Monday, I was innocent.

I was an innocent kid going to Pine Cove–a Christian camp–for fun, not God.

Tuesday, I was lost.

I was lost in the fun activities at camp. I didn’t care what people told me about God, and quite frankly, I only kept coming back to camp because of the fun aspects like swimming and boating. I even thought the Christian aspects of camp were lame.

Wednesday, I was found.

It was when a counselor broke down into tears when he spoke of the brutality of Jesus’s death on the cross, and how it should’ve been us. When he said that Jesus did absolutely nothing to deserve that, and that if anything, Jesus should’ve been the one nailing someone to a cross, it got my attention. That was the moment I first understood that I needed to change.

Thursday, I was changed.

I was returned to a life of faith. These were new feelings for me. They were warm-fuzzy feelings of joy. They were chills up my spine every time I heard God’s message. I finally understood what it meant to invite Christ into your heart, because I felt Him. I felt His joy knowing that I was saved because of my faith. He was rejoicing in the fact that I wanted a relationship with someone I could not physically see or hear, and whom I had (and sometimes still) constantly, blatantly disobeyed through living a life of sin and self-indulgence. Wanting to get out of church so I could go home and watch TV, joking about religious people, calling them weird and crazy, not doing the things God has commanded me to do – being willfully ignorant.

Friday began my new life.

That week was pivotal because, by Friday, my view of the world had completely changed. I no longer thought of others as above or below me, or as better or worse than me, but instead as equal to me. I did not feel hopelessly lost, living a life of personal obsession. After that week, I no longer thought of people as weird for being “Godly.” I had always wondered what made people so passionate about God. I thought they were just crazy, but now I was one of the crazies. I too had felt the intensity of God’s love for me.

After that experience, my focus was on trying to live life as a saved soul. I recognize other believers. I often think “What Would Jesus Do?” When others ask why I’m so “crazy” for Christ, I tell them an abridged version of my story.

My senior year at Pine Cove was an eventful one. Since it was my final year as a camper, I decided to attend for two weeks, rather than the usual one, and during those two weeks, I witnessed a miracle from God in front of my eyes. Long story short, I saw God heal a girl that showed up to camp deaf, and left able to hear.

At the beginning of the two weeks, she couldn’t hear anything, she hadn’t heard anything since she was eight years old, but on the first Tuesday she started hearing her sign language interpreter’s voice and was able to communicate with her, but that was all she was able to hear. On the next Monday, the girl and her interpreter were at the pool sitting on the side during an activity class while others in her cabin were swimming. One group of girls starting singing a song from the movie “Mulan,” and the girl told her interpreter, “I know what song they’re singing. That’s from ‘Mulan’.” Later, a girl in the pool shouted hi to the girl, and immediately the girl’s head shot up. She’d heard that girl who shouted her name. She ran over to the side of the pool where everyone surrounded her and started asking her questions, to which she was hearing and replying. She started crying and everyone else was on the verge of tears, having witnessed a miracle happen right in front of their eyes.

That morning, the girl’s translator felt she needed to have the girl read Matthew 9, which is comprised of stories of Jesus healing people. After reading it that morning, the girl told her counselor that she believed that God had the power to heal her. And then He did. The minute she had faith and believed and trusted in God, He healed her.

Witnessing that miracle really affected me. It was the first time I witnessed a miracle in person, and upon finding out the girl’s belief that God has the power to heal, and the she put her faith and trust in him, I realized that God does answer. He does love, and through having faith in Him and in Christ, you are saved.

I reflected on the things God has done in my life. I often thought about how the odds could have been so against me being born into a stable Christian family. Why was I so lucky to be born into this family and in a country where I am free to worship? Why was I born into a family that could afford to send me to camp – the place that ultimately led me to know and be saved by Him? Why was I born into a family that can afford to send me to a faith-based college like Baylor or TCU where I can grow my strength in the Lord and serve others? Because He has blessed me and has a plan for me to do great things.

At this point, you may be wondering why I am choosing to tell you this in-depth story. The answer is that this is what defines me as a person. I, above all else, don’t think of myself a high-school student, a writer, a boy, a friend, or what have you. No, I think of myself as a Christian. I think it is important in these days of prevailing secular culture to be steadfast in your faith, not just if you’re a Christian. I know what you’re thinking; why does he want other people to share their beliefs too? My answer is that even though I know in my heart my feelings about Jesus Christ to be true, I believe in respect for all faiths, and believe that we can all learn things from each other, and help build our faith on that. Ultimately, the goal is to use our differences to find the key to salvation, because God leads us to Him in mysterious ways. Many people are not willing to accept my acceptance of faith, however I believe that ultimately, without faith, society has no purpose, no reason to go on–it actually wouldn’t exist. With that, I encourage everyone, no matter what you believe, to share your story just as I have done, because it is key to keeping a stable, peaceful society, and you never know how it may affect someone’s walk toward salvation.