With all the fun, friends, medals, admirations and praise, one would think that I lack nothing. I have a great family, who loves and supports me, I have many friends of whom I enjoyed company, I am a talented and intelligent girl who won academic contests, honors, medals, and recognitions, and our family is also fine when it comes to financial aspect.
I was born into a Catholic family. My grandmother, who was a devoted Catholic always brought me with her to the church. So I pretty much grew up in a religious environment. Every Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I would hear of someone called Jesus. I knew He is the Son of God who came to the world to save us, I always hear that in church, but that didn’t matter to me then, I thought that my life is complete and that I’m too happy to bother, or that’s what I thought.
When I was in high school, I have finished reading the New Testament in the bible out of sheer curiosity because I heard that it can change lives, so I gave it a shot and have finished it only to find out that I cannot understand this book unlike the novels that I have read.
My classmates have seen me reading the bible, I was even attending church three times a week, and they also say that I’m kind, so they thought I was a godly person and I was enjoying the favor. But this is only a mask that I put on to win people’s acceptance. It was a good image to portray, I thought to myself. The people see me as a godly person, but deep inside, I resist the very idea of the existence of a God, and I resist the idea that I needed a God in my life.
I went to college, still having my skeptic kind of thinking, bearing with me my ambitions and goals, and the belief that I can do everything on my own because I have my abilities.
But I was wrong. Great clouds covered my life and strong winds have blown away my hope. Problems crowded my life. Problems in the family have defeated me. My father got hospitalized and was sick with renal failure. He had to undergo operations and dialysis which caused our finances to break down. Conflicts in the family arouse and I grew more of a stranger in my own family. And my studies was also affected that I came to a point in which I thought my only option was to stop studying because of the financial problems.
I grew more and more frustrated with my life, without a hope and without a future to look forward to. I felt like a blind person walking, seeing nothing but darkness across my path.
I was sick and tired of things that were going on in my life. In the end of the day, I would face the mirror and ask myself who I really am. And all I would see, looking back at me, is a big failure. I expected much from myself and I realized that even my own abilities can fail me. I felt like a man trapped in a box, jaded and left alone with my real self without finding a way out. And so that night of November 13, 2007, I planned my suicide. I was planning to commit it the night of November 14.
November 14 was a typical school day. I went through my usual school day routine. Our professor hasn’t arrived yet that day and we were waiting for him to arrive. Our new classmate was sharing a yellow booklet to the girl sitting beside me. They were reading through it. My close friend was listening to them. He approached our new classmate by the end of the class and we went together. And she shared to us the Four Spiritual Laws, the booklet that has opened my eyes and heart to the truth.
Indeed, I was never alone. In times when my life leads to nowhere, God has been watching me, waiting for me to see that everything can fail except for His everlasting love. And His grace and love is so amazing that it covers multitudes of sins.
God indeed loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life. And on that day salvation has come forth to my life as I lay down my crown as ruler of my life and gave it to the one who created me. The name I took for granted before has brought life to me, the name of Jesus. “For salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12)
In everyone’s heart, there’s a God-shaped vacuum that only God Himself can fill. All of us were once broken and only the one who has created us has the ability to fix the brokenness in us. And once you have been fixed, you’ll never be the same again.
I’m so thankful to God for saving me. He did not only save my soul but my life as well. “For great is your love towards me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.” (Psalm 96:13)
Now I have 8 consistent disciples, helping them grow in their relationship with the Lord. And I’m also sharing the gospel to students like me for just as God loves me, so does He love them. I’m glad I have chosen to follow this race for there is no task more fulfilling than to serve the Lord who loved me not because of, but in spite of. To God be all the glory, honor and praise.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
Aubrey M. Lee, 18 years old.
Bachelor of Science in Information Technology
3rd year
PUP-Campus Crusade for Christ
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