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I hate you. I hate you so much!

While I didn’t say those words out loud, they were on the tip of my tongue. I gave my friend an angry glare as she yelled at me.

“You’re cheating on your boyfriend. That’s what you’re doing!”

“I am not!” I shot back. “That’s a lie!”

And it wasn’t the truth. In fact, the guy she was talking about wasn’t even my boyfriend! And even if I had done what she’d said, I felt she was such a hypocrite. She was always flirting with other guys when she was dating someone.

As our argument heated up, a crowd began to form around my locker. Everybody obviously expected a fight. But it didn’t happen. Something, I’m not sure what, put an end to the shouting match. But it didn’t put an end to the bad attitude and anger I felt toward my friend. Toward a lot of people.

That scene pretty much sums up my relationship with my friends in the eighth grade. We didn’t fight all the time, but our conversations easily turned into putdowns. I’d just go along with whatever they did because they were the cool ones.

As strange as it sounds, I thought I really needed these friends. Even though they were influencing me in a bad way, they were still my friends. More important, they were considered the popular crowd. And since I wanted to be popular, I put up with all the fighting, gossip and putdowns that went with fitting in.

I think my need to belong to this cool crowd had a lot to do with my background. Before I’d started middle school in the United States, I’d grown up in Mexico City. My father, a college professor, had taken us to Mexico so he could study the Latin American culture. In Mexico City, my mother, who is Brazilian, taught Portuguese at a university. I’d become very comfortable in my Spanish-speaking school and felt like I fit in with the Spanish culture. But by the time I’d reached sixth grade, my dad’s mom had gotten very ill and he felt we needed to move back to the States so we could be close to her.

Adjusting to a new culture wasn’t easy. I was fluent in English and Spanish, but I’d done most of my studying in Spanish. So schoolwork took some getting used to. The hardest part, though, was figuring out how to get along with other kids—and how I fit in. I attended a Christian youth group, but I never made close friends there. Instead, I hung out with the cool crowd, even though I didn’t necessarily agree with their values.

At my middle school, the popular kids were the ones who smoke, drank, had sex, and who just went around with a bad attitude. While I tried not to let it happen, I soon found myself picking up some of their bad habits—especially the attitude. I found myself putting others down and making fun of them. Then something happened that changed my whole attitude. At a youth group meeting just before my sophomore year started, my youth pastor gave a talk. And this time I was really listening. While I don’t remember everything he said, I do know he pointed out that if you claim to be a Christian your actions and behavior must show it.

Something clicked in a big way. I’d been raised in a Christian home, and I knew a lot about the Bible. I understood I could never be good enough to get to heaven by my actions. I knew Jesus died for my sins. But suddenly, as I sat there listening to my youth pastor, it all made sense. The stuff I knew in my head had become something I felt in my heart. I had this unexplainable desire to live in a way that was different—that would show what I’d always said I’d believed.

I know it was God who made these changes in me. People can sometimes make changes in what they do and say, but it’s impossible for them to change the way they think. Yet I suddenly started thinking differently about people.

In the past, I’d see somebody acting goofy and think, Wow, what a weirdo. But now I started seeing people in a new way. Instead of being annoyed by their craziness and silliness, I actually enjoyed it! I also found myself becoming more patient with people. I no longer became angry or annoyed when someone said something I didn’t like. And while I really didn’t fit in with the popular crowd anymore, it no longer mattered. I wanted more than anything to just care about people—all people.

I began to truly appreciate people who were different from me. I actually felt they had something to teach me, too. I felt God’s love in their smiles and saw his face in their faces. I’m still learning so much from the many different people in my life.

It’s been a couple of years since that youth group talk. And I’m still amazed at how God changed my life. Not long ago, I was riding my bike and passed a girl I knew from school. She looked at me and said hi. Before God changed me, I might have ignored her and kept riding. Instead, I stopped my bike and asked her how she was doing and what had been going on in her life. We talked for a while, and then I got back on my bike and road home. I know it was a small thing, but that experience told me once again that I’m truly a different person. I found it easy to stop and talk, and show her, in just a little way, that I cared. It seemed like such a natural thing to do.

If God hadn’t changed me, I don’t know where I’d be. I look back at my life and I’m amazed by his awesome power. So powerful it can change anybody, just like it changed me.

Read more from 'My Story'

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