Sandra Lee
You can say that I’ve been searching for something true and pure my whole life. Something that wasn’t fake, fleeting, or “phony”, but something that was real, lasting, good, and beautiful.
That just sounded so cliché that I could barf. But it’s true; this was a serious endeavor of mine. The quest started some time in late middle school or early high school when I started to become cynical about everything. I grew tired by the world around me. There had to be something more worthwhile than popularity at school, making friends to climb the social ladder, fake smiles, ostracizing “uncool” people, joining clubs you couldn’t care less about just to look good on college applications, or learning useless facts just for a test.
So I tried to find this beauty in many places. I found solace in the uninhibited beauty of nature. In closer, more sincere friendships. But I knew
even those things weren’t ultimate. I was a very impressionable kid, and every wind of philosophy I heard seemed appealing. Being a skeptic, I didn’t trust anything except for my own reason and experiences. So in my mind, if we could never be certain about the future, the only motto to live by is carpe diem. It was the only philosophy that made sense. All I need to do is believe in myself and live up to my potential. I trusted only in myself and soon started to doubt the existence of God. I had been going to church since childhood, but finally one day during my junior year of high school, I decided that I didn't believe in God anymore. I tried living as an atheist for one week. It was one of the worst weeks of my life, because nothing made any sense. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't deny that God existed. It seemed intuitive to me that nature had a Creator and so did good things in the world such as love. Without a Creator, nothing made sense or had any meaning in the world. I soon gave up being an atheist, but I still had a lot of unanswered questions.
I cried the day I realized that the most beautiful thing I was looking for was with me all along, yet I’d been on this grand quest. It was so simple: Jesus dying on the cross for me. I had heard the same message at church since I was a child. But only then did it hit me that Jesus dying on the cross for my sin was the greatest example of unconditional love—love poured upon me that didn’t depend on who I was or what I did and never ceased with time. And that is something truly beautiful.
I also read the book of Romans which, to my astonishment, answered many of my questions.
I didn’t find this beautiful thing by myself however. God found me. I had always prided myself in being "wise" in seeking truth and wisdom. But all my "wisdom" led me to carpe diem instead of what I considered the "foolish" story of Jesus dying on the Cross. 1 Corinthians 1:20-4 says,“Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." And that’s how I got completely owned. Whatever inch of pride I had left was destroyed. I couldn’t even “find” my way to God or somehow use my own intellect to conjure up and understand the gospel. I don’t have a crazy life-turned-180 testimony, but I can tell you that God’s grace is powerful if he can save someone as rebellious, skeptical, and free-minded as I was.