She Dreamed of Broadway and Was Not Okay

Amanda Jane Cooper had what many girls secretly dream of: a leading role on Broadway. She played Glinda in the musical Wicked, appeared in series like Glee, Bones and CSI, and lived off applause.

But applause didn't fill anything.

"Success slowly became my god," she said. She believed that if she achieved such a role, such a body, such a relationship, then "it would be enough." That search for worth led her to bulimia so severe that she once burst a blood vessel in her eye. She hated her body. She went through broken relationships and fell into a pornography addiction.

Even having it all, she asked herself the same question you may have asked yourself: why am I not okay?

One day, a woman named Alice Isaac heard her at a Hollywood party and told her about Jesus. She didn't give her self-esteem advice. She told her about a Savior. And Amanda, who had tried to fix herself alone for years, finally understood what she was missing:

"My soul just knew this is what I need. I need a Savior. I can't do it by myself."

There's the turn. Amanda didn't heal by trying harder. She stopped fighting to earn her worth and surrendered to Christ. And in Christ she found what neither Broadway nor any mirror gave her: an identity that doesn't depend on how she looks or how much she achieves.

"Because of Jesus, my identity is that of His daughter," she says today. "It doesn't matter if I'm in a princess dress or sweatpants… I can be sure that I am loved, forgiven, seen, known and free."

Her eating disorder disappeared. She committed to living in purity. And now she uses her story to point other girls to the only one who fills that void.

Sweetheart, your worth is not in the mirror, nor in the likes, nor in someone choosing you. It is nailed to a cross: Christ paid for you so that you may be called a daughter of God, and that doesn't change with your weight, your grades or your mood.

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God" (1 John 3:1, ESV).

Where have you been looking for your worth this week?

Real testimony published by I Am Second and Christian Post.