Three years wasted 

As a great enthusiast of classic literature, I would like to begin my testimony with a quote from one of my favorite writers. It comes from Christian theologian and writer C.S. Lewis. Perhaps you know him as the author of the Chronicles of Narnia. In this quote, Lewis states, “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” This quote resonates with me on a profound level, but not because I’ve spent my whole life living by these words. In fact, it’s the exact opposite: I understand this truth so deeply because I spent three whole years trying to prove it wrong.

My story starts in the summer of 2023. This summer was special because I had just completed my first year in a non-Christian public school since I was in first grade. I had made many friends that year, but something truly bothered me that I didn’t realize until then. I was falling behind academically by a large margin. Maybe it was because I had transferred back and forth between so many different schools during the COVID pandemic. Maybe it was because I had spent too much time playing video games, when I should have spent that time preparing for my future. But regardless of the reason, that summer, I realized that all my peers were a step ahead of me academically. While they were out doing internships and studying for SATs, I was barely even able to keep up with my classes. I didn’t lead any clubs, and I didn’t have any medals to my name. And most importantly, I didn’t have any plans for that summer that would improve my academic position in any way.

Panic sets in

At that moment, I started to panic. I realize, there wasn’t going to be an Ivy League scholarship in my future. There wasn’t going to be a successful career that was going to allow me to retire early. I would be the least successful Asian in my church, and every other parent would ask my parents why I was so terrible at my studies.

In retrospect, I realize that these fears were not true in the slightest. These fears were only lies from Satan, trying to pull at my insecurities and drag me away from faith. I began to blame Christian Youth in Action (CYIA), and my church responsibilities, for taking away the time I needed to succeed academically, even though deep down I knew it was truly my own fault. I went into that year of service at CYIA feeling dejected, hopeless, and constantly dreading my own future. But even while I taught God’s word, I felt that I was only wasting my time, working on something that would barely add anything to my college application.

In Luke 12:25-26, it says “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?”. This verse shows that our anxiety over life, our future, and our security is a pointless and meaningless gesture.

Our worries cannot help us, and it did not help me at the time, only making me feel more doubtful of myself and God’s plan for my life. And in truth, I wish I had listened to that verse back then. Instead, I was letting my fear take control of me. My anxiety for the future had dragged me away from the Person who holds the future.

So the next year, I began to live my life controlled by that anxiety. I spent time doing nothing but studying. I would cut people off just to have a chance to have time to study more. At church, after the sermon was over, I would immediately leave the rest of the group and go study in some different room, instead of fellowshipping with my fellow Christians.

This anxiety shone forth every week when I taught Bible studies for the youth at this church. At that time, no one else was willing to teach Bible studies with me. So I had to teach almost every lesson, every other week or so, with no one to cover for me. And because of my anxiety at the time, I became severely bitter over my situation. I was busy with difficult classes, and yet I still had to teach even when I had a difficult test the very next day. I was upset that other people had Christian communities, when I had none. And I became bitter, knowing that other churches had many members of their youth groups, who could help teach and build each other up, but I was alone.

Feeling Alone in my struggle

It was because of this that I did not tell my spiritual struggle to anyone, since I could not tell my parents, and I did not want the younger members of my church to stumble. So I mistakenly took advice from my non-Christian friends, who all told me the same answer. Quit. Stop doing lessons. Don’t do CYIA if you’re too busy for it. You need that time to work on your college application.

I had a fight with my father a few weeks before CYIA began last year (2024). I complained about how busy I was, how much I had to do, and how much my college application hinged on this one summer. I reminded him how he always said it was my choice on whether I wanted to return to CYIA or not. He sorrowfully gave me the right to not attend that year, but he had recognized that I was falling in my faith.

In 1 John 2:15-17, it says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” That was the end result of all my actions. A whole world of ambition, desire, and dissatisfaction, fading away like vapor in the wind. I was beginning to love the world more than I loved God, and I drifted away from Him more every day. I thought I was capable of bringing security to my own future. I could not have been more wrong.

That summer I skipped CYIA. Instead, I worked tirelessly on my academic achievements, securing leadership in clubs, taking online classes, and burying myself in my college essays. These things are not inherently bad, but I was making them the entire object of my life. I had strayed away from God. I had walked to the edge of the abyss, and found nothing but shadow.

The darkest hour came

By the time school rolled around, my senior year, the last time I could study and the last time I could work on my college applications, it was the worst it had ever been. I couldn’t pay attention to sermons, because I was only thinking about my tests the next day on Monday. I began to skip my Bible study responsibilities, instead using that time to work on my college essays. And every time my parents reminded me about it, I became angry at them. I told them that they didn’t understand how stressed I was. And all the while, I would come back to my non-Christian friends and return to echo chambers of secular thought: where money and ambition meant everything and God was out of the picture.

And then it came to the point in my life that I call “my darkest hour”. It refers to the two-month period in my life between the submission of my first college application, and December 16, 2024. I clicked send on my first college application, hoping it would give me solace. Yet in that moment, and the months to follow, I can say confidently, I had never felt as much anxiety in my life.

Hours and hours of waiting. Weeks upon weeks of paranoia. I cried and I screamed and I tore up my books, dreading the moment I was rejected from everything I had ever dreamed of. It was pure agony. Every time I slept, I had a nightmare about being rejected. But when I woke up, that’s when the real nightmare began. Every day I dragged myself to school, attending the hardest classes, competing in the most cutthroat competitions, all while pretending my world wasn’t falling apart, living a lie that everything was fine.

Then it came the dreaded day. The day that would either hurt me terribly or end my suffering. My mind was racing before I checked my college application. I’d like to say I handled the time before it well. But I didn’t. My mind was racing through terrible, terrible thoughts. What would I even do if I failed this? I told myself I would never forgive myself if I faltered at this critical moment. Realize I’ve spent the entirety of my last three years losing connection with the One who saved my soul, just for something that I can’t even achieve? I wondered if that Monday before would be the last time I would ever smile again. And for the first time in my life, I couldn’t perceive my future. There was nothing ahead. Only darkness.

A time to reflect 

I opened my college application with trembling hands. Years of pain, anxiety, and loss were engraved in my fingers. I took a final step into nothingness. And there it was. A college acceptance. The end of all my worries.

But this is not the story of me getting a college acceptance. This is not a lesson where I convince you that getting into a good college will solve all your problems and relieve all your worries. No. I’m going to focus on the feelings I felt immediately after I received that acceptance. To keep it short, I only felt one thing. It wasn’t peace, it wasn’t comfort, it wasn’t serenity. It was a great, overwhelming feeling of “What am I doing?”.

In the days after the acceptance, I finally had time to think about everything I had done in the past few years. I had cut off my few Christian friends, I had stopped teaching Bible studies, and I had stopped immersing myself in God’s word. Even worse, after the initial joy of my acceptance, I was back to the same cycle of anxiety, fear, and regret. Nothing had changed. C.S. Lewis was absolutely right. I had spent three whole years chasing a peace and happiness without God in my life. And I had found nothing.

In Psalm 16:4a, it says “Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.” I found this to be especially true for me.

I had turned my education, my academics, and my ambitions into “gods”. I had idolized them beyond belief, and I had turned them into my only source of joy, security, and fulfillment. But they were empty, and they gave me nothing but sorrow. And absolutely, I suffered more and more as I fell away from God.

A time to recollect myself

I needed to take time to recollect myself in the days after the acceptance. A verse I found perfectly encapsulated the truth I needed to hear. It comes from Psalm 81:11-12. It says, “But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels”. Just like the verse says, sometimes, when you reject God, he will let you fall into your own sin for a time. All the time I was focusing on my studies, I was silently telling God to take his hands off of my life. And he did exactly that. He allowed me a chance to see what living without him was like. And I was able to see everything: success, failure, anxiety, and the time in between. And it was absolutely awful. And like the nation of Israel at the time, after years and years of oppression from the effects of my own sin, I cried out to God to return and take control of my life again. I immersed myself in God’s word again, and I found something completely extraordinary.

I found peace. It was a peace that felt completely unearned. It was a true gift from God, who had been there all along, waiting patiently for me to turn back. In Romans 5:8, it says, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Even after I had spent three whole years running away from God, he was still willing to take me back. I was a sinner who had walked away, and yet he had already paid the price for my return. This verse reminded me that my value was not in my academic achievements or my college acceptances, but in the unconditional love of Christ. My return to Christ’s love changed my mind on a myriad of things.

Returning to God and Finding true peace

It changed my mind about how to find peace. For so long in my life, I have felt anxiety more than anything. I can never be sure of myself or my future, and every day, I’m terrified of what will happen in the next. It’s a constant cycle of fear, paranoia, and uncertainty. And the peace that I felt when I finally returned to God’s fold was like nothing else. Why would I fear the future, when I knew the One who holds the future? I found particular solace in Proverbs 3:5-6. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” In retrospect, I wish I had never chosen to lean on my own understanding back then. Because even while I was walking away from God, he was securing my future. And I felt extremely guilty about not returning to God sooner, even while He was working behind the scenes for my own good.

And next, he changed my perspective on how to love God. For the longest time, I thought that I could become a true believer by working hard. That’s why I went to CYIA, or taught all those Bible study lessons, and diligently attended church every week. But there was another verse I found during my foray back into God’s word that changed my perspective on this. It comes from Isaiah 64:6. It says, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” And that was a truth I never realized. All my works, all my responsibilities, all my duties, were nothing more than filthy rags in comparison to God’s grace. God’s mercy and willingness to save me from my own wretchedness has done more to save me from sin than all my actions ever will.

Even though I will continue to work to grow God’s kingdom anyway I can, I know now that these actions do not earn my salvation. Only God’s love does, and I will spend the rest of my life pursuing it.

So that concludes my story. Just like C.S. Lewis predicted, I had found happiness and peace the moment I walked back into God’s fold. Apart from all the accolades and achievements, there was peace and security for my future. And it changed the way I saw things. I attended CYIA again, no longer anxious about my future, and diligently taught, knowing that I wanted to love God the same way he loved me. And I confessed this to every single person there during testimony night. I had missed last year’s CYIA because of my own sin, and because of my own selfishness, and because of my own anxiety for the future. But today, I’m working to improve myself, both in college and the rest of my life. I’m going to be in college in only four days, and the anxiety, the pressure, and the spiritual testing will only get harder. And yes, I still can’t see the future anymore, and I don’t think I ever will. But I am no longer afraid. I know God holds my future.

And to end this testimony, I would like to share yet another quote. Not from an author, not from an academician, but rather, from one of the greatest spiritual teachers of all time. It is a verse that I hope will characterize my feelings toward the future, my worries, my ambitions, and my spiritual life for years to come. It comes from Romans 8:38-39. It says “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”