Tim Freyer
Tim Freyer's Story
Empty Inside
I started to realize that my friends were fake - they were my friends because I was popular.
Story Tags
overwhelmed, success, relationships, Sports, drinking, performance, emptiness
Explore the Story
Growing up, I consistently spent my life chasing after things that I thought would satisfy me. On the outside, I orchestrated my life so that things would look good to others, but deep inside, I felt like I had a hole in my heart that couldn't be filled.
Because of this, I felt like I always needed to act like I had my life together when I was around others. I poured myself into academics, athletics, and relationships with women, but none of these could fill the void I felt in my soul. In particular, I excelled at ice hockey and since that was a big sport in my high school, I became pretty popular. This popularity allowed me to feel good about myself because I had lots of friends and lots of people looked up to me. Most of my friends were so because of my popularity, but it was okay because it made me look better to others. On the outside, I looked really good in most areas of my life but on the inside I felt like I was slowly dying.
After a year of going to the popular parties and having lots of friends, things started to get old. I started to realize that my friends were fake - they were my friends because I was popular not because they cared at all about me. So, I started to withdraw a lot and started using people more because I knew that they were only chasing popularity - they didn't care about me. To deal with all of the pressure that I felt on the outside to perform socially, in school, and athletically, I started drinking a lot of alcohol. I wasn't a bad kid, I just wanted to kill the pain I felt deep inside and when I did things like getting drunk, I would feel okay because I didn't have to perform and I could just forget about life for awhile. So, I tried to drink as much as I could and live life on the edge for the danger and thrill of it all.
During this time, my life felt very out of control. I consistently questioned whether life would ever improve - if it couldn't improve, I had no desire to keep on living. I felt like in many ways, I had achieved phenomenal success and yet, I still felt empty on the inside. I had done everything that I knew to do, but did not feel satisfied by any of it.
My senior year of high school, I met a couple of students through my then girlfriend who were different than any of my friends. They had purpose and were authentic and wanted to know me for who I was. They didn't have it all together, but something had filled that hole in their heart that despite my hard work, I had been unable to fill. Wanting real relationships and the love for life that these people had, I began to investigate what made them different. They told me that God was the difference. Being convinced that God was more of a psychological crutch, I began to investigate their lives to find out what practical things made the difference. I studied their lives and then began to study several types of religion over the next year to learn what made these people different. Through this process, I was afraid to yield my life to God's control because I didn't know if he was worthy of my trust. Eventually, one morning at McDonalds, I finally broke down and prayed. I felt like I had reached the end of my rope and something in my life needed to change. I was miserable and felt like I had no other options and so I asked God to help me.
I believe that that decision to let God be the director of my life has completely turned my world upside down. Over time, I saw that my life had both purpose and meaning to God. The hole in my heart was filled and for the first time in a long time I felt satisfied. This has been more than a temporary satisfaction, but a long-term healing that I think God has helped me with.
Since then, I have been trying to trust God with more and more of my life. It's tough sometimes, but when I've given things over to God, I haven't been disappointed. Of course there are times where I still struggle in life, but God has changed my perspective on life. I feel like I've gotten much more in touch with what is really important in life and have formed several significant life-long relationships. I think God has made all the difference in my life!