Claudia Finding True Love, Part 1

Claudia desperately wanted to be loved, but the more she tried to find someone to love her, the more elusive that dream became. She chose to be physically intimate with many men in her search, but she came to realize that she did not have a genuine relationship with any of them.

Claudia was born in Peru to a Catholic family, through which she learned the sacraments and other religious rituals. She believed that there was a God and that He loved her, but she did not know the reasons for her faith. “None of us had a real relationship with Him,” she recalls. To her, God was just a hazy figure covered in unfamiliarity. What had He done to improve her life? She felt that God’s love was impersonal, an untouchable concept floating somewhere out there.

In her early 20s, Claudia immigrated to America, the land where she thought her dreams would come true. She believed that in the United States, with its many freedoms, she would find someone who would truly love her. She soon began living out her desires and found herself in a new relationship.

Soon, Claudia was pregnant. Thinking that this would be her “happily ever after,” she married her boyfriend and gave birth to a baby girl soon after. But her dream of finding someone to make her happy crashed and burned. The marriage disintegrated, and Claudia’s identity, so intricately wrapped up in someone else, did too.

Soon after, she began leading a double life—a single woman outside of the home and a protective mother inside. Outside of the home, she was free to be with whomever she wanted. But this newfound freedom did not liberate her; it only made her more confused, more forlorn, and more trapped in sin.

After a particularly difficult breakup, Claudia hit rock bottom. Why couldn’t someone just love her? “I couldn’t understand why people just hurt and use others,” she remembers. She was confused about who she was, about people, and about the purpose of her life. She pored over videos on the Internet, searching for something deeper, something meaningful.

One day, while searching YouTube, she found a seminar by Amazing Facts …

Reflect: What do you tell a young person who is dreamily in love, but has not put God in the equation? Pray earnestly for wisdom to help discover the right relationship.

Key Bible Texts

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. (1 John 4:7 KJV)