Testimony

Eh, my testimony isn't the most exciting thing in the world. But I think it's probably the appropriate place to start anyways.

"Were you raised as a Christian?"

My testimony has to begin with the fact that I can't really answer that question. It's an ambiguous answer. I can give you both answers, "yes" or "no", and I don't feel like I'm lying either way.

I grew up in a household that doesn't talk about religion or spirituality. Like... at all. I can count all of the instances on one hand, and not even use up all my fingers on that hand. I remember my mom talking to us about my dad's Buddhist beliefs after my cat died. She explained the Buddhist hope of my cat reincarnating with better karma, which hopefully meant he came back as a "higher-level" species, perhaps even a human being. The only other time I've heard religion discussed is as an identity, as a part of a culture war, when my dad's family was (and still is) strained by religious differences. Then, at one time, there was a very quick discussion of Hell, spurred on by the fact that my parents asked me about what I watched at the movies that day (it was a documentary exploring the concept of Hell. yes, this is how i have fun. It was the first time I've ever been completely alone in a movie theater lol)

Those are the only times I can ever remember spirituality being discussed. In my family, it's just an entirely personal thing. My dad has told me on several occassions clearly: he doesn't care what I believe, but I should always respect what others believe. I mean, my dad's a Buddhist, and yet I don't even know if he goes to that Buddhist temple we have in town. That's how the dialogue of religion and spirituality works in our family: it's your own thing. It's personal, and on the level of my family as a unit, it's a non-factor.

Yet, in this environment, it still feels like God raised me as a Christian. There has been Christian influences throughout my life, enough to sustain me through my upbringing. In kindergarden, I went to a private school and learned basic Bible stories there. I'd also visit my family in Taiwan quite often, and from there, my Christian aunt continued my Christian upbringing (after i expressed an interest in it, because of the Bible stories I had been taught in school). Although these trips to Taiwan were only during the summer, it was enough for me to take these teachings to heart. There were other little things sprinkled in, like I remember going to a Vacation Bible School as a kid (at the recommendation of a family friend), and being in productions of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in summer camp, but the bulk of my spiritual growth came from my aunt in Taiwan.





Then, as I grew up, and my grandmother passed away and my aunt got married, I stopped visiting Taiwan as often. At this time, though, I was taken under the wing of a close friend and his amazing Christian family, and for my high school lifetime, they essentially took on the mantle of being my spiritual home.

The theme of this seems to be: despite a circumstance in which spirituality was not emphasized, i still believe God gave me enough to spiritually sustain me. He gave me enough, and honestly, I pretty much identify as being "raised Christian". I think that's one of the major themes of my testimony: don't worry too much about circumstances. God works with them anyway. He tends to find ways.


Three Heads

In high school, I inevitably crashed head-on with the doubts that every Christian must eventually face. Up to this point, I just assumed Christianity was true without really examining it objectively. The morals and lessons sure seemed true to me, so I never had much reason to really doubt. Then I came crashing against the ideas of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett... the guys considered the "new atheists." As a person who considered himself fairly logical, their arguments really struck a point within me. I mean... it seems to make sense.

I got to the point where I felt like I really was on the edge of deconverting. There's no way to prove God, Jesus's divinity, or any of that. The problem of evil, the problem of Hell... there were too many problems for me to reconcile, and they all sort of jumped at me at once.

In a last ditch effort to save my faith, I knelt down and sincerely pleaded with God to reveal Himself. Yeah, I tested God. I was at a place of desperation, a place of pleading. I grabbed a coin, and told Him that if I flipped a Heads, that would be His revelation to me. That'd be enough.

I flipped it, and it was Heads.

I'm a natural skeptic, so I flipped it again. Heads again.

Faith doesn't come easy for me. I flipped it yet again. Heads again.

No academic papers are going to written about my experiences. If you know me well enough, you know I'm a stat-nerd who'll tell you that 3 heads is certainly probable. It's a 1/8 shot, those odds aren't ridiculous.

But it's not so much about the fact that it came up Heads 3 times. I'm not really down to bet my life on a 1/8 (12.5%) shot. It's more about the fact that, when pushed to the brink and I cried out, God responded to me. He pulled me back from the brink. For that moment, it was enough. I'm actually fairly certain that if it had been Tails even one time, I'd currently be an atheist. Not because of what the stupid coin said. But because it meant He wasn't there, or He didn't care. God didn't let that happen.