I grew up in church and became a Christian at a young age. It's hard for me to remember becoming a Christian, but the memories I have are of changes in the way I acted in every situation. About a year ago, I became obsessed with a boy band (yes, One Direction for those of you wondering); I was crazy about them. All day, every day, I'd look at pictures, listen to music, read fan fiction—whatever I could do to feel closer to them. It was all I thought about. I am a writer and that's what I want to be when I grow up. I naturally started writing a fan fiction about the boy band. The story I wrote got big fast. I had 1 million hits and 2,000 followers before I knew it.
I ended up lying to them multiple times in order to deny guilt. Then I went to camp for a week at the end of last summer (without Internet) and realized that One Direction was an idol in my life, and I was letting them come before God. I understood that there's a difference between being a Christian and LIVING for Christ.
I got home and my mom had found out about the fanfic story I was writing as it got bigger and bigger. She was mad at first but forgave me a few months after. I understood the whole Christian thing better now, but I honestly wasn't living it.
Over Thanksgiving break 2012, I was convicted by God and spent two days in prayer about the fan fiction. I asked God to take it and use it somehow. The third day, I took a deep breath and logged onto the website, finding a message from one of my many followers asking, "Who's this Jesus dude you keep talking about?" I knew then that God had a crazy plan for my life.
Who knows where it will take me? But I'm not afraid because He is with me. Ever since that cold November night, I have been sharing the gospel via the internet. It's been an incredible experience and today, I have almost 15K followers and 11 million hits on my story posts. Some of the plan God has for life will be through this, but there's so much more to me besides my writing.
I see a lot of what I guess you could call spiritual warfare. God brings quite a few people in my life that have serious problems—and by serious I mean life or death. It's amazing what God can do in your life if you give it to Him. :)
—Emma - age 14, 8th grade
