Why Christianity?

“So, are you like super Christian now?” was the response I got when I told my friend that I started attending church service weekly. I paused when she asked that. What was I supposed to say? Was it bad to say yes? Is she going to judge me? I wasn’t even Christian yet. Part of me wanted to defend myself and be proud to attend church. But what do I say? I wasn’t even a Christian yet. 

Even I was confused – why did I choose to go to church in the first place? The only explanation I could give came four years ago. Back then, my Sunday schedule would look like this: leave the house at 7 AM, take the crusty subway from Washington Heights to Chinatown, attend Chinese school, eat steamy Chinese food, show up to piano class, and go home. I especially hated going to Chinese school with every fiber of my being. I never thought the torture would end. Yet, one glorious day, a miracle happened. My parents came up to me on a snowy, December morning and asked me if I wanted to quit Chinese school. Behold. The day had come. “YES, of course,” I responded excitedly. No strings attached, I thought. “Hold on. You still have to go out to Chinatown for piano lessons. What are you going to do in place of Chinese School?” my parents asked. Darn. So close. I thought back to the previous summer when my dad brought me to church when my scheduled piano exam was canceled. I wasn’t supposed to be at church that day. I was never supposed to be there. As I walked in, a fellow Chinese auntie changed my life forever. She talked about the love of God and how much He has done to change her life. I remember thinking how stupid this woman was to believe in something that was make-believe. I thought of how much I wanted to get out of there, no matter how nice and welcoming the church was. Nevertheless, something was tugging on the strings of my heart. It was telling me to go. “I’ll go to church,” I responded. And from that day on, I showed up to church almost every Sunday of my life.

Now that I’ve talked about why I started going to church, I still need to answer the question: Why Christianity? It’s something so hard to explain since you cannot see God, but I argue that you could feel God’s presence. Technically, you can see God because he works in the people around you. God works in the heart of your local mailman who works hard to deliver packages to the right residence or the local grocery store worker who always stops and listens to you rant every time you go buy milk. Being Christian means building a loving and caring community. It also means understanding people’s circumstances and loving them for who they are. A person’s race, gender, sexuality, or whether they put cereal or milk first doesn’t matter. We still love them for them. “Come As You Are” is a Christian song by Crowder and Passion. The chorus of the song goes, “Lay down your burdens, lay down your shame,” which shows that there is no judgment of people’s pasts when they come forward to God. This means that people are welcome into the church as they are. No one needs to change to become a Christian. All they have to do is show up as themselves. This is the kind of Christianity that I believe in, the kind that nestles in our hearts. 

Before going to church, I was an angry, sad teenager who was bullied behind her back. I used to agree with the bullies and justify their actions by saying that they had the right to bully me because I was ugly. I had the worst-looking glasses and pink metal braces. I had such bad acne that my face looked like a ripe tomato. It just made sense that people would bully me. When I started attending church, I was welcomed with open arms and taught what love really means. I was taught that God and His people love me for who I am on the inside rather than what I look like on the outside. Seeing God’s love made me want to get to know God more and become that person who loves others instead of wallowing in my sadness. 

Why I’m Christian is a question that I often get asked. Wait, so why are you Christian again? Do you believe in EVERYTHING that Christianity stands for? Even when it’s questionable? How do you know He’s real? Why do you choose to believe in someone you cannot see? I guess I’m Christian because no matter how much I stray from God, I always go back to Him. His presence calms me and helps me stay grounded. Though there are some details of Christianity that I may not believe in, for me, life is less complicated when I look toward Him. To explain why I decided to become Christian, I’m going to use two metaphors. The first metaphor refers to sewing clothes. Every time I tear open a piece of my life, God sews it back up. The second metaphor relates to fishing. Being a perfectionist, I like to have control of my life. With that, I would fish for what I wanted instead of waiting for God to place the right things in my life. When things are out of my control, I have to remember that God is in control. 

Whenever I try running away from God, I always end up tearing up my life and have to go back to Him to sew it back up. You might be asking how I return to Him and where He is. To me, the way I connect with him is through prayer, musical worship, attending church, building community, reading the Bible, or journaling. When I was a sophomore in high school, I struggled with speaking up. I was extremely introverted but wanted so badly to speak without fear. I was scared to say “thank you.” I was encouraged to speak up by my brothers and sisters in church and eventually became so extroverted I was unfazed by embarrassment. God sewed the hole that had been growing since I learned how to speak. He patched that hole up by giving me the strength and support to use my voice to reach out to others who were just as shy and scared to use their voice. Another time I felt anxious was during my senior year when I had overloaded myself with schoolwork, my hostess job, volunteering, competitive piano, college applications, and working in the church, all while balancing this out with my personal life. Though I had a falling out and didn’t put my heart into Him, God was still there to help me at that moment. He spoke to me through prayer. He told me to take things step by step and that I could not do everything I wanted to accomplish all at once. He sent friends and family who would reach out and help me get through the tough period. After all, I learned that I’m only human. I’m not God. I could only handle so much. He helped me get back up and quit my job to focus on things that were important to me. No matter how many times I’ve torn a hole in that sweater God gave me, he sewed it back up with a better patch every time. Again and again. 

In April of 2022, I got baptized. Again, my pastor asked me if I wanted to be Christian in front of a crowd of about 100+ family members and friends. As I stood at the end of the bathtub full of holy water, my cold hand shaking, I asked myself once again Why Christianity? “Yes. I believe in Christianity,” I said. And there I was, dunked into a bathtub, baptized, and renewed. It was beautiful.

Everyone cheered. The laughter, the hugs, the flowers. Everything was amazing. I was saved and brought into a new family. From then on, everything was perfect. 

That was a lie. To say everything was perfect after the baptism is lying, and in Christian terms, a sin. I found myself in another pit when I was about to graduate high school. I had lost acuity and purpose. I didn’t feel like I was present or in the moment. I felt like I was just another person floating around, waiting for time to end. I was going through the last day of high school, and I felt nothing. Nothing. It was just another passing event. Who am I? What am I doing? Am I really Christian? Did I really get baptized for nothing? Am I a fake Christian? Why Christianity? I decided to find out for myself by going on a mission trip with my church. We went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and participated in community outreach. We helped a pastor rebuild his church that fell apart during the pandemic. We helped a guy named Bob, who worked at the local public library that offered programs focusing on educating individuals of all ages to read. We planted gardens for the community and fed people at local shelters. I learned so much about the people around me and how fortunate I am to have a home and a family. And God taught me that as a Christian, I’m constantly learning, and nothing is going to be perfect. With Him, I have a home to go back to whenever I’m lost. 

My second metaphor: Fishing for what I wanted instead of waiting for God to place the right things (fish) in my life (on my fishing line), takes place in the present. Even at Rutgers University, it feels like I’ve been through a lot of stress. From talking to an outrageous number of people I didn’t even know, adjusting to a new environment, adulting, and the bus system, to keeping up my grades, I could barely keep up. There was so much going on that I stopped going to church. To be honest, I just wanted to meet people. I wanted to find balance. I wanted to get good grades and make good friends. I trusted people too easily and ended up getting hurt at the end of the day. Life felt fragmentary. I wanted so many things. I thought these things would make me happy. I was fishing for the wrong things. The other day, I decided to take a day to myself. I needed to reconnect with God, but I didn’t know how to. I felt lost. I was rushing to fish for the good fish in the shallow water. But, just when I was about to scream and fall apart, I got a text message. A message from a friend I met a couple of days ago at a Chinese Christian Fellowship event at IHOP. She asked me if I wanted to attend a church service with her. Something told me I had to go. My intuitions were right. I just needed to be a little more patient and go a bit deeper into the ocean for the good fish because God spoke to me through the pastor. On September 18th, 2022, I wrote in my notes app: “There are times when you would want something to happen, but it’s not the word of God. It’s your wants and needs, not His. And that’s where you would get hurt. God is asking you to trust in Him.” and “God has been asking me to be patient when it comes to finding a companion. God is showing me that it takes time, and I don’t need a person to be happy. I need to find happiness in myself and God first. I can’t judge other people because I am broken too.” Life is like fishing. God taught me that I was fishing for a lot of things that I wanted, but the timing just wasn’t right. Be patient. Wait for the fish to come to you. Sometimes when we are out in the ocean for so long we get tired. We haven’t caught anything for about 8 hours, and we’re getting restless. I was catching nothing because I was chasing the wrong things. But when you stop looking and worrying about catching a fish, you will feel a slight tug on your fishing rod and find that you did, in fact, catch a fish. All you had to do was be patient. Being patient was exactly what I did. I focused on God and waited for him to plan out my future. When I stopped looking, everything fell into place in a way I wouldn’t have imagined, and that’s because God needed me to stop looking for the fish so he could give me a good, healthy fish. So yes. I’m a broken person, but God took me into his arms and brought me to where I am right now. At the end of the day, I’m just another face trying to figure out life through the Christian faith, and I’m fully in love with this lifestyle.