My sister and I spent about the past 6 weeks in Korea taking care of my mom fighting last stage of lung cancer. Through my time in Korea with my parents, I think God has taught me some lessons about what it looks like to live a life of faith and the key to living in peace regardless of the present circumstances.

One lesson that I learned is about the importance of guarding my heart through the word of God. My mom has shared with us about how she has been guarding her heart and mind through the Word of God and that is the only way that she is able to be at peace even though she has cancer. God has given her this verse in Proverbs 4:23 – “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” & Philippians 4: 6-7 – “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” My mom shared that she would have become depressed, filled with all kinds of worries and anxieties long ago, if she did not control her mind & thoughts with words from the Bible. She has disciplined her heart and mind in this way that even when she was hospitalized recently with a breathing tube, she said that she continued to think thoughts of God’s word. By this time, even when she wanted to think her own thoughts, she couldn’t, because the presence of God’s word was so strong. I thought about how my mind & thoughts go in all directions on a day to day experience, how I experience anxieties and restlessness as a result of that, and witnessing my mom at such peace & joy has caused me to want to develop this kind of discipline of the mind and heart through prayer and intentionally thinking about what God’s word says and what it means by meditation.

My mom has also been meditating a lot on faith verses. Hebrews 11:1 – “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” I saw her not looking at the present circumstances (cancer, pain, continuing with chemo treatment, rude & unsympathetic doctors, the short amount of time given), but putting her trust in the unseen (promise of heaven, God’s character of love & his promises in the Bible). One way she has been exercising her faith is through obedience to the Word. If God says be joyful, she said she will try to rejoice and if God says be thankful, she will be thankful. She said that recently, as she has been praying through the actual words in the Bible as God convicts her, she has been so blessed. When she honestly told God I don’t know why I have cancer and it’s gotten worse, but I will still give thanks as you said, she was so moved that tears just flowed down. Another way that she exercises her faith is through COMPLETE trust in God’s word. As she has been worried & fearful about what is to come as she will start treatment with chemo injections starting this coming Monday, God has given her 1 Corinthians 10:13, about God giving her only what she will be able to handle and that he will provide a way out. She said that she will not doubt, but as she puts her complete trust in what God says, there is such peace and even joy.

She shared that God’s word is the only thing that gives her strength each day. It is true; I saw her living under the shadow of death but not being crushed under this reality because God’s word lifts her and carries her through. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff they comfort me (Psalm 23).” As we recently did DT about the end times, and seeing my mom being sustained through God’s word daily, I was convicted that God’s word is one way that I too will be able to face the ever-darkening world and the difficult challenges of the end times. My mom shared that she was brought to mind Jesus overcoming all the temptations of the devil in the desert through the Word of God and that she needs to continue in this way of claiming God’s truth written in the word. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away (Mark 13:31).”

The way in which I was challenged and renewed in my understanding of living by faith is to trust in God’s promises DESPITE the present circumstances that may not be changing as I wish and the problems that persist. My understanding of faith used to be to put my trust in and keep praying that God change and fix the problems that needs to be fixed right in front of me: I wanted God to heal my mom completely, I wanted God to give us clear direction for my parents’ ministry, to solve problems and save us from the troubles that we are faced with. None of this has happened as we have been praying, but I saw no resentment or bitterness on the part of my parents, and I realized that my faith is not to be dependent on God changing these problems. FAITH is being sure of the hope that we have in God’s word, that one day it will all be fulfilled, and in the meantime living a life of obedience to what the Bible says we should do. It’s also being certain of what we do not see. I learned that living a life of faith is to trust in God, in his word and to do what it says even though problems are still there and my circumstances don’t change. Besides, there’s ultimately heaven, a sure and secure place for us no matter what may happen on this side of earth, and that God can work all things for good (Romans 8:28).

Another lesson that I learned is learning to give thanks in all circumstances. There’s always things that can be better and things that need to be fixed in life, and if I am to only focus on these lacks and what more I want to be done, then I will never be able to give thanks for what has already been done. Honestly, when we went in for my mom’s last CT scan and checkup, I was focused on the fact that she has to now start chemo injection rounds and that she has but a year to live, according to the diagnosis of the doctor, when there was also the good news that the cancer that has filled her lung a month ago has decreased significantly in size.  My mom was very happy, saying that she got her lung back, saying that medicine will do its job to the extent it can and God is the one who will do the rest. As Joyce shared with me that we should give thanks to God for what He has ALREADY done, I felt rebuked and realized the rightness about giving thanks (of course) for what he has already done: my mom’s cancer has decreased, that she has a year as opposed to 1 month to live, she can breathe so much better, stable enough to cook and wash dishes, able to talk more, and the way she challenges us to live a life of faith. Furthermore, we have been the recipient of so many people’s prayers, we received much care from the place in Gangwondo, got to experience God’s wonderful creation at Solrak mountain, and my aunt has provided food for us during our time there. I was also challenged by the way in which my dad was always giving thanks for little or any progress that my mom was making and details of his prayers of thanks. One day, after one of the trips to the mountains, my dad sat us down at home and prayed a prayer of thanks. He basically made a list of specific thanks: for my mom being able to stand and walk for 40 minutes, for her good appetite, for her breathing better, for the trees in the mountains, for the cable car we were able to get on for the view, for the comfortable lodging place, for the safe travels. My dad always gives thanks for safe travels and not getting into any accident almost every day. As Philippians 4:6-7 adds that we not only need to bring our requests and petitions to God, but also thanksgiving, I realized the importance of looking back and acknowledging God’s blessings and what he has already done.

Last lesson that I learned is about perseverance through suffering. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you many be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2-4).” One thing that I have seen in my parents over the years in their ministry, especially after the news of my mom’s cancer, is that of their persevering struggle to keep trusting God, in his word and his character. When my mom was in the hospital with a lot of pain recently for a week, Joyce and I saw her getting herself up at 4:30am still to pray on her bed (to keep her commitment to God that she will spend time in meditative prayer for 100 days).  I learned a bit about holding onto the unchanging character of God, as we recently did Bible reading in Psalms. It didn’t occur to me until this time around how much David and the psalmist held onto the names of God in their struggles, fears, and confusion and it helped me in my prayers as I faced similar emotions.

“The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble” (9:9)

“I love you Lord, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (18:1-2).

“The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life- of whom shall I be afraid?” (27:1).

God is Sovereign. God is good. God is faithful. God is our creator. God is also healer, so I will continue to pray for a miracle of healing, as I claim the following verses:

“And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.” (James 5:15a).

“As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.” (James 5:11)

“Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:25).

“With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27).

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14)

In sum, I witnessed God giving my mom just enough grace for each day. I am reminded of the hymn, “Day by Day”.

Day by Day with each passing moment,

Strength I find to meet my trials here;

Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,

I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.

He whose heart is kind beyond all measure

Gives us to each day what He deems best

Lovingly its part of pain and pleasure,

Mingling toil with peace and rest.

Everyday the Lord Himself is near me

With a special mercy for each house;

All my cares He fain would bear, and cheer me,

He whose name is Counselor and power.

The protection of His child and treasure

Is a charge that Himself He laid;

“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,”

This the pledge to me He made.

Help me then in every tribulation

So to trust They promises, O Lord,

That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation

Offered me within thy holy Word.

Help me, Lord when toil and trouble meeting.

Ever to take, as from a father’s hand,

One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,

Till I reach the promised land.

I feel confident and encouraged to know that God will lead each of us with enough grace for each day. God is good!

When I look back on the past four years of my life, three major life-transforming decisions come to mind.  The first was committing myself to my small group, second committing myself to God and third, committing myself to God’s work.

The first milestone in committing myself to my small group occurred during winter retreat of my sophomore year.  My boyfriend and I had just broken up and I was with my small group in our cabin.  I think as a sign of comfort to me, one of the girls started sharing what she was struggling with, and one by one each of us shared something in our past that deeply scarred us. Praying for each other, I began to see my small group as real people with real hurts, rather than just a group of random girls I was affiliated with through church.

The pain of the breakup also shook me up enough to make me think about what I was pursuing in life.  Suddenly, it didn’t make sense to me anymore to go through the façade of parties or attention seeking culture that is common to the college experience.  What is more, I saw a genuine community before me pursuing real questions in life and living with sincerity and generosity.  I remember multiple times in the following month that I would call Jessica crying and she would immediately come, meet me wherever I was on campus, and pray for me.

So as they committed to me, I committed to them.  Since I had pre-dental club meetings during our normal small group time, I decided to give up that club and just meet with the girls.  I also devoted a lot of time to getting to know them by studying with them and sleeping over at their places.  In a given week, I would probably sleep at Tina’s place for four nights, Ellen’s place for two nights and my own place one night.  Most of the time I would only stop by home to shower and get a change of clothes.  Teresa told me that someday I would make a great missionary because I was so used to packing up and sleeping wherever.

As our relationships deepened, I was also given the opportunity to stretch my heart and care for them.  I remember getting random phone calls, sometimes waking me up at 2AM and walking over to unit 1 with Bear Walk to talk to one of my small group girls.  Through these experiences, I saw the strength of true community and the satisfaction of engaging my time to care for these girls that I had committed to and were committed to me.  So even though my old friends tried to guilt trip me into joining them for parties, even to the extent of buying me new clubbing clothes just to entice me to come out with them, I knew inside that I was making the right choice.

Surrounding myself with people that also wanted to pursue God really helped me to take God seriously.  My ears opened and I was convicted bible study after bible study, Sunday sermon after Sunday sermon of the truth of the gospel.  Getting closer to my leader also helped me with the day to day questions I had about our church or living out Christian life.  Poor Hannah, I would almost weekly have two hour conversations with her, asking what probably seemed like unending questions.  But it was through those conversations that I began to understand the heart behind our church and trust its work.

My commitment to God occurred through many smaller steps.  First, it was structuring my life so that I had time for Him and His people.  This meant getting rid of the old stuff that was clearly immoral or just plainly a waste of time.  I stopped going to parties, drinking, clubbing, listening to my favorite R&B/hiphop artists like Usher, and I stopped watching Grey’s Anatomy, Heroes, and Korean dramas.  With all of this gone, I had a lot of free time on my hands.  I finally started going to the post-bible study activities and spent time with the community.  Furthermore, staying in Berkeley over the summers taking summer school helped me to solidify these relationships and utilize the less hectic schedule to pursue my relationship with God.

Secondly, I started reading Christian books and doing DTs with my small group girls regularly.  In light of my past, Psalm 51 and Psalm 23 were passages that comforted me.  I found peace in the descriptions of the Lord as my shepherd, leading me beside peaceful quiet waters, guiding me in paths of righteousness, restoring my soul.  I experienced daily how He provided for me to the point of my cup overflowing and I trusted that He would have mercy on me and cast out my sins making me whiter than snow.  And I saw that no matter what I was going through, the bible had an answer for me, a way to correct my posture so that I could endure and still have hope.

Thirdly, I committed myself to God’s work.  Being actively involved in ministry really solidified my conviction that the gospel is true because I saw it played out in the neediness of the different girls I was ministering to.  I no longer wanted to be tricked into pursuing the things of this world, so I made a commitment to take every opportunity to fill the needs that came up.  I wanted it to be clear to myself that my life’s priority was serving God and not pursuing my own ambitions.

God took my commitment seriously and challenged me on many different occasions.  While I did take the opportunity to serve in different ministries at our church, it was the little daily decisions that were hard to make.  It was particularly difficult when I would have multiple midterms the next day and a younger sister would text asking if I was free to talk.  I wanted to just text back that I had midterms, but on each occasion, I found that it was well worth it going to talk to them.  I learned that the struggle for me was always fighting past my initial selfishness, but once I was there talking to her, hearing her problem, it was so easy to see that she was much more important to me than some test.  After multiple experiences like this, the decisions to go and leave other things behind only became easier because I knew it was worth it in the end.

Also, choosing to go lead DT group at a particular time even though I knew that I had a midterm right after that I wasn’t prepared for was difficult.  But I wanted to make it clear in my own heart what I was living for, so I would choose to go.  There were many times like these, where I had to prioritize God’s work even when I felt like I had no time.  But God was always faithful to me and well worth my commitment.

Through being engaged in God’s work I was also challenged to develop useful practical skills to meet those needs.  I learned how to develop lesson plans for ImpACT, make flyers with photoshop, give worldview presentations for Interhigh, lead someone in Course 101, estimate in cooking for a larger crowd, and even learned how to sew!  But I can only say that learning to serve in these ways have only enriched my experience of the joy of God’s work.  Seeing the children’s shine in their eyes as they learn or discussing with my Interhigh mentees about how media affects them fills me with wonder for how God works in various peoples lives.  Remembering my own pursuit of meaninglessness in this world, I can testify that it’s truly by grace that God saves, plucking people out of their destructive lives and placing opportunities in their life to take small yet large steps toward a life spent with Him.

In reflecting over the past four years, I find that it was these three main commitments, and their smaller supporting commitments that shaped me.  I hardly realized all that God was doing in my life at the time, but at each step of the way I knew what was the right thing to do and I just followed.  In Mark 1, Jesus says, “Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Now that I’m ending an important chapter of my life and reflecting on the past 4 years, I can see how God has changed my life and has directed me to a better path. I first came into Berkeley excited for my new independence away from my parents and ready to make new friends and have that good college life. Moving into the dorms sounded so exciting: having roommates who I can constantly talk with and just chill with. I really wanted close friends who really knew me and who I really knew. Unfortunately, I did not understand what it took to for people to really know me. A lot of things prevented my getting close to people: mainly my own laziness and my default nature of being unreflective. My goal was to do as little as possible. There were times I would close the door to my room and pretend to be sleeping to avoid chatting with my floor-mates. Such laziness led to my being un-relational because I wasn’t willing to put in the hard work that comes with building relationships nor was I willing to participate in the rubbing of lives that result in deeper connections. I kept people at a distance and didn’t even realize it. Ironically, I felt left out a lot because I expected so much out of relationships when I put in so little time and so little effort.

Not only was I lazy, but I was also detached. Although I recognized my own apathy and disconnectedness through bible studies and messages, I was quick to forget and never really reflected on what God really meant to me.  Any time I felt uneasy about my spiritual life, I would distract myself with media watching shows like like Grey’s Anatomy, movies, reading romance novels, watching anime, manga, and playing all sorts of video games like final fantasy or play w/ play station, guitar hero, wii. I just wanted to have fun and be comfortable; so the best way to do that was to ignore everything else. It wasn’t until winter retreat freshman year where I heard about God’s faithfulness and the love he has for us that I made my decision to commit my life to Jesus; however, I really didn’t understand what it meant to be a Christian. So although I made my decision, there was no change in my life.

Then came sophomore year. I lived with other girls who attended Gracepoint.  It was the first time to live in such close proximity to people I wasn’t related to and we all had different defenses up. Half of us were passive-aggressive about things and the other half just didn’t care. I couldn’t stand the tension in the apartment, so I stayed out as often as I could by studying at the library or playing games at Anime club.  Even after the 2008 winter retreat where I felt convicted again to give God my entire life and not slices of it, I never put my words into action. The following spring semester I reached a spiritual drought and found myself not caring. I might have done DT three times the whole semester and found excuses to not go to prayer meeting, bible study, or after bible study activities. As sophomore year progressed, I also found myself more and more hardened to my sins of laziness, lust, and selfishness and content with my minimal level of commitment to God.  I lived in this bubble and my laziness had consumed my character into a slothful, dishonest, unreflective, and apathetic person.

The summer of 2008 was a major turning point for me. The tension in our apartment resulted in a roommate moving out and I wondered why I was so unhappy over the situation.  And at the same time, I was frustrated with the lack of change in my life even though I made a decision my freshman year. So I became resolved to take my faith more seriously because I saw how detached I had been.  I decided to take the free time I had that summer up here at Berkeley to root myself in God’s Word. I committed to being more mentally and physically involved in church and doing DT more regularly.

Through that time, I experienced how having a community of faith is crucial in providing the support and accountability I needed. It revealed the problems in how I related with people, and how my laziness made me focus my attention on myself and not on God. My leader pointed out the fact that I needed to repent for keeping God at arm’s length. The sad part is that I was shocked because I hadn’t seen it that way and I actually thought I was okay. However, the only reason why I felt “okay” was because I was keeping God at a distance, forgetting things very easily and not reflecting on my actions. I saw the depth of my sinfulness, that my main identity is one of a sinner, truly wretched before God. I re-evaluated how I viewed God. Did I view Him as my Creator, my Savior, my Lord? Yes, I did. But I realized that at the same time, I had this barrier that prevented me from wanting to get to know God more and to build a personal relationship. I had forgotten that Jesus died on the cross for my sake and I struggled with the fact that He loved me and I needed to return that love. All my acts of selfishness and pride hurt God, the father who celebrates the return of His prodigal son. So that summer I re-committed my life to God.

It was in junior year when God changed my heart on how to view community and my part in God’s larger narrative. I really caught the vision of our church especially after the Mon-Saturday series, junior discipleship, and through Church 101. Christianity became an active life rather than the passive religion I thought it to be: actively putting other people’s needs before mine, actively fleeing from evil desires, actively pursuing righteousness. The only way for me to get closer to others was to tear down my barriers and get past my comfort level of laziness.  I’ve found that with every time I get up out of my bed to chat with my roommates or eat lunch with someone I get to know people on a different level than when I had in my freshman year. Sharing during DT is hard at times since I’ve been so unreflective before but the more often I do DT, the more the Bible teaches me about how I need to honor my relationships and not use laziness as an excuse to not take up my cross. Like it says in 2 Timothy 2:3, 10 “Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus…If we endure, we will also reign with him” I needed to learn to endure hardships, pain, and life because if I continued to ignore my surroundings I wouldn’t be able to live a life of faith since I would continuously be running away. Like a soldier, I needed to train my body and overcome my slothfulness with diligence and the love of Christ.

Just this past year has taught me so much more and has cemented the fact that I need a community so that I can flourish under God’s truth and protection. When I confessed a sin in my life that I had been struggling with, I got to experience God’s love, forgiveness, and grace through my small-group. For the first time in my life, I felt that there were people who knew all of me and I felt the richness and freedom in my relationship. I also had the chance to go on the Taiwan winter mission trip which pushed me out of my comfort zone as I reached out to people who didn’t speak English. I was also given the chance to lead Course 101 this semester, further solidifying my Christian foundations and teaching me to be faithful in preparing for course and how to articulate the gospel.

After these four years, I thank God who has watched over me and has spoken to me through all the messages and through my relationships. He has given me a community grounded in biblical truth that has drawn me out from the isolated state that my laziness and desire for comfort put me in.

Coming into Berkeley, I expected to learn and experience a lot of new things. Attending one of the top educational institutions in the world, I learned a lot (or at least, I think I learned a lot). And having spent my time with various people, I have definitely come upon a lot of new experiences. But my past four years has been defined by how I came to an understanding of God’s love for me and really experiencing that in the process of obeying him.

2 Kings 5: 1-2: “Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.”

Coming into college, I never would have thought that I would be where I am today. Four years ago, I was just a typical Korean nerd from Irvine with lofty dreams about the future. I thought that I could do everything and nothing was going to get in my way. This was my plan: I would get into Haas after two years, outperform all my classmates, work internships off to the side, graduate and get a lucrative job, get married and raise a happy family until I retire and die. I wanted to control my own life and call all the shots. I took course 101 my freshman year and the material quickly talked about sin and how it was the “I” problem. As I learned more about sin, I started to recognize it more in my life. I may have sounded and acted tough but really, I was insecure and unstable inside. I was worried about so many things regarding the future but was trying to hide it. There was so much sin lodged deep into my heart but I was too proud to admit it. I was just like Naaman who had everything under control on the external but he was sick with leprosy. I knew that I needed to be saved from my sins and that my life was meaningless without any kind of purpose. I was a really proud and selfish person who was only looking out for my own concerns. I had a lot of worldly values that I needed to work on getting rid of in my life and I was ultimately heading into destruction. This was when I was getting a glimpse of God’s love for me as I recognized that he was willing to forgive someone like me who had failed to obey him in the past. I decided to make my salvation decision at the winter retreat of my sophomore year recognizing that God loved me and forgave me of my sin and rebellion.

I experienced God’s love especially in senior year. There were a lot of personal struggles and issues that I was dealing with throughout my junior year and it all accumulated just before my senior year. I had sinned against God, my leaders and my peers. I got caught up in a lot of self-deception and I ended up lying to everyone regarding sins in my life. I hurt many people and I thought that I could never be forgiven for what I did. It was during this time that I was able to see myself a lot more clearly as sins that were lodged deep into the depths of my heart were exposed. I felt so ashamed and unworthy. I did not deserve to be called a Christ-follower and I misrepresented everything that this Christ-centered community stood for. I crossed boundaries that I know that I shouldn’t have and I thought that no one would forgive me. I would totally understand if they didn’t. I was a hypocrite, liar, deceiver who only brought pain and difficulty to peoples’ lives. Why bother with me at all? It would only be a waste of time for anyone to deal with me at this point, I thought. No one had to care for me anymore and I was expecting to be forgotten about.

The response that I received from the people in my life and God was not what I expected. Throughout this time, I was always asking God, “Why so much love? Don’t you remember what I did?” I broke trust and loyalty in the relationships my peers because of my sins. I betrayed every single one of them.  I was living in Dana House and I thought that it would be so difficult to be with my peers because of what I did. But instead of looking down upon me, I was loved that much more. Every time that I was depressed and drowned in self-pity, my peers were always willing to sit down and talk things through with me. When I needed prayer, there was someone who prayed with and for me. When I needed accountability, my peers were always sure that I would be firm to my commitments. I asked myself again, “Why so much love?” During this time, I was applying to jobs and I submitted over 200 resumes, received only 7 interviews and a countless number of rejections. There was a lot of suspense building up to that one job offer and when it finally came, it wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. I know why: the day that I received my job offer was the same day as our last Dana House dinner and more than gaining a job, I was saddened by the fact that I would be leaving the brotherhood I experienced in that house. As we were sharing our memories from the past year and the things we learned and experienced while at the house, I couldn’t help myself from tearing up. Despite how I had betrayed each and every single one of them, I received so much mercy, grace and love from all of them. I still remember the day when I asked them for their forgiveness and how each of them embraced me and forgave me. “Why so much love?” What have I done to deserve such a community of brothers?

I broke a lot of the leaders’  trust and I thought my relationships with them would never be restored. But my leaders did not let go of me and loved me that much more. They spent time with me to talk things through, went on prayer retreats with me, property corrected me, desperately prayed for me, and led me into the direction of repentance. I deserved to be left abandoned but instead, my leaders accepted me as the wretched sinner that I am and loved me under their care. “Why so much love?” What have I done to deserve such loving leaders?

Because of my past sins, I felt unqualified to do any kind of outreach or ministry during this time. I really wanted to as my heart was with the college campus but I just felt that I could not because of how much of a mess-up I was. But my leaders and peers continued to consider me a partner in the kingdom work we were doing together on the Berkeley campus. I was amazed as to how much my they trusted me to be a part of the great work we were doing on this campus. As we were trying to love and pray for the freshman, I really got to experience how God could use wretched sinners like me to carry out kingdom work. “Why so much love?” What have I done to receive the privilege of serving in God’s kingdom? And it has been such a joy this past year to see God working in the freshman guys. I have been so blessed by them and truly God is transforming their lives as they struggle through their sins. Before I left for Winter Break, I received a thank you card from them and all of them signed it thanking me for the past semester. Although it was only one card and a small act of appreciation, I could not keep myself from tearing up. I found myself reading through the card over and over again and could only ask God, “Why so much love?”  What have I done to deserve such blessing and joy in my life? I would struggle with God saying to him “God, I don’t deserve this, I really don’t. I am unworthy of all of this.”

I felt so unworthy of such mercy, grace and love from God. It was hard for me to accept God’s forgiveness. I thought to myself that it couldn’t be that easy. No one would let me go without any kind of punishment. But this is the love that I experienced from God. Romans 5:8 says “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” I never knew that I could be loved so much and it was when I embraced God’s forgiveness that I truly understood and experienced God’s love.

As I am about to graduate and finish my time at college, what I am going to take with me is my personal experience of God’s love. I have changed a lot since my freshman year but it wasn’t due to my own ability and willpower but it was by God’s mercy, grace and love.

These past few days I meditated on what’s the most drastic way my life has changed because of God and it would be becoming part of His community.  Coming into college I was very withdrawn from the world, I was so used to retreating into books, my thoughts and my studies to drive the reality of my life away. I had been miserable for a long time due to mostly what seemed constant family problems and financial worries. My coping mechanism was to bottle things up and ignore as much as I could, to care less and it basically left me this shell of a person because I just wasn’t all there. There is now a strong sense within me that I’m not alone, that I belong, that I can feel at rest and be fully known and accepted.  It’s not so much about my steps of faith but about people’s faithfulness to me. God protected me in ways Ill probably never know, he brought many people into my life to be there for me, help me, and show me his love and care. I can only marvel at how God has led me all the way, and I’m filled with a sense of gratitude that I’m loved this much.

My first impression of our church was through Chris Gilling and David Tung who lived on my dorm floor freshman year. I had a general impression that everyone was really nice but it was through Chris and David that I had that first small glimpse of that a sense of community. They opened up their ‘home’ to us. That small dorm room with two loft beds and the futon and table where they drank tea and played board games. I appreciated their willingness to love us and give of themselves. Even simple things like coming over everyday and asking us how our day was, telling us jokes and helping us when we needed it. I remember Myra Dharma asking me questions to get to know me and even a simple thing like how my day was caused me to pause a long time because I couldn’t remember the last time someone asked me that and I didn’t know how quite to answer it. I didn’t talk much that year but I did try to listen. It was through small group times with Myra and Emily that I was able to express and think about those important questions such as the purpose of my life. It must have been difficult for Chris, David, Myra and Emily since all the effort for a relationship was all on their part I just showed up to things but never fully let myself feel at home in their presence.

That sense of being an outsider has carried over from my past and kept me from fully embracing my true identity and accepting grace and love from others. It’s not because the fact that I’m of a different race but I couldn’t see how my burdens could be understood and carried by others. I was too wrapped up in my own problems and hurt to ask for help and lean on others. However, it was through Pastor Ed’s messages and reading the bible that I was able to accept myself as a sinner and understand God’s love and began to trust him more. I started to take small steps of obedience to get out of myself and open up to others and was able to receive wisdom and love. I remember so many conversations with Emily, her countless prayers for me and her patience in helping me figure out what was wrong. I know she has loved me because of her faithfulness to God and because I was shown God’s love I too wanted to love others although it was hard for me.

Some of the greatest points of clarity have come from my interactions and conversations with others as I tried to sort out my struggles and emotions. It has been their voice of stability and truth that I learned to trust and recognize that they understood and wanted to help me. It has been dt sharing with peers and their stories from how they tackled their own pride or insecurities. Its meeting up at a café to talk with a peer during a time when I was so full of self pity over my family’s brokenness and her telling me you know you’re not the only broken family in the world and also reminding me how lucky we are to live in America. Its been confessing to my leader how frustrating it is to struggle over the same things over and over again and lamenting over my wrong motives or major character flaws and her leading me to the word of God and giving me practical advice and prayer. There have been so many conversations like this that helped me to finally act and move forward in my faith.

One of the hardest yet life changing struggle this year has been growing in my relationship with others. As I was finally able to live with peers, (8 to be exact) and getting to know more peer sisters I recognized the absolute importance of sharing what’s going on in my life. What is going on in my heart and in my mind because life is hard and there is always something to talk about. I have prayed much more this year not just for myself but for others, and in the process of opening up my life I’ve experienced being immersed in theirs and having a greater sense of fellowship as sisters in Christ. All the perceived differences and assumptions I made now seem so small and petty. Yes we are very different but what draws us together, is our love for God and the desire to be discipled and serve him. I struggled a lot this year with letting down my guard because I was trying to protect my heart and trying to act very competent. I had to learn to be a lot more honest rather than letting insecurity paralyze me from being known.

Spending time with my peers and engaging in conversations was what finally brought change. It was through many late night conversations when we talked about how the word of God spoke to us or shed some light on our past and the struggles we are dealing with now. I recognized now that Pastor Ed’s messages pierced me so often because of the universality of emotions and scars from sin. We all know how it feels to be hurt, misunderstood, judged, angry, frustrated, disappointed and burdened.  Our experiences may be very different because sin might manifest itself in so many ways but at the core the root issues are similar. I am a sinner in need of grace as much as everyone else.  After all the time I spent together with my peers I felt so much more comfortable, simple things like cooking random meals and making fun of each other to asking for help and a willingness to listen and pray that I found that sense of ownership for one another grow. I’m sure God brought my peers and I for a reason and I see now I had been missing out on the powerful strength of our relationships. They can be the voices of comfort and love, of truth and correction if I let them in my life. I can’t recount the ways they have shown me patience and care time and time again.

During the recent disciple retreat Pastor Ed gave some applicable advice that I wished I had understood a long time ago. He said just because someone doesn’t understand you doesn’t mean they can’t give you good advice. This helped me because I always struggled with feeling misunderstood. He also commented that its through relationships you can conquer sins. Your kidding yourself if you think you have the willpower to say no to sin but its that bond from relationships that stems from being committed to people and the shared history that will bring you back when you are tempted to sin. I had perceived relationships and struggling with sin in two different categories instead of viewing it as integrated Christian life. I felt so encouraged to continue my struggle to be fully committed to others and make them part of my life. I feel more than ever now that this is the place God wants me to be. I can let my burdens down and finally rest no longer so fearful of being seen as a sinner or getting hurt or ‘not fitting in’ but looking forward toward the life God has called us to live. I finally understand the heart cry of God he mentions so much in the Old Testament, “You will be my people and I will be your God.” Indeed we serve a great God and there is no other way I want to live but deeply rooted in community, filled with a greater sense of identity as God’s people.

Growing up, I didn’t adhere to the teachings of the Bible, to the wishes of my parents, or even to popular culture. I could see popular culture as fleeting, meaningless, and usually, ridiculous. My parents seemed too controlled by the old Korean cultural values of pride and success, which I couldn’t agree with. Especially considering the kind of persons I saw my parents to be in how they related with each other, with my brother and I, and with people outside of the family, I was sure that I didn’t want to live the kind of life their philosophy led to, which, along with my stubbornness and disrespect, became cause for many arguments. And as for the Bible, I never really thought about it or tried to apply it to my life. Everything I read in there or learned at Sunday school just became another set of random facts that I stored in the back of my head somewhere, unsure if they’d ever really be useful.

Of course, that left me to live my life in only way. I lived off of impulses, desires, and appetites. I truly lived selfishly, seeking for the way to make every moment the most enjoyable, apathetic to what the future may bring or what others may feel. Occasionally, I would be restrained by a strange sense of morality or guilt, but that never really lasted long. Life quickly came to revolve around me and instantaneous pleasure. I lived for fun, excitement, romance, and a twisted version of friendship, but it always came down to what I could get out of a relationship or action. Eventually, I began to do whatever I could to get my blood pumping. Fights, reckless driving, getting in trouble with school, family, and the law, arguments with anyone and everyone about everything, stealing, breaking in, vandalism, and many other such pursuits. The adrenaline rushes and excitement, mixed with the uncertainty of knowing the outcome, created the illusion I came to live in. I tried to create more meaning and worth for my life by risking it and the state it was in. People soon just became pawns that I would try to maneuver to my best benefit, to get what I wanted from them, and then to abandon them if I thought they no longer served me any use. However, in the back of my mind, I could never truly escape the idea that I was cheapening these relationships and pursuing a life that was headed toward a dead end anyways. Being one to never think about the future, I compartmentalized what I knew to be true away from how I would choose how to live my life.

But I began to feel very empty and isolated before long. I continued to be destructive to myself, to my family and friends, and to everyone around me. Soon it wasn’t even for my pleasure, but just for the sake of being able to destroy the things around me, so that everything in my life could mirror what I felt inside and that I could feel as if I was, at the very least, finally living authentically.

At the same time, I began to notice a change in my brother’s behavior. He, much to my surprise, began to talk about spiritual things, quit chasing things that he once seemed to enjoy, and changed in the way he related with the members of our family. It came to me that, although I had claimed to be Christian, I hadn’t so much as uttered a word of prayer or even thought of God for years. I came to a point in my life where I had no other choice but to really contemplate on Christianity. I had ruined so many of the relationships in my life, with my family and my friends, my dad went from being between jobs to ending up at a job that caused him to compromise some of his values, which, until that point, regardless of our disagreements, I respected him for standing by, and my grandmother was diagnosed with a late-stage cancer over all the other illnesses she suffered from. Even in her sickness, my grandmother lived a radically different life, sacrificing for the rest of us, reading the bible and praying fervently day after day, and insisting on going to church every week, even when it seemed as if her health might not have been able to afford it.

That spring, I came across a choice. I could either enter UCSD’s bioengineering program as a junior transfer, or I could go up to Berkeley, attend community college, and see the church, and God, that had changed my brother’s life. For me, in my desperate state, this decision was a no-brainer. Everyone else just thought I had no brain. The results of that choice proved to me once and for all that the world’s value system doesn’t have everything figured out after all.

God took this small step toward Him and used it in a way I never could have predicted. At first, I attended and participated because I just felt like I should, but I didn’t expect much. After a few weeks though, I realized that I was just going through motions. I decided that I needed to really put this search as my priority. I skipped breakdance practice that week and attended prayer meeting, still unsure if anything would happen. But as I sat there in First Pres, and the guided prayer led into returning to the cross and experiencing grace, I couldn’t help but break down into tears, as I reflected on the fact that God had been waiting for me to return to Him and that He forgave my sins in full through what happened on the cross. Christ, still willing to love and forgive, bore my burdens and guilt, my ruined relationships with my family and friends, my selfishness, my rebelliousness, my destructiveness, my deceitfulness, and my seemingly hopeless condemnation and overcame it. I prayed to God repenting of my sins and then and there, I resolved to live a life committed to God, truly faithful, to live by the truth, and to no longer live on rushes and emotions.

Things started off shaky, of course, as I was unsure of how to live a Christian life; it was completely different from everything I’ve ever known. But now, I can say for sure that I can’t go back. There is no other choice for me. I am in desperate need of God’s grace; it has given me purpose, confidence, and complete fulfillment. He has shown me love, and has therefore taught me how to love, live in community with the church and my peers, to repair my old relationships, to live my life sacrificially, and has caused me to hunger for more of Him though time spent in the word, prayer, service, fellowship, seeking guidance, and battling sin, which I can now do through His power. He’s blessed me beyond what I deserve and given me glimpses of his vision for me, as I take Christian living seriously and am convicted more and more of my pride, arrogance, lusts, lack of seriousness, lack of love, anger, and isolation. The realizations of my shortcomings, and helplessness to overcome them alone, cause greater dependence on my God, and my greater dependence only leads to a greater realization of His faithfulness. Now, although I have so far left to go, I know for sure that I want nothing else but to serve my God and live under His grace, choosing Him every moment and getting to know Him more and more intimately, as everything else is meaningless apart from my Sovereign Lord.

Partially because I wanted to practice speaking English, I started coming to Friday Forum in the beginning of 2006. Through Course 101 with Mary Chen, I gained the fundamental understanding about Christianity. The first time that Christianity touched me deeply was when I visited a Christian friend in hospital after her serious car accident. She was wounded seriously, but she kept saying “thank God” instead of blaming God which I thought would be a natural response to that situation. I was really moved by her love and faith in God. Through course 101 and bible study in IGSM, I came to know more and more about the Bible and Christianity. I was often inspired by the enthusiasm of IGSM people and their love for one another. However, I did not feel the need to believe in God until one day, my husband said to me: “If a person has religion, he will not fear death when he faces it because he knows what would happen and where he is going after death.” I was touched by his words and started to think about Christianity more seriously.

For biological research, the most common approach is to propose a hypothesis and then provide a comprehensive experimental evidence to support it. Looking for concrete evidence has become my habit to any truth, including Christianity. Through studying the bible and reading some Christian books, I was convinced about God’s existence finally. Romans 1:20 says “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse”. The Chinese book entitled “Song of a Wanderer- Beckoned By Eternity” (<> in Chinese) also helped me with my questions. The author of this book is a Chinese Christian who also majored in Biology and had similar experiences with me. He lists tons of evidence to indicate that God is real, such as the fine-tuning of the universe, the design of the earth, the beauty of nature, and the mystery of life. At the very beginning of the book, it says: “??????????????????????”, which could be translated as “the existence of God does not need to be proven. It is impossible to prove it by our limited human intellegence.” This sentence really hit my heart. It reminded me of all the nerve cells that I see under the microscope everyday. There are lots of complicated signaling pathways inside a very small cell which looks so simple from the outside. Society for Neuroscience (SfN) in the United States has about 40,000 members. These members are mainly comprised of professors, which means that many of their postdocs and graduate students are not included in this number and yet all these researchers have been trying to understand the brain for several decades, but so far, what we have found out and know about how the brains works is still very limited and superficial. Whenever I think about this, I have to give my awe to God for His intelligent design of life.

After the fall semester of 2007, I had bible study with Sharon once a week. Through Sharon’s patient and inspiring explanation, God’s words made more and more sense to me. However, I did not have a strong feeling about the death of Jesus on the cross because I thought it is God who put the tree of knowledge in the garden, and thus God himself had the main responsibility for the fall of men. Thus, I was not bothered by my sins. In January 2008, I attended the first IGSM winter retreat. On Saturday night, Pastor Timothy talked about Jesus and the cross. He said: “It was YOU who sent Jesus to the cross, not the Roman soldiers nor Pilate”. I was really shocked by this sentence. Pastor Timothy also pointed out that the person who needs to forgive someone actually pays the price for the forgiveness, not the person who needs to be forgiven. God is ready to forgive everyone since His son, Jesus, died for each of us. However, God cannot forgive you unless you truly repent and ask for forgiveness. At that moment, I realized that I needed forgiveness no matter where my sin is from or who should be responsible for the cause of my sins. The truth is that I am a sinner who needed to be forgiven, not only because I’m arrogant, self-centered, and I blamed God for my own sinfulness, but also because of the unawareness of His great mercy of forgiveness and salvation. In the past, I was very indifferent to the cross because I thought that was God taking his own responsibility to make up for human beings’ sinfulness, but now I realized that it is a great gift that God has given me for free. I was so thankful for that. And at the retreat I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior.

Also, through my marriage, God let me find the answer to one of my questions- “why did God give us free will?” A few months after my husband graduated from the business school at UC Irvine, he got a job in south San Jose. Everyday, he had to commute about 3 hours. In order to strengthen his body for the tough job and a long commute, I tried my best to cook a nutritious dinner for him everyday even though I was tired after a long day of work in the lab. I asked myself. “If there is no love coming from my free will, can I enjoy doing this?” “If I just did it as a chore that a wife should do, will I feel that kind of joy in cooking for my husband and will that dinner be something that my husband looked forward to as he was driving back home?” The answer was “NO.” I realized that God wanted me to love him with my free will so that I can enjoy the relationship with him. How great is God’s love!

One big change that happened in my life after becoming a Christian is having the desire to share the gospel with other people and my family. Even though I was financially tight and really busy in the summer of 2008, I went to China to spend two weeks with my parents to share the gospel with them. My husband and I agreed that we can always save money and work harder later, but we cannot delay sharing the gospel when our parents are getting older. Last May, I invited my parents to come to the US for my graduation ceremony and through God’s amazing provisions we were able to find a good Chinese-speaking church for them. One month later, they both became Christians and were baptized. They have become so happy after becoming Christians and reading the Bible in the early morning has become the start of their life each day, especially for my dad. I am really thankful for God’s mercy on my parents’ salvation. Also, from the beginning of this year, my husband and I have been helping a Chinese-speaking fellowship for visiting scholars and students for the church where my parents were baptized. I am very grateful to this opportunity not only because it is a work for God’s kingdom, but also because God revealed what my heart is like very clearly. I saw how my pride was very deeply rooted in my heart and how limited my love was. There were several times in the beginning when I got no responses to my emails or phone calls when I invited them to the bible studies and I became upset and bitter. I often felt that I was wasting my time. When I held my cell phone and hesitated whether or not if I should make a call or what should I say to invite that person to an event, I always asked myself “why am I doing this?” Thankfully, God spoke to me through the bible reading. In Luke 9: 23 Jesus told his disciples:”Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” I realized that the first thing that I needed to do in denying myself is to die to my pride. During the Passion week, I read those chapters that described how persistently Jesus exhorted Peter to feed his sheep after he left. I started to cry and tear up not only because of Jesus’ compassion toward the lost sheep but also because of the overwhelming guilt of my lack of love toward other people. I am thankful to God for showing me my weaknesses and using his word to strengthen me so that I would be able to face them and finally overcome them.

Now I truly understand the Chinese saying “?????” (The people who feel content are always happy). Apostle Paul says in Philippians 4:12-13: “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” After becoming a Christian, I experienced the peace, joy and contentment by reading God’s word everyday and entrusting my future in His hand. Especially after witnessing a very famous and successful professor in the field of Neuroscience who had to downsize his lab from 20 people to 3 people due to lack of funding, I realized that an academic success is not able to ensure a stable and peaceful life at all. At this year’s church-wide winter retreat, through the directors sharing time, I came to understand that the true joyful and meaningful life is the life that could positively impact others with the gospel. I used to be a tomorrow-worrier, a life-planner and a success-seeker. If anything did not go as what I had planned, I would feel very anxious and uncomfortable. But I hold onto these words that I heard at a church in southern California. “The best way to get though life is to take God seriously but don’t take yourself too seriously.” Counting the numerous blessings in the past 30 years of my life allows me to see God’s faithful love and wonderful leading in my life. Now, I am willing to surrender my life to God because I trust that “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God’s ways higher than my ways and God’s thoughts higher than my thoughts.” I pray that God will continue to mold and shape me to become a useful instrument for His work.

When I was a first grader I remember making my first “salvation decision” during a winter morning class at my private Christian school. My teacher had used an analogy of a rock climber, about to fall, in need of the “helping hand” of salvation. The analogy of the rock climber was lost on me, as I doubt I even remotely understood the basics of what we call “sin” at the time, much less its implications on the hopelessness of our fallen state. Over the years I would begin to think of God in terms of my own understanding of the analogy, I was the rock climber, about to fall, and God would just step in and help me out—I’d then be back on my way up the mountain side of life, left to my own means of ascending. At times I would slip and feel bad about myself, I would turn to this conception of God, and, guided by emotionalism, I would be back on my merry way doing whatever I wanted until the next incident would occur that would make me feel bad.

When I was a junior, a friend of mine started getting into the music scene. With the shows at clubs in Hollywood, drinking became another daily experience, drugs soon followed. As I started to get deeper into substances I started becoming more and more isolated from my family and friends. I remember times where I wouldn’t talk to my parents for days at a time. My day became a routine of getting high, sleeping throughout all my classes, going to volleyball practice, coming home, getting drunk, looking at pornography, and playing online video games until a couple hours before I needed to go to school again. Sometimes I would do all of this with friends, often I would do it alone. As my isolation from the world grew, my isolation from God grew, my hatred towards authority figures grew, and depression started to consume me.

For the next year my life became stagnant and empty. Then, the beginning of my senior year, an accident happened. My apathy for the nameless victims as I drove past the wreck outside my school soon became much more personal. I found out a few hours after I had left school that I knew the people involved in it. Two of them were dead; the other was in a coma. One of the kids that died I had known since the 5th grade and had considered one of my personal “rivals” in academics. The other who died was on my volleyball team. The horrifying thing was that even with this personal aspect of tragedy I really couldn’t bring myself to care. Every time I would try and think about them my thoughts would wander back to games, wander off into fantasy, or drift back to alcohol. My relationships began to break down even more and I would often find myself over at my friend’s houses just to avoid the fights that were bound to break out between me and my dad. The accident became a catalyst for the darkest depression I have ever experienced.

My strong emotionalism to Christianity as a child had led me to have a strong conviction of sin throughout this time. I knew I was a sinner, however, my distrust of authority figures and my self-loathing really caused me to question the notion that there was a God who actually loved me. More than anything, my arguments for an unknown God stemmed from a desire to be unknown by God, I didn’t want him to know anything about me because I was sure that any sort of personal God would hate me for all the things I had done.
My relationship with my dad had been even more rocky once I had first applied to colleges. Our “discussions” about colleges quickly degenerated into arguments that ended with each of us walking off in separate directions, avoiding each other until the next day or two. The day after a particularly bad fight my dad picked me up from school. When I got in he started talking about colleges again, but this time what he said was very unexpected. He told me that he had come to the realization that he was unfairly pressuring me to try and go to a school I didn’t want to and that he had been wrong about the way he had approached me with his own opinions—he told me that he loved me and wanted what was best for me and he actually asked me for forgiveness. This was definitely one of the last things I would have expected to hear from him.

That experience with my dad made me think of the way I approach God. It wasn’t that God needed to apologize to me, but rather the fact that God’s love seemed such an unexpected reaction to me. As I saw my relationship with my dad start to turn less antagonistic it really softened my heart to the notion that God loved me.

In the spring, having overcome my last real hurdle, the thought that God could never love me because I hated myself, with Jeremiah 29:11 fresh in my mind, I made my first real intellectual and volitional commitment to Christ.
While I had been convicted of my own sinfulness and the way in which it had isolated me from all of those around me, I really had no mentor or role model to turn to. Additionally, I still harbored in me the lingering feelings of mistrust to those in positions of authority in my life. As I came to college, just a few months a Christian, still struggling very much with the reality of substance abuse and pornography, I had no real desire for strong involvement in a Christian community. In fact, some aspects of the Christian community I had come from were so off-putting to me that my notion of Christians in community was fairly negative. I church hopped a little, but mostly found myself without a firm foundation the first semester of my freshman year.

During spring 2006 a friend of mine from my floor invited me out to ABSK bible study on Friday night. My first impression, besides being weirded out by the fact that everyone was Asian and the fact that I was at “Asian Baptist Student Koinonia” when I was neither Asian nor Baptist, was that everyone was very friendly. As I delved deeper into ABSK I noticed that my life started to change even more. Initially, when I became a Christian, I had made volitional goals of quitting alcohol, drugs, getting out of depression, and other “big changes.” Now God really began to work on my character, slowly breaking down my pride, temper, and ambition that had built up over the years. Rather than just the big “lifestyle” changes God has slowly shaped me into one of his followers.

Looking at my identity in Christ now, I see Jesus in 3 main ways. I see him as the savior who serves as the only hope for the redemption of my sin. I see him as the lover whose loving sacrifice I won’t ever fully understand. And I see him as the mold which I aspire and am challenged to be fitted to.

Since I became a Christian my behavior has changed dramatically. Simply put, I don’t drink anymore, I don’t smoke anymore, I don’t do drugs anymore, and, rather than spending most of my time playing video games, I spend my time hanging out with my friends from church and serving alongside my brothers and sisters in this community.

My outlook on life has also changed, but sometimes I find it hard to describe. The numbing isolation I experienced by rejecting those around me has turned into a desire for relationships. Honestly, I used to hate spending time with others. If I wasn’t playing video games or watching TV, I was usually driving around Los Angeles with no real aim just to get away after spending time at volleyball practice. Through Christ I have experienced the opportunity to serve others alongside like-minded Christians, the result of which has been nothing less than joy—frankly, I wouldn’t exchange the time used to serve and develop communal relationships for anything else. The depression has turned into hope for the future. A few years ago, during a summer when my house burned down, my mom had a brain aneurysm, and my uncle died, I found comfort, not in any sort of stability or life circumstances, but rather, from the fact that I was loved by God, knew he could use bad situations for the good, and because I was surrounded brothers and sisters who were praying for me and my family. Before I had become a Christian, I would have spent that time allowing myself to be overcome with self-pity which would eventually turn into a loathing for the world around me. The self-serving self-righteousness has slowly turned into a desire to serve. Honestly, the highlights of my week comes from serving the kids in ImpACT—I don’t exactly do much, and what I do usually happens behind the scenes, but the thought that I can give a little time and effort and give a kid the opportunity to learn about Jesus and experience some loving mentoring makes me want to give even more. The mistrust of authority is still turning into an appreciation and love for those who have been placed over me. When I first came to this church I was deeply ingrained with the thought that authority figures act solely with the desire to express their authority over others. Slowly that’s been broken down, over the years I have really come to see those above me as not only mentors, but my friends.

While I’ve had to give up substances, ambition, self-reliance, money, and many aspects of my pride along the way I have gained so much more. Once I used to think that I was what people usually refer to as a “lone ranger,” someone who thought that church attendance was just another requirement of Christian life. I thought that no real, lasting relationships could be formed through what I considered necessarily superficial interactions. The past four years have changed my perspective, through experiencing life with my friends, leaders, and co-laborers I can now see why the church is called a spiritual family. There are many things that I still need to work on and give up, but, with the help of my family here at Gracepoint Berkeley, and armed with the faith I have in the redemption that God has given me through Jesus, I realize that nothing is too big to give up.

I was born in Guangzhou, China as the only child to loving, atheist parents. My elementary and middle schools denounced superstition and celebrated naturalism, patriotism and communism. Therefore, I developed a firm impression that only illiterate fools could be superstitious enough to believe in anything supernatural. My parents encouraged me to study and play hard, and so I did. I excelled in school, won math competitions and planned to become a great scientist. I was proud, self-sufficient and felt no need for any god.

When I was 14, my parents and I moved to Massachusetts. In high school, I adjusted quickly to the culture shock and language barrier. I excelled in many Advanced Placement classes, won math competitions, and saw a secured future as a great scientist. I once wrote a letter to my homeroom teacher defending my refusal to recite the pledge of allegiance because it endorsed the existence of a “God.”

After high school, I attended Caltech for my undergrad studies. Most of my close friends were liberal atheists who shared my belief that nerdy equaled cool. We had a lot of “good clean fun” – we studied together and did all things quirky, geeky and dorky. College was also an eye-opening experience that showed me that studying was not all there was to life. I tried out many hobbies such as juggling, skiing and rock-climbing. I enjoyed intense outdoor activities because they were as close to a “spiritual” experience as I could have possibly had. All these activities were my new-found sources of happiness. My worldview was naively optimistic – that people were inherently good and that knowledge was leading the world in a generally good direction. In such a liberal and atheist-leaning environment, I majored in biology, a field populated by Darwinists. My professors taught evolution as a fact and one of them made fun of intelligent design during lecture. I attended a lecture by Richard Dawkins, one of the famous atheist biologists. At the end of the lecture, I applauded and cheered along with the ecstatic audience. I thought evolution fully explained humans’ unique intellectual complexity and innate sense of morality, such that religions have lost power in the scientifically advanced society. I rejected religions while ignorant about them.

I started grad school at UC Berkeley as a settled atheist with a cheerful worldview. For the first time, people tried sharing the Gospel with me. During the first week of grad school, I was looking for new clubs to join, new opportunities to volunteer and new hobbies to take on. That is when I met Patty at an ultimate Frisbee game hosted by Gracepoint church. After New Student Welcome Night, Patty and Caroline of Koinonia suggested that I go to International Graduate Student Ministry (IGSM) bible studies. Even though I was not seeking, Karen encouraged me to attend bible studies whenever I could. It struck me that the Christians at Gracepoint Church were definitely neither illiterate nor foolish. I kept going because I wanted to learn more about this group of nice people and to eat free food. All the while, I would go to happy hours, bars and parties and boasted about my growing alcohol tolerance. I would sometimes skip bible study to stay longer at the Friday happy hours. Although I learned that Jesus was a wise moral teacher, I did not value the true purpose for which He came (which is to offer us eternal life by taking away our sins).

In the second semester of grad school, I went on the IGSM winter retreat. The guest speaker presented the fine-tuning of universal constants (evidence for statistical improbability of human life) and the evidence of Jesus’ divine resurrection. The scientific analyses appealed to my reasoning. Objectively, I would have believed in God right there, but I just could not place my trust in an invisible, supernatural Being. During the retreat, the messages on sin, the vineyard workers and Pontius Pilate (parable/real people in the bible who rejected God) gave me an overview of the Gospel and made me identify with the people who rejected God. I cried at the retreat because I was touched by the prayers and faith of others, but I could not describe what I was feeling. I assured myself that just like how I would cry during good movies, my emotions were only temporary. So I remained a stubborn skeptic.

During that winter, Mia and I started Course 101 one-on-one so my schedule remained flexible to allow for skiing, mountaineering, backpacking and rock-climbing trips. Before we started, I warned Mia that she should not have to waste time on me because of my science background the probability of my conversion was extremely low. In the beginning, I was only intellectually interested in learning about Christianity, so I looked forward to staking out my atheist/naturalist standpoint throughout C101, so that I could reject religion with greater conviction after I became more informed about the subject.

In the introduction week, I rejected almost every concept presented and tried to argue for my naturalistic views. And then in the later weeks, I had a difficult time identifying myself as a sinner because I thought I could not offend a God I did not believe in. I thought I was an overall moral and relatively selfless person. My moral relativism lead to the conclusion that unproductive people such as the retarded and the paralyzed have no value, yet I fought back tears as my moral conscience shouted that every human being ought to be valued and loved regardless of his utility to society. I had not realized then that it was God who had set a moral code in my heart as part of His revelation to me. So instead of acknowledging that there is Absolute Truth, I tried to keep it at a distance. I figured that I could at least understand the material assuming that God existed. I thought: “Yes, if God exists, then He must be grieved for my rebellious ways. Yes, if God exists, then I need Jesus Christ to save me from eternal death. Since I cannot see God, how do I know He exists unless He shows up in an obvious way?” So I suggested that if a pink flying bunny appeared when I wished for God to show me His existence, I would totally believe in God. Mia reminded me that I would have no choice to believe if God made himself known like that and without choice, love is not possible. On the other hand, if the sign from God was not absolute proof, then a person who rejects all supernatural things would have to explain the sign as a rare natural phenomenon. I would need to take a leap of faith to believe. The leap seemed too far despite the accumulating evidence supporting Christianity as truth. One of the biggest obstacles was that I could not resolve the apparent discrepancy between evolution and the creation account in Genesis. Mia suggested that I read ‘The Language of God’ by Dr. Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project. Dr. Collins presents a satisfactory case for the perfect compatibility of evolution with Christianity. Yet I felt that I needed answers to my many other intellectual questions.

During the summer, I regularly attended home church at Chul and Sharon’s home, where we watched The Truth Project, a series of lectures by Dr. Del Tackett. Since the lectures targeted a Christian audience, many of the ideas were new to me and even seemed outrageous. During the post-video sharing times, I learned more about Christianity and corrected some of my misconceptions. For instance, I was not thrilled when I sensed Dr. Tackett’s intolerance toward other worldviews. I later learned that his intolerance was well-founded if Christianity was the highest truth instead of a mere personal opinion of worldview. Dr. Tackett claims that the bible teaches wives to submit to their husbands while the husbands love their wives. I later learned that submission does not imply inferiority or inequality. Dr. Tackett also discussed the relationship between government and church. I later learned that Christians do not vote Republican by default nor must they participate in conservative political activism.

Later I read a book called Letters from a Skeptic by Dr. Gregory Boyd, which dispelled many of my doubts so that I can see the Gospel message more clearly. As I read the book, I experienced what Dr. Boyd called “cognitive dissonance” – a torturous state of indecision between atheism and Christianity. It was a decision between what’s rational vs. irrational, logical vs. nonsensical, and the abundance of love vs. emptiness. I regretted taking Course 101 because I was constantly troubled by the possibility that God might very well be real. I actually regretted knowing about God because if Christianity was true, then I would face an eternity of sorrow for explicitly rejecting God. I wanted to drop out of Course 101 and reject God. However, I decided that I should at least be polite and wait until the end of Course to reject God. The more evidence supporting Christianity, the more skeptical I needed to be to continue denying God. So I held on to the possibility that Christians are just psychologically weaklings who could not deal the fact that humans are just accidentally advanced molecular assemblies. Therefore I continued to hang out with my secular friends.

One week before my decision, my curiosity drove me to take a bite of a cookie made with pot (marijuana) that my friend had offered. Later, as I was heading to the bus stop to go to Oakland, I felt strange visual distortions and slightly dizzy, so I decided to return home. I regretted eating the “special” cookie because it did not bring me the joy that I had hoped for. Then I thought about how I have led my life to this state of trying to escape from reality. I had spent my whole life seeking happiness but never satisfied because I had been searching in all the wrong places. Then maybe where I had refused to search was the right place. Perhaps God was real and wanted to offer me true happiness through Him. If so, then He must be watching me and reading my every sinful thought. He was inviting me to inspect my imperfect self as I cringed in reluctance. During the following Sunday Service, I felt quite rotten that I could not get myself to sing along to praise songs because I had never praised God in my whole life. I needed to review the facts and decide to accept or reject God. During that weekend, I spent time with some of the IGSM sisters in Alameda. The experience reminded me of the genuine interpersonal relationships God wanted me to have. During the following week, I considered how life would be totally different if I were Christian. One of the “inconveniences” was that my weekends would shrink from two days to one day because I must attend church on Sundays (implication: I could no longer take three-week backpacking trips). Another “inconvenience” was that my potential pool of marriage prospects would be shrunken dramatically as I would have to marry a Christian. During that week, I had a Course 101 meeting, in which Mia referred to the trilemma (Jesus was lunatic, liar, or Lord) and asked me to think about what was preventing me from making a decision. She also assured me that I would not regret becoming a Christian despite the “inconveniences” I foresaw. I reviewed the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection by reading a book called “The Case for Easter” by Lee Strobel. The evidence was again compelling.

There would be severe implications of accepting Jesus’ resurrection. It meant that everything I had learned in C101 was true, that I was created by God with a purpose which I refused to honor – yet He still loves me and wants a relationship with me. As I reflected on my life apart from God, I saw how my heart had actually been lost, restless, insecure and rebellious. To feel like I am really “living”, I had pursued fleeting idols such as pleasure, academics, my family’s approval and the admiration of others at the expense of neglecting the only worthy pursuit – after God. I had felt entitled to do whatever pleased me with my life, body, mind, and possessions depending on my mood. For example, during several bouts of depression, I seriously strategized how I should kill myself without being a hassle to the world. I realized that my potential to do good (such as curiosity, intelligence) was often misused to do bad things. I had been veering away from God by asserting that I was capable of leading my own life in the right direction. I finally understood why God, my Creator, was absolutely justified in letting me head straight into the eternal darkness of hell because of my sinfulness. However, He loved me and valued my life so much that He presented a way for me to reconcile with Him. God sent His Son to die on the cross along with my sins even before I sinned, and Jesus’ resurrection promised me an eternal life. Therefore, believing in Jesus meant that I would be made righteous by handing my whole self along with my sins over to Him, and I would finally be able to live my life how it was originally intended – a meaningful life directed by God.

I recalled the ways in which God progressively revealed Himself – by guiding me to this church, by allowing me to partake in many meals, bible studies and trips with caring sisters and brothers, by having me take Course 101, by giving me innate moral standards and by showing Himself through the bible. Even though I did not understand why everyone does not have the same opportunity to hear the Gospel as I did, I was grateful for the fact that I did have the chance to hear. So it was up to me to humbly receive God’s grace. How loving and powerful is Jesus Christ that He laid Himself down, then defied death and showed us that we could also defy death through Him! For twenty-four years, these truths had been obscured by the darkness of society and the pride in my own heart. My faith was little, but certainly not blind. The Christian worldview made more logical sense than the atheistic one. I did not have to abandon my rationality to find the truthfulness of Christianity. On the contrary, my science training helped reason against my atheistic preconceptions. My investigation into Christianity had been the most intellectually- and emotionally-stimulating journey thus far. A verse in the bible summarizes it: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13.
On Sunday September 13th, 2009 during a meeting with Mia, I made the decision to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. I thank God for finding me even though I was not looking for Him. I am thankful that my innate curiosity had taken me one step further to develop interest in seeking. I am also very thankful that the pink flying bunny never appeared (Actually, if it did, I would have probably dismissed it as an overheating Energizer Bunny rather than a sign from God). I am thankful that somehow I decided not to go to Oakland while under the influence of marijuana. Finally, I am thankful to Mia for teaching course 101 over 8 months and patiently answering my many questions.
After my conversion, my faith has grown significantly as I experience the new, satisfying sense of rest and purposefulness that I was not able to find elsewhere. I no longer view my success in society as my goal in life because I know that it is never-ending and dissatisfying. My new mission is to be used by God to share His love with the world. For example, I tried teaching Course 101 to my parents when I went home in October, although unsuccessfully. I then took Advanced Course 101 during J-Term and am teaching Course 101 with Angela, which have further deepened my understanding of the Gospel. My personal relationship with God deepens as I read the bible, reflect on devotional questions, pray and experience community with my sisters and brothers. Also, I see that the biblical description of humans’ fallen state is accurate for the people I see everyday, including myself. I realized that I had been a selfish, inconsiderate, ungrateful person with a cold, empty heart, who had been disconnected with myself and with others. As I uncover more areas of my sinfulness, I cling onto Jesus’ promise that He has cleansed me from all sin. I want to be a living testimony to the world; therefore I actively try to obey God by being more selfless, honest, patient, and kind, and have stopped degrading my body with substances. Going to Sunday services did not end up being an inconvenience but something that I look forward to. I am grateful of the many opportunities to serve in church and I look forward to walking with God for the rest of my life and beyond.

I was born into a middle-class family. Although both of my parents worked and we had a steady income, my parents fought over money almost every day. At that time, I thought money was the only solution for my family problems. Actually, I thought money was the solution for all of life’s problems. Without money, we wouldn’t be able to hang out with classmates or make friends with them. Without money, we wouldn’t be able to have a boyfriend or even get married. Without money, we wouldn’t be able to have a warm family. Although money is necessary to a certain extent, I went to the extreme. I hated rich people. And I attributed people’s success to the unfairness of having better economic conditions. At that time, I made up my mind to earn a large amount of money and buy a big house for my parents in order to please them. That was the only thing in my mind — buying a big house so then we wouldn’t have any more family problems.

Since my mom was a Christian, I started going to church at a very early age. But since I moved many times growing up, it was hard for me to go regularly to the same church and build on my relationship with God. Whenever others asked me about my religious belief, I would answer that I believed in Jesus, even though I did not understand Christianity at all.  To me at that time, Christianity was just a western religion and religion offers consolation for the weak.  I did not reject Christianity; neither did I actively investigate it.  All I cared about was my own dream to make money and live a comfortable life. As I grew older, I understood that money was not the solution to everything. No matter how much money I may make, I will never be able to please my parents.  Money can bring about only a certain level of happiness, but when I faced myself honestly, I knew that no matter how much money I possess, I would still be discontent and feel that there is something missing inside.

In the summer of my sophomore year, my parents and I went to Texas to visit my brother who was studying there.  Because we did not know Texas that well, my aunt from North Carolina asked a Christian couple living in Texas to host us. As I stayed with them, I realized that their care for us was selfless and unconditional – even though they were going through some of their own personal difficulties, they were still very willing to help.  After we returned to Taiwan, that couple continued to take care of my brother and every weekend, they would drive two hours to bring food or other necessities to my brother.  They gave not only money but their time and love.  Even though they gave a lot, they were still very humble.  Seeing their lives, I started wanting to find out what kind of God Jesus was.

In the summer of my junior year, I attended the NTHU English Camp.  My TA Calvin introduced me to Gracepoint and I started getting in touch with Gracepoint.  I took Course 101 with Esther Wang, learning about the love of Jesus.  I struggled because to give up my original lifestyle was not an easy thing, but from Course 101, I learned that I should not allow the lesser things in my life to conquer the greater things.  I thought of one example of the lesser thing was my sin and the greater thing was the existence of God.  If God truly exists, then I should not continue to indulge myself in my own comfort, but to accept the path that God has planned out for me. I also thought of that couple in Texas whose example showed me how sinful my selfishness and mistrust toward God and others were.  For that reason, in the last session of Course 101, I decided to confess my sin and trust that the precious blood of Jesus Christ can wash away my sin.

After making my decision, a lot of my values have changed.  Before, I thought I could have a happy life if I study hard, get a good job and make a lot of money.  After I made my decision, I gradually realized that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”  We do not have to rely on ourselves to find peace and happiness because when we depend on God, God will give us peace and joy.  I am slowly shifting the focus of my life from myself to glorifying and honoring God.