I was born and raised in China, and when I turned eight, our family moved to Canada. The first eight years of my life was in a highly secularized environment, where business and money was the only god worth worshipping. My father was the businessman and my mother was the traditional housewife. I admired my dad; I thought everything that he did was perfect and flawless. I looked up to him, so when he was physically and emotionally abusive, I did not have the capacity to believe that it was his fault. Children do not have the ability to think that grownups are flawed. Every time I was beat or yelled at for misbehaviour, not holding my eating utensils properly, or just asking a “bad” question (ie. "What does smoking cigarettes feel like?”) I blamed myself. I hated my poor performance. Every time my father was in the house, I could not ever be myself because I was too scared to get beat or yelled at. He told me one day if my mom were to ever yell at me, I should tell him and he would make things better. When that day came, he yelled at me instead. I blamed myself and never trusted him since. Every night when he came home from work, I ran to him and gave him a big hug, but I only did it because I was scared that I would get in trouble if I didn’t. Love was based on fear.
When my family moved to Canada just before the new millennia, it became a new start. I became Christian in 2000. My father stayed in China to support us, he bought us a home and three cars, free of loans. As it turns out, he wanted us to leave because he had an affair with another woman. My parents divorced near the tail end of grade six. The only person I could turn to at the time was my grade six teacher, I remember the day I couldn't hold back my tears and all Mrs. McKay could do was hug me. I remembered my mom, she was shattered. Money, success, power, status, and another woman tore the heart of our family. I saw my mom crumble before me, face buried in her hands. I didn't understand, I just walked up to her and hugged her. She squeezed me. I felt her tears rolling down my shoulders; she didn't stop crying as I kept my grip. It felt like acid, my left shoulder was damp.
After the only friend I told my life story to told me I was being unthankful for what I have, I internalized everything in middle school. My only Christian influences left. I experimented with drugs the odd time, but it never became serious. A deep desire was always in my heart- a girlfriend. I wanted someone to love me, but I was insecure and I had such low confidence that I never took the risk to ask a girl out.
I called myself Christian, but I didn’t know what that actually meant. In my senior year of high school, I attended church after several months of not going. It was that day that everything hit me hard. God was never meant to be placed in a box, the Holy Spirit will only operate when He has it all, every corner of my body and mind. It was that day I recommitted my life to Christ.
The journey never ends however, even after my rebirth and baptism, I couldn’t comprehend the concept of unconditional love. I knew what it was and I knew what it meant, but I didn’t make that connection to my heart. I believed love could only come from high performance, thus I was highly driven. I believed that in order to be loved, I needed to work hard to please someone for them to love me back.
God taught me this year that He loves me, no matter what happens. He actually desires my heart…wait a second, God, the King of Kings, the Father of all things, that same God... actually wants my heart? It was so hard for me to comprehend that...what did I do to earn that? I did nothing to earn it, it's the biggest privilege- that God desires my heart. I could be ash in a flash for everything I have done, but through His grace and Jesus’s death on the cross, I was spared. And not only spared, but loved and know that I'm accepted and validated in Christ. Wow.
We live in a broken world dominated by hardened hearts, why? Because many have grown up and suffered either through failed relationships or abuse at home and they simply run out of gas. People's hearts are shattered to the point where it can be barely seen as a heart, and they don't know that God can restore everything. We need God because our love is finite and His love is infinite. Ever tried counting down from infinity? No matter how we cut it, infinity divided by a billion is still infinity. You can shatter infinity into thousands and thousands of pieces and each piece would still be infinity. You can break God's heart a million times over, but His heart for you is still the same as it was when you were conceived- infinite. My point is if we even have something remotely similar to God's love for someone, nothing offered physically can ever hope to par up.
And now as I continue to walk with Him, He has given me new revelations every day, He has taught me values, new ways to look at things, and how to be a man. For so long I hated myself. I hated who I was, I hated how I looked, I hated the loneliness. But now, I know deep down in my heart that I am made in the image of Christ…I can’t hate that, that would be an insult to the one who made me and crafted my plans so intricately. It was with that that God renewed my self confidence. I could finally laugh, crack jokes, smile genuinely, and see people smile. There's no greater joy in my life than to see that because of what God has done through me, I could make someone's day better... even if only for one day.
~ Anonymous, Calgary CA
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