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Personal
Testimonies
How I became
a Christian I believed in Jesus only because that was what the teachers taught me. After I left the school, and enrolled into a public school, I could detect a great difference between the Christian school and the public school. My parents weren't Christians at that time. However, for some strange reason, they decided to go to church. They started going to the Palo Alto YMCA. When the church moved to Mountain View, I was dragged into it too. At that time, I didn't really understand the Bible, but I knew the stories quite well. I started making friends with the kids at church. Jean Fong, Fu-ming, and other counselors taught me not only the Bible stories, but also God's love. I began to attend church every Sunday. I began to see changes in my family and the people around me. Not too long later, I accepted Jesus into my heart as well. Then, I became a Christian.
I was first introduced to God when I was 6 years old. I had gone to church with a couple of my friends from school and found that they were all Christians, I readily accepted Christ at that time. Before then, Christ was just someone people talked about, who died on a "T," and was just someone called the Son of God. Also, I thought the Bible was a "bunch of hokum." (impossible or improbable stories) My belief in Christ was deepened when I began AWANA. I had begun to learn more about God, his Son, and the Holy Spirit. AWANA also helped me to understand more about the Trinity, how three are one and one is three. Slowly, I began to notice a SLIGHT change in the way I acted around my friends and my family. I began (notice the word BEGAN) to stop trying to aggravate my siblings, and to take less pleasure in triumphing over them in our daily, or hourly squabbles. I began to resist some of the sins I normally would have given in to. It's true, I have never committed murder, but I have been able to resist the temptation of switching chocolate chip cookies with my sister, just because hers had more chocolate chips. I also became less prone to swear at school. I didn't mind it when my peers swore, but I got less, let's say open, with my language. My sportswomanship also got better, thanks to my bizarre "It's not the end of the world" view on life. I stopped "accidentally" locking my sister Cassie in the bathroom, just to hear her scream. I quit putting Halloween spiders on her pillow at night, for the sake of scaring her out of her wits. But, for resisting some of these temptations, I got something surprising in return. My sister seemed to figure me as a pushover, so, instead of doing exactly what I did, (and worshiping the ground I walked on at the same time) she began to do the OPPOSITE of what I expected. I fought back easily. Well, as they say, "Reverse Psychology, and you'll reverse your enemies." Okay. Maybe my sister isn't my enemy, but she's close enough. (Just kidding, Cassie!) As you can see, I'm still far from perfect, so far, in fact, I can't even see the finish line, but I know that if I continue to grow with/ in Christ, I'll slowly get better at doing or not doing the things I should or shouldn't do. I thank God for so much he's given me already and only pray that he'll help me along the rest of the way. Thanks for reading my personal testimony.
Ever since I can remember, I've gone to church. I was there even when we were having services at the old Palo Alto YMCA where I sometimes played basketball with my YMCA team. I must have been around seven years old then. At that time I really didn't like elementary school. I don't think I ever did like elementary school as a matter of fact. That's because people always used to tease me and call me names because my skin was yellow, my hair was black, and because my eyes were squinty. To top it off, I had glasses ever since kindergarten. People used to call me "four eyes." The first person I had a crush on was Katie, someone in my first grade class, and I never even said "hi" to her just because I was so afraid she'd laugh at me or call me "four eyes" just like everyone else. That's how elementary school was. None of the teachers ever helped me when I was made fun of by James Marson, Forrest Mozart, Arjun Raman, Adam Sollers, or anybody else. I know it sounds depressing but that's the truth. In my family, mom wanted to spoil me and my dad didn't want me to do anything except study. So guess what? I ended up getting to play Nintendo all day because I didn't have a friend to play with. So basically, my early years were wasted on a stupid 8-bit gaming console. That was my life. Pretty bad huh? Well I grew up. And everything pretty much stayed the same; no one liked me. I got contacts in the fifth grade, but that was not going to help me. Just like being one of the fastest sprinters and best jumpers didn't help me. In junior high I meet new people who would tease me. I upgraded my console to the 16-bit Super Nintendo. I started playing cello. I played on the basketball, and volleyball teams, and jumped Long Jump and Triple Jump in Track. No one called me "four eyes" anymore. We won the volleyball championships! But no one liked me even though I was the best jumper, one of the best volleyball players, or the second best cellist. I tried to fit in with the basketball players, who laughed every time I missed a shot. I tried fitting in with the smart Asian people, and they always seemed to act like they were better than me, even though I beat them all in Chinese Chess or something stupid like that. No one wanted to be my friend. I guess I wasn't a very friendly person myself… I guess. I mean, I tried to look cool and everything; I tried to make everyone like me; I tried to impress my teachers… but still no one liked me. I guess deep inside, years of ridicule and rejection made me silent and brooding. There were depressing times...times when I always felt down. During that time, I had thought that I was pretty close to God. I relied on him and I accepted him as my Savior when I was 9 years old at VBS in 1992. I used to go to AWANA and learn Bible verses. I sang songs in Sunday school and the Christmas programs that Auntie Shirley used to set up. I read the Picture Bible every day because I liked reading about God's judges and God's people. I found myself criticizing the Israelites for always making the same mistakes over and over again. I quoted scripture like "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you,'" (Jeremiah 29:11) because I believed that God would help me to find a way to be liked. Sometimes, I would cry in my bed at night because the feeling of solitude was so overwhelming. I would cry sometimes because I knew that the two girls that I had a crush on during two different time periods ignored me and probably had never liked me. I would cry because my eyesight was so poor that I couldn't see across the room let alone my hand at night without my contacts. I would cry because if I didn't prove myself to the world, no one would love me. And proving myself to the world was just so difficult. Basically, in my last three years of high school, everyone tried to be popular, to be cool, to be smart, and to impress everyone else--- that was even more pressure for me to succeed. Coupled with my own goals of getting good grades and being good at sports, the pressure was incredibly high. I also joined ECYS and there, I felt the crazy pressure to be the best cellist. The problem with me was, I couldn't succeed. Whatever I did, I never did spectacularly at anything. And recently at DCLA, I have earned a lot of things. When I forget all the love that God has shown me through Jesus, I get caught up in the things of this world I get caught up in myself. That is what I've been doing all my life. Getting caught up in myself. I forget that I'm a Christian, instead, becoming a person trying to succeed. I don't have any specific verses to apply to myself that pop conveniently into my head. I just know that I've been wasting my time on too many things like games, and that I've been trying too hard for the wrong reasons. Also, I'm learning that prayer isn't just a bunch of words I say just to make God happy but it's true relationship building. I'm learning how to let God show His love to others through me. I'm learning all these things and I'm beginning to cultivate some true interest in investing my time in my talents. I'm concentrating on my guitar and my music in general. I love music, I love playing nice chords, I love making music fit and work to make beautiful noise. I'm also concentrating on doing good work for my classes. I have a lot of summer homework and I think that it's more useful to do than to waste my time playing games. All I can say is, after I was reminded at DCLA about how many things God can forgive me, I am convinced that he loves me and that he deserves my time, my devotions, etc. He's blessed me with some friends who genuinely care about people. He's also given me parents who are willing to teach, disciple and care for my needs. It's very hard for me to say everything he's done for me because I know what I've done do not to deserve anything from him. I think it's hard for me not to feel sorry for myself at times but I mean… it's all in God's plan somehow eh? Well… I think I've said enough. … bye. |
