For as long as I could remember, I have attended church. Though my parents were not saved when they emigrated to the U.S., they had met through church outreach activities in Taiwan and decided to raise their children in the church when they moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where I was born.
I have little recollection of my first years in church, though I remember that it was a generally happy place where I was able to do crafts and the other creatively messy things that I loved. When my family moved to California, my parents accepted Christ into their lives and became heavily involved with a community group at church.
I looked forward to their community group meetings and outings, simply because I could wreak mischief with my friends and could stay out later at night. During summers, I would attend Vacation Bible School, where I had some of the most enjoyable times of my life. However, I took pleasure in the activities we did without realizing that they pointed to a Heavenly Father from whom all my joys came. Despite my ability to memorize verses, sing songs and give the right answers in Sunday school, I did not truly understand that I owed every inch of my being to something greater than my eight-year-old imagination can conjure up.
God was an ever-present but distant being in my life throughout elementary school – I prayed to Him before difficult exams and when my parents were angry at me. I knew that He would help and comfort me, but I never thought that this kind of love was something I did not deserve. So I continued to live in sin, unrepentant and even unaware of the wicked soul that fed these selfish deeds.
These habits culminated in a hard-hitting moment in eighth grade, when at a conference I finally realized the depth of my sin and the grace of God. In remorse, I repented and offered my life to Christ, clumsily praying the sinner’s prayer for the first time, really, in my life.
Unfortunately, my young mind did not understand that to live for Christ was to give up everything else. I wanted to have it all – the friends, the fun and the recognition from people; I wanted it all to fit snugly next to my life in Christ, harmoniously nestled together so that I could enjoy both the pleasures of the world and pleasures of God.
This attempt did not last long before my pursuit of God drifted to the sidelines. I went to church, but would skip it to do homework or to attend high school competitions. I read Scripture, but only when I had the time, and I never tried to comprehend how the verses connected to the way I lived my life. And the more God was pushed to the side, the more heavily the cares of the world pressed upon me, until I buckled under their weight during my junior year in high school.
Stressed and sinking hopelessly into a sea of disappointment, I thrust myself at the one thing that had not let me down: Jesus Christ. Recalling Proverbs 3:5-6, I realized that if I trusted the Lord with all my heart and acknowledged him in all my ways, my paths would be straight, and I no longer needed to play the silly and fruitless game of chasing after wind. In March 2008, I gave my life to Christ and declared Him as my Lord and Savior in baptism.
Though I continued to struggle with the tendencies of my life before salvation, God sovereignly placed me at UCLA in 2009, where I eventually found my way to UCLA’s Grace on Campus fellowship and then to Grace Community Church, through which I have learned more than ever about how to live out the gospel – to give up everything to pursue eternal riches, which my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has graciously bought for undeserving sinners through His atoning death. It is for Him that I labor, and for Him that I dedicate this summer, as well as the rest of my life.
I have little recollection of my first years in church, though I remember that it was a generally happy place where I was able to do crafts and the other creatively messy things that I loved. When my family moved to California, my parents accepted Christ into their lives and became heavily involved with a community group at church.
I looked forward to their community group meetings and outings, simply because I could wreak mischief with my friends and could stay out later at night. During summers, I would attend Vacation Bible School, where I had some of the most enjoyable times of my life. However, I took pleasure in the activities we did without realizing that they pointed to a Heavenly Father from whom all my joys came. Despite my ability to memorize verses, sing songs and give the right answers in Sunday school, I did not truly understand that I owed every inch of my being to something greater than my eight-year-old imagination can conjure up.
God was an ever-present but distant being in my life throughout elementary school – I prayed to Him before difficult exams and when my parents were angry at me. I knew that He would help and comfort me, but I never thought that this kind of love was something I did not deserve. So I continued to live in sin, unrepentant and even unaware of the wicked soul that fed these selfish deeds.
These habits culminated in a hard-hitting moment in eighth grade, when at a conference I finally realized the depth of my sin and the grace of God. In remorse, I repented and offered my life to Christ, clumsily praying the sinner’s prayer for the first time, really, in my life.
Unfortunately, my young mind did not understand that to live for Christ was to give up everything else. I wanted to have it all – the friends, the fun and the recognition from people; I wanted it all to fit snugly next to my life in Christ, harmoniously nestled together so that I could enjoy both the pleasures of the world and pleasures of God.
This attempt did not last long before my pursuit of God drifted to the sidelines. I went to church, but would skip it to do homework or to attend high school competitions. I read Scripture, but only when I had the time, and I never tried to comprehend how the verses connected to the way I lived my life. And the more God was pushed to the side, the more heavily the cares of the world pressed upon me, until I buckled under their weight during my junior year in high school.
Stressed and sinking hopelessly into a sea of disappointment, I thrust myself at the one thing that had not let me down: Jesus Christ. Recalling Proverbs 3:5-6, I realized that if I trusted the Lord with all my heart and acknowledged him in all my ways, my paths would be straight, and I no longer needed to play the silly and fruitless game of chasing after wind. In March 2008, I gave my life to Christ and declared Him as my Lord and Savior in baptism.
Though I continued to struggle with the tendencies of my life before salvation, God sovereignly placed me at UCLA in 2009, where I eventually found my way to UCLA’s Grace on Campus fellowship and then to Grace Community Church, through which I have learned more than ever about how to live out the gospel – to give up everything to pursue eternal riches, which my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has graciously bought for undeserving sinners through His atoning death. It is for Him that I labor, and for Him that I dedicate this summer, as well as the rest of my life.