.
I was getting somewhere. I did join tracks with the boy but left because it was draining, and I did play basketball at the court and I saw myself getting good again, and when he liked how I played, I felt good, and others as well who liked my playing. So he was helping me in a sense to get more active which was helping a little with confidence but deep down I still felt pathetic because I was pretending to be someone I was not. Being a player, that was a lie, but it felt good giving off that vibe. I sometimes left the school compound with him which was illegal for our year group. Mind you, this is a boarding school. And others would esteem us for doing that and I just felt loved by people, and that boy definitely played a part in it because he was loved. But I was still that same wounded boy inside that no one knew about. They didn’t see all the rejection, the embarrassments, nothing.
Now that boy went back to his country and the other as well but being with them left a mark on me which was good and after Summer break, I started to read the word more and try to interpret scriptures, and then overtime I started to meditate on scriptures after watching many of Johnny Chang’s videos on replacing your thoughts with the word of God and it required a lot of discipline but it helped renew my mind.
I sometimes still watched superhero stuff but overtime my desires for all those things lessened and I realized the Lord was leading me to cut them off because the Bible does tell us to deny ourself and bear our cross, but where there was once insecurities, low self-esteem and longing for love, there was a filling of God’s truth and love in me, and it helped me and I just did the will of God like witnessing to others and me cultivating a deeper relationship with Him and then I joined this random Christian group chat and as I started to text more and say things about myself, this same girl from my country saw that I went to this school and asked me about it and I said yes and then we started to text.
Then overtime we saw how each other looked and days after she confessed that she liked me and I said I liked her too. Prior to meeting this girl, I didn’t long for relationships anymore because I had a new identity and new security which was in Jesus, but I saw that she knew the Lord, so I said why not and then we just started to text more until we met which was great.
Overall, my relationship with the Lord grew stronger and I was led by His spirit in many instances and I’m just continuing to grow in wisdom, knowledge and understanding and I even found this thing called prophetic journaling where you can fellowship with the Holy Spirit. You ask Him a question and then whatever you sense, you write down but it has to flow like living waters, not be a forced thought.
Now on my growing relationship with Jesus, I stopped entertaining certain people at this boy’s school and stopped cursing, etc. and I also witnessed to the same boy (who helped me gain recognition) but he stopped texting me after, which didn’t bother me. I even texted my old best friend and witnessed to him, but he stopped texting me, which didn’t bother me. I texted one of the friends who used to pick on me (He did get better overtime though) and I could see he’s taking in the messages, even the Christian things I post on my story he looks at all the time and I could tell God is doing something in him but even then, we don’t talk really, but I know seeds are being planted and as for the other old friends and youth in the country I grew up in, I don’t talk to them.
What is this whole testimony for? To show you that God can take the bad and turn it into something good. He can heal all those wounds you’ve grown up with. Those friends who make you feel overlooked, he turns that around and make you His true friend who will never leave you and never make you feel small, even blessing you with friends who truly care for you and love you.
I’ve found some Christian friends at this school and it’s a blessing. I don’t participate in the crowd here as I used to, but that doesn’t matter to me, because it’s better to please Jesus than the world, and it’s better to be His friend, than a friend of the world. And I know that the Lord put me in this school for a purpose, to lead these young boys to Christ. God bless everyone who this message touches.
