About Holly

Holly's Story

It was April 2008, when things started getting really bad.

I was half way through my HSC year and although I had always had an optimistic outlook, everything was starting to crumble around me. For nearly 2 years I had been masking the pain of watching my best friend struggle through a violent eating disorder that possessed not only her body but, her mind and our friendship. I don’t think I realised the effect it was having on me. Then, when I least expected it or wanted it to happen, it did. The pressure of life caught up to me and caused me to collapse. Mentally and physically, I was numb.

Nothing seemed to matter anymore. The HSC was a bunch of irrelevant tests that meant nothing for my future. My friends were aliens who just couldn’t understand. My family were strangers who I shared a house with. God was some distant idea that may or may not even exist, but he certainly didn’t care about his creation, for if he did, why would he let this happen?

Having always been quite an open person, it was very unnatural for me to be so closed. Not only was I shutting people out who I loved, I was shutting people out who loved me, especially God. After a series of attempts to take her own life, the situation with my best friend got messier and far beyond what a 17 year old should be dealing with. Being faced with the prospect death in a too close to be comfortable way, I was forced to snap out of this numbness and come to terms with reality.

The unchanging, steadfast love of God began to soften my heart of stone, in this, far from ideal, situation.

It was a time that could have been make or break for me, and my relationship, with God, but we are blessed with a graceful and forgiving God who never let me out of his grip. It was around this time that Romans 5:2–5 was ringing loud and clear in my heart and mind, ‘And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.’

There is no other explanation for my change of heart other than the love of God. I was reminded of the crucifixion and the criminal with Jesus and how Jesus turns to him and says, ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.’ (Luke 23:43) This promise of paradise and a place of no more death or mourning or crying or pain, filled my empty heart.

In July 2008, I got the word Eternity tattooed on the inside of my left wrist as a reminder that all of the things we experience on this earth are only temporary and there is something far better coming. If I had learnt anything from this experience it was definitely that. My best friend was released from hospital in time to complete the HSC, which we both bombed out on but it seems that God had something much more important to teach us in Year 12 than schoolwork.  Once again, God proved that everything happens according to his good and perfect plan for our lives. Of course life hasn’t always been peachy since then, but this experience taught me patience, perseverance, peace and perspective to deal with other trials that have come across my path. His is my life and His is my story.