Landra Young Hughes - A Different Kind of Love Story: How Gods Love for You Helps You Love Yourself

Jesus replied, Friend, do what you came to do.

Matthew 26:50

I was sitting on a bus on the way to basketball camp, surrounded by my friends and teammates, when I got the phone call that would change everything. It was my mom.

Whatever you do, she said, dont watch TV. Turn off your cell phone, and dont listen to anyone who tries to talk to you about your dad.

Like a scene from Gossip Girl , my teammates phones vibrated with a chorus of texts. And, yup. Their whispers and sideways glances told me what I already knew: those messages were about my dad.

I was barely fifteen years old. A freshman at a new school on the way to basketball camp. Not a care in the world beyond whether or not I would get to dress out for varsity come fall. But then, in that one single moment, everything changed.

You know what we call this in #BachelorNation? We call this a plot twist .

Have you ever gotten into a TV or book series, only to be blindsided by a plot twist? Things are going totally fine until the main character gets into an awful accident, becomes friends with the villain, or is killed off (Im looking at you, Greys Anatomy ). When that happens, you have to wonder...

Is this the end of the series?

Did they just ruin the whole thing?

Whose dumb idea was this anyway?

As fun as those moments are to watch on TV, its just different when you experience a plot twist in real life, isnt it?

Now my parents arent, like, Jay-Z and Beyonclevel famous, but in the church world, theyre well-known as the founding pastors of Fellowship Church, a nondenominational congregation with multiple campuses across the country. My dad, Ed Young, is a communicator and leader in the church space. Hes also a New York Times and Amazon bestselling author (no pressure, Landra) with a handful of spots on broadcast TV.

I had no clue that in my absence our privacy had been completely violated. Journalists had been secretly interviewing staff members at our church. Helicopters had circled our home taking photos. News reporters had even dug through our trash in an attempt to question my dads integrity as the pastor of a church. Essentially, their angle was that my dads financial success meant he was a thief. (Hes not. My dads character and work ethic are unmatched.)

My teenage mind reeled with the shocking loss of privacy and the sudden realization that my life and my familys life were being scrutinized. I mean, they took pictures of my sisters and me as if that proved something about my dads character. They even stole flight records from the airport to see where he was flying and snuck photos of my parents place in Miami (where the church has a campus, by the way).

Like I said, I was in ninth grade at a new school when this all went down, and to say it was a challenging time would be the understatement of the millennium. Finding out that your life is under the microscope of the mainstream media can certainly make a teenager feel overly self-conscious. In other words, it about drove me nuts.

Lets start with the betrayal. Have you ever had a friend straight up hurt you? Like, turn their back on you or reject you? (I really want to make a Bachelor -betrayal joke here, but Ill refrain since this part of my book should probably be treated with some seriousness and not be compared to a Molly-Jason-Melissa scenario.)