The Search for Love and Acceptance

As a lonely college student, Jordone Branch searched for love and acceptance. She turned to the party scene but couldn’t find what she was looking for until a friend stepped in to help.

I Have Nothing to Prove

Ever since I read Jennie Allen's book Restless I have loved her writing! Jennie's new book is called Nothing to Prove and I knew right away when I read the title that I wanted to read it. Most of us spend so much energy trying to prove our worth don't we? We work so hard trying to measure up, we want others to see that we are great at what we do and that we can "do it all", preferably at the same time. We risk wearing ourselves out in the process while we are running hard after acceptance, approval, attention and praise from others. We live in a culture that often tends to base a person's worth on things like career status, beauty, prestige and power. It's no wonder we are worn out from trying to live up to our culture's standard of what a successful woman's life is supposed to look like.


Jennie Allen shows us that God has an entirely different view of womanhood than our culture. If we look to the Bible we find out that we are fully accepted, appreciated, valued and loved by God just the way we are. We also find out that there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn God's love. God loved each one of us long before we were born and we neither gain nor loose his love for us based on our actions. When we become saved and are in Christ our souls are secure forever. Do you know what that means? It means that even if we didn't do one more good deed for the rest of our lives we couldn't loose our salvation. It's not our good deeds that saves our souls, it's our faith in Jesus Christ. When we are saved we are free, free to be who we are.


Yes, God will call each one of us to do different things with our lives that will help other people and bring him glory, but his love for us is not based on our actions. We serve God because it brings joy and great purpose to our lives, not because we are trying to be "good enough" for God. God's love for each one of us is a free gift, it's never earned. Once this truth sinks in we can let go of trying to find acceptance, approval and praise from other people, because we know we are fully accepted and loved by God himself and nothing compares to that. We can now love others freely, without trying to get something from them. We no longer love others in order to get attention, acceptance and approval from them but because we enjoy serving and loving others. That is the ultimate freedom.

Annie's Story

Annie Lobert's life story gives me tears in my eyes as I listen to it. Annie grew up feeling unlovable and was desperate for love and attention. She graduated high school heartbroken and with a resentment towards men that made her long for revenge. As a young adult Annie became convinced that money was the answer to all her problems and she was willing to cross many of her own boundaries to get it. After years of pain and sorrow Annie ended up having a near death experience, she nearly died of a cocaine overdose, this experience became the turning point in her life. Today Annie has found the peace, freedom, acceptance and love she always longed for in her life.

When life has become too heavy to carry

Shauna Niequist's story about how she came to the end of herself a few years ago is a story many of us can relate to. Shauna was feeling exhausted and isolated from living a life that was too busy. Shauna finally came to a point where she realized that she couldn't go on living this way even one more day, she needed to learn to live in a new way. Shauna wanted a life that wasn't marked by competing, earning and proving herself constantly. She wanted to live a life full of love, meaning and deep connection with others.

Shauna Niequist's new book Present Over Perfect is the story about Shauna's journey from living a life that was too heavy to carry to Shauna discovering a simpler way to live that satisfied her soul. In session one of the video-study Shauna talks about how her journey started once she finally realized that it was her own choices that had created her lifestyle and that the chaos she constantly experienced in her life wasn't a coincidence.

I love that Shauna has written her new book Present Over Perfect and created the video-study, it has helped me a lot this fall when my own life started to get too busy. I agree with what Shauna says in the video, it's not only people with top career jobs who struggle with a life that is too heavy, most people believe the lie that says "If I do enough, I will be enough" or "If I do more, I will be more." We live in a society that values achievements and perfection higher than ever before so we can easily find ourselves striving for these things in search for acceptance and human value. I think it helps to know that we are not alone in the struggle, most people wrestle with these things. The good news is that once we become aware of the habits that make us exhausted, unhealthy and over-whelmed in life we can change our ways and develop new habits that will make us flourish.

You are fully loved

Each one of us are fully loved by God but it's often hard to live loved when we don't feel loved. On most days in our lives we feel a bit guilty, sad, ashamed, insecure, hurt, lonely and left out. How can we live loved when we feel rejected in life?

Lysa Terkeurst has put together a six-session DVD-Study based on her new book Uninvited. Lysa explains that rejections from our past can affect our everyday lives, but rejection doesn't have to get the final say over our lives. We can learn to live from a place of love rather than constantly trying to achieve acceptance and approval from other people. Even if we spend our lives doing good things; helping others, loving those around us and serving the poor, we will constantly feel drained if we do all these things to get acceptance and appreciation from others. When our souls become filled up with God's love which is unconditional, relentless, unfailing and something we never have to earn, we can start living from a place of feeling accepted and loved at the start of every new day. We no longer have to walk around on this Earth hungry for love and settling for scraps of love given to us by others.

When we come to God daily and let him fill us up with His unconditional, unfailing love we can go into the world filled up, no longer empty on the inside. When we start living every new day from a place of love and acceptance, knowing that we are loved and accepted by God, we can walk freely through life. We can now love others freely, we are no longer fighting for their acceptance and approval.

The broken world we live in will always try to hold us back from living loved, but if we remember to turn our focus to our instructor in life, God, He will quiet our fears, give us rest, help us grow and fill up our souls with His unfailing love. Rejection doesn't have to get the final say over our lives.