Chris Chan 

Well, I am an eight month old Christian, undergoing a low spiritual time with no knowledge of when it will end. However, I really enjoyed having a highly spirited soul back in July 2000. That was during and after my first youth retreat. This means, for the readers who think being a Christian will mean a much easier life, lived happily ever after, please cogitate [It means to carefully think about -Ed.] again.

To some people, being a Christian is like taking away their freedom, at least for most of the cases I have seen. Shouldn't it be a bit convoluted? [Intricate or complicated] By convoluted I mean, "What's the catch?" Why are there so many Christians still? Don't they want freedom too? Why would there be people spending most of their life serving our heavenly Father--like going on missions-- never knowing what their future holds? Why don’t they just sit back at home and watch some sit-coms? Honestly and obviously, I am not a Christian who has a lot of experience, but I have recognized the moments when the Lord has held out His hand and helped me. When I felt like the world turned it's back on me, I knew there would be someone who would be by my side, stated by the Bible: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. When I mentioned about going through a low spiritual time, I meant my faith being a cubical graph. [Graph of a cubical function –Ed.] One moment, I am up a hill, the next, I am down a valley; one moment I believe, the next, I do not. However, deep down inside, I still know who is best. The one who knew me before I knew Him.

I am really a person who values school more than anything else in the world. Once school starts, I care about nothing else other than school itself. I guess it was just the way I was raised. Due to this reason, I accepted Christ, just last December. I had a very bad schedule-the classes assigned to me were none of the classes I wanted. I was very frustrated, and I started praying. My prayers were answered and I was much more delightful, but even then I was still praying about my grades. This really has shown that I accepted the Lord for benefits, which isn't right, and I have realized that it is really supposed to be the opposite. I've recently found out that all of my prayers have been answered in someway: ones that are answered right away, ones that are answered three months afterwards, ones that are supposed to hurt, or the ones that make you say "I love Jesus."

There was so much amazing grace given to me, it is hard to express. When someone asks me "Why do you want to be a religious person instead of being free?" I honestly don't know how to express my answer, but I just know what's best. I really hope that my testimony can convince some of you, at least to be familiar with God.

C.C.
5-09-00