Exist... A Testimony

Have you ever pondered the very fact of your existence? Have you ever just stopped in the middle of the stuff you do every day, and thought, I exist. Has Descartes' statement, I think, therefore I am... ever struck you on day? So often we ride a day through, or maybe rush through it, racing from one commitment to another. Or maybe it's another slow day, where we find ourselves wondering what to do to entertain ourselves next. Something to keep our minds and hearts busy, going along in the rhythms of life without stopping to consider the very fabric of life, itself.

I know for myself, I have spent much of my life just going along with general expectations: be a good person, have fun, be content, eat healthy. Perhaps pick up a bit of philosophy that struck my fancy here and there. I was raised Christian, and was a good little church-going girl, until somewhere in high school I discovered that I didn't know what I believed, exactly, and so why believe in my parents' tradition? Why not something else, or nothing at all? I excelled academically, and it gave me a sense of purpose and self-worth, so I started to center my life and philosophy around academic goals. Out of respect for my parents, I kept up the old habits.

Personally, though, I didn't see why I had to pick a particular religion if its tenets were pretty good and they seemed to lead to a good life. They were fine by themselves, without all the hollow trappings of ritual and dogma. There was a guy in my class, though, who unsettled me. He was actually excited about all the church stuff. I sort of regarded him with a kind of amused detachment, because I considered myself more perceptive and didn't really buy into Christianity like he did. He would come up to me sometimes in the morning with his Bible open, and he'd say something like, "Rachel, you've just got to see this cool verse I found last night!" and then he'd show it to me with childish glee and wait for a similar reaction from me. I'd sort of work up a half-hearted smile and nod. Truth is, I found myself envying him sometimes, seeing the happiness and personal convictions he had. I wondered why those same things didn't make me excited.

He wasn't perceived as a social outcast in our school; actually, he was popular. We were in a dual-enrollment program, and he was by far one of the most brilliant guys in the school. He won awards for his work in mathematics that took him to two international science fairs. Next to him, it was hard to have faith in myself and my abilities when I saw how painfully short my mind fell in trying to comprehend so many things. Spending every day in that high school was a pressure-cooker of emotions and an almost constant battle with inadequacy.

I waffled back and forth between feeling religious and cooling towards it. I knew I couldn't serve as an end unto myself: I didn't satisfy myself, and honestly wasn't really that happy—though I was outwardly successful. Sometimes when I went to church, I'd feel calmed by the familiar spirituality. It usually fled me when I went back to life as usual.

As youth outreach came to the city, and my church group decided to go. It was a social situation; I couldn't loose face by not going, so I consented for the weekend event, knowing it would be like all the others that I'd gone to. Marx's phase opiate of the masses summed up my attitude towards most of the time. At the end of the last day they had their rock concert in a church auditorium, complete with a couple of smoke machines and strobe lights. The songs were fun, so I got into dancing with everybody else. I sang the words, but I didn't really mean them.

Suddenly, a quiet voice came from behind my right shoulder. Either you're for Me or you're against Me. Stop playing games.

I dropped my arms and spun, my ire immediately up. Who dared to accuse me of hypocrisy?! But there was no one looking at me, no one paying attention to one more teenager in the dancing crowd. I turned around in the other direction, still angry but now not so sure—and then suddenly a cold chill ran through me as I realized that no one could have spoken to me in that near-whisper tone and I would have been able to hear them in all that noise and smoke and movement. And then I knew Who had said those words, and I shook in sudden fear. Those intimate, all-knowing words that I couldn't hide from pierced through all of my pride and I deflated in a heartbeat. I dropped to my knees in the middle of that crowd, not caring what any of my friends thought of my odd behavior. I knew for a certainty that I wasn't guaranteed another chance at this. I couldn't plead ignorance: I had grown up in an environment that had taught me all that I needed to know about my standing before God in that moment. I knew that He was going to respect my decision, whichever way I decided to go. For a moment, I looked at the path of forever rejecting Him and I was faced with the blackest abyss of my experience. To be alone! Forever separated from Him, never to feel His comforting breath on my shoulder again! As my soul reeled away from that horror and ran straight into His arms, for the first time I saw how badly I had wronged Him from my earliest memory.

I had heard the words a thousand times and they had held no meaning for me, but at that moment it all came crashing down and I sobbed out a badly-stuttered apology. "Please, Lord Jesus, I'm sorry." I remembered what I'd heard since I was a child, and I said it. "Please be my savior and come into my heart, take me completely."

Immediately it was as if a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, and I was flooded with tears and such indescribable relief and thanks. I had never been one to display strong emotion in public, but I could not restrain the inexplicable and yet totally amazing joy that filled me in that moment. I leapt up from my kneeling position and started hugging the people around me, crying, "Jesus saved me! Jesus saved me!" through my tears. I spotted my high school friend down the aisle and raced up and hugged him, and I remember the puzzlement on his face when I said, with utter glee, "Jesus saved me!" He knew my parents were Christians and he had just assumed that I was, as well. When he realized what I was saying, he broke into a huge grin. I remember turning away from the hug and seeing my younger sister looking at me hugging a boy in public in horror. I didn't care. I raced over and grabbed her in a huge hug and repeated my breathless excitement. It completely overwhelmed me! I was amazed, ecstatic, totally beside myself. I can explain it no other way than that Jesus really did bring me to life, and I never want to go back.

My life has never been the same, and every day, when I wake up, I can only thank the Lover of my soul that I exist...

Events took place on 16 November 1995