I grew up in a typical Asian family where I was told that I needed to work hard in school to get a well-paying job and live a comfortable life. My dad was a self made man who got his BS in Physics, a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, and a masters in Computer Science, and now works as a successful software architect. I didn’t really share his ambition but most of the time I just did what he told me.

We moved around a lot during my childhood, so I learned quickly that friendships are easily lost and forgotten. When I had close friends, I realized that even though we professed to love each other, we often bad mouthed each other’s flaws behind each other’s backs. This culture of deception permeated friendships, particularly with girls, and as a result, I grew cynical. I didn’t trust people, and isolated myself, thinking I was better off on my own, but I just grew distant, lonely, and cynical. My relationship with my parents was a superficial one in which as long as I got good grades, they didn’t bother me about anything else. When I was in elementary school, I was close with my little brother, but as I grew up, I pushed him away to try to fit in with cool friends or focus on my schoolwork. We grew apart, and there were often times when I was cruel and spiteful towards him.

Surrounded by broken relationships, I was convicted of my own sin. I wondered why I always sabotaged my relationships with people closest to me, leaving myself isolated. Why was I so rotten and selfish? And why was it so hopeless for me to change? I couldn’t find any answers and just felt hopeless. Towards the end of my senior year of high school, I grew close to a guy who was as pessimistic as I was. He was one of the few people that I trusted enough to let down my guard. We started dating, and I became very emotionally dependant on him. I was truly convinced that my future happiness was in being married to him.

At the same time, I came to California the summer before freshman year to take summer sessions and get a head start on my graduation requirements. My first midterm grade in Math 53 told me that I wasn’t the hardworking genius I thought I was. It came as a shock to me that despite all my efforts, I hadn’t achieved the results that I wanted. During this time, I was also faced with the loneliness of coming to a place where I didn’t know anyone. My boyfriend was Muslim and found it unbearable to continue a relationship that was against his religion, so he broke up with me. All of this piled together showed me how little control I had over my own life. I had carefully planned out my successful career path and my future marriage, yet it had all gone wrong. I didn’t know what to do, so I turned to God for help. I asked him to give me strength, and God showed me that I was not alone and that he cared for me.

When fall semester started, my friend Lily went to Cal Connect and invited me to have dinner with the people she met. There, I met Dora Wong, Amy Tung, and Angela Chang. They were really friendly, and afterwards Dora kept calling me and texting me and inviting me out to events. I didn’t know they were Christian events initially, but I went to New Student Welcome Night and Kairos Welcome Night. I became really interested because these people seemed so comfortable talking about the big questions in life that I had wondered about but never been able to ask. I was struck by the “Why Am I?” message series. The phrase that stuck out the most to me was “Why am I always studying?” The message series echoed the same questions that I had been wondering about for a long time. What was I working so hard for, and what was my ultimate purpose in life? Why was I wearing so many masks to try to please all the people in my life, but left alone feeling isolated and empty? I remember the main point of the message was that we were all misguidedly striving for love in our pursuits of achievements, wealth, power, and fame. Yet by the very act of trying to earn love, the attention we get will never be true unconditional love because it will always be contingent on our performance. We desire to be known, yet because deep down we know the darkness inside, we purposely hide those things to try to present ourselves in a better light. As a result, we prevent others from truly knowing us, and cannot have genuine connection with people. I was amazed at how easily I related to the message. I did want true friends who knew me and accepted me, yet when people approached me, I was closed off and reluctant to share about myself because I didn’t want them to discover my bad temper, my deep-seated cynicism, and my selfishness. I never considered the possibility that my emptiness was a result of a yearning for true love. But when I reflected on it, the reason I was studying so hard was because that was the way I learned to gain approval and attention from my parents.

When I figured out that I was involved in a Christian fellowship, I was surprised. These Christians were different from the ones I had met before. Coming from Tennessee, most of my classmates were Christian, but I could not see any difference in the way they lived and I did, except that I used chopsticks at home. They were still regular teenagers that gossiped, bullied, teased, judged, and excluded. So when I saw how seriously my leaders were living out their faith in terms of loving people, studying the Bible, giving their all to serve, I was amazed. I had always thought of Christianity as a blind faith that people just accepted because of an emotional connection.  Instead, I was surprised at how relevant and well-reasoned the bible studies were, how fact-based the defense for Christianity was, and how much intelligent thought had been put into studying the Bible.

Throughout my fall semester, I was struggling with stress from school and pressure from my parents. Dora could see that I was having a hard time, and she offered to do Course 101 with me. Through C101, I learned that sin was not just doing overtly bad things like killing or stealing, but fundamentally it is turning from God’s will and following our own will. It was not enough to say, “Well, at least, I don’t murder people, so I can’t be that bad.” Because each time I lied, held grudges, showed contempt, gossiped, or did what I knew was wrong, I was hurting God just as much as if I had murdered someone. I realized how selfish I really was. Up to that moment, all of my primary concerns had been solely about myself: what I was going to do with my life, what things I want to accomplish, what friends do I want to make for myself. The amount of time I devoted to thinking about others was miniscule in comparison, and in fact, I knew very little about others in my life beyond the superficial facts. I came to see how deep my sinful nature ran, and saw the meaninglessness in a life without God. Without God, I had become my own god, and led a self-centered life that was unfulfilling. I learned that because of God’s holiness he could not bear the stain of my sins, and there must ultimately be a price paid for them. Yet because of God’s grace and love he gave us a chance for redemption through the blood of Jesus. I knew how much God loved me, that despite the ugliness of my sins, he gave me the chance to meet leaders who showed me a lot of love and taught me about Him. I was convicted of the depth of my sin, and how much I needed to be saved. I knew the decision that I had to make, but I still struggled to let go of my ambition because being a Christian meant letting go of my own agenda for my life. I went to the Winter Retreat and knew that I couldn’t keep wavering. I couldn’t claim that I believed the truth, and yet refuse to live out the truth that Jesus was nailed to a cross to give an undeserving sinner like me a new life with Him. I made my decision at Winter Retreat to take up my cross and follow Jesus.

In becoming a Christian, I am now able to see others as beloved children of God, and not just people that I can ignore or compete with. I can see how I had been previously living a selfish and narrow life focused only on getting whatever I could for myself. The transformation of my life and my peers’ lives has shown me how amazing God’s love and power is. I can see how rich my leaders’ lives are when they’ve given their lives to serving God and helping lost college students instead of seeking material gain. I’ve been able to experience true joy that comes from knowing my primary identity as a beloved, redeemed child of God. God welcomed me back into His family even though I’ve turned my back on him so many times, like the prodigal son. I’m no longer wandering aimlessly through life. Instead, I have a purpose: to love others as I have been loved by Jesus Christ who died for my sins.