Today I would like to declare my faith through the step of water baptism. At birth I was diagnosed with an infant respiratory distress syndrome that required an immediate surgery and an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) administered to me in order to increase my chances of survival. After staying a month in the intensive care unit (ICU), I was let out. Perhaps I shouldn’t be alive today, but God showed me mercy and healing since the beginning of my life.

I have grown up in the church and have been going to Chinese Grace Bible Church (CGBC) for as long as I can remember. I attended Sunday School on a weekly basis, learning stories from the Bible that fascinated me and proved to me even at a very young age that there was a God. Through the encouragement of reading God’s Word every night with my mother, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior one night in fifth grade.

However, as I got older, I felt more independent and able to make choices for myself. My longing to come to church and read my Bible slowly started to disappear. My attendance at Christian youth groups started to falter; soon enough, I wasn’t coming in order to worship and learn about God, but only because friends were encouraging me to. As a result, my faith hit a spiritual low during this time in my life, and was getting worse until my life took a drastic turn. I started to feel more distant from my family, as my parents and I started to argue over the most meaningless things. I grew angry and bitter at my parents, at my siblings, and at God. I needed a renewal in my Christian walk, and this came in my first year at Chinese Bible Mission (CBM) camp, at the end of my ninth grade year. There, I remember how the Holy Spirit spoke through the speaker and entered me, reminding me to lay all my struggles and resentment at the cross. I remember breaking down in tears that day, as I felt so convicted about all that my life had led to in those past couple of years. I started to attend church and youth group more, and there, my peers and teachers and sponsors reminded me that I have a Father above who loves me unconditionally and would never fail me even when my friends and family do; that He even sent down His only Son to die and pay for my sins on a cross.

It has become clearer why God showed me mercy in the early days of my life. He has shown me that He has a purpose for me in this life. Now as I head off to college later this week and start another chapter of my life, I know that I can trust in God no matter the trials or troubles that I come upon, for He says in Psalms 32:8, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” Now in my future endeavors, I know that Christ will always be with me, and I also choose to follow Him forever.