My LIfe in a Nutshell

I was born in Masan Korea in 1981. My family moved down to Salt Lake City, Utah when I was 9 in 1991. I guess my dad thought a small mostly white city of Mormons would be a good place to raise a family.

I had always been a good, obedient child...until I got to be the age of 15. That's when my brother left home for college and I moved to a new high school. That is also when I begin to question whether I had had a real personal encounter with God or just holding onto spoon-fed religion from my parents.

I heard stories of people who lived recklessly and by some miraculous act of God get in a car crash and survive and now they are changed forever. I was jealous of such a surefire encounter with God. It seemed like a good excuse to live life the way we want to and pay for it later.

So for about the next three years I turned off the light switch on God… Not that I was going out and causing havoc. Exactly opposite. Most of my time away from school would be spent in my room with the earphones on. I couldn't talk to people. I was all nerves. It was simply the worst time of my life. Looking back I think it was a severe depression.

When I just couldn't take it anymore I finally threw in the towel. For whatever reason, I could never deny the existence of God. I said, "God, if I can't find happiness and satisfaction in life unless I surrender to you, then go ahead. Just do with my life as you will."

Things started to open up in my life. I stopped hating and despising my utter being. I started to see that God wasn't some tyrant trying to take away my freedom. He knew what was in my heart. He was just waiting for that moment of surrender.

It took some time later for me to surrender to Christ as my Lord and Savior.
Yet, even after that initiation, it wasn't all an easy ride. Being in art school and on my own for the first time had its share of temptations. Yet I think I was so desperate not to go back to the cycle of laziness and self loathing in high school that I was all the more desperate in trying to hold onto God. College was when I seriously delved into the Bible. I felt that without His help I would not be able to face another day.

Looking back I believe it was God who had led me through all of that to come out still intact, still me, still holding onto the faith. Since I have let Christ into my life, one thing is different however. I have never felt that utter sense of vacancy and hopelessness that I did when I had turned my back on God.