TESTIMONIES OF CHRIST - SUSAN YOON

Last year, I was so tired of following the items on the checklist of success and prosperity, such as studying for good grades and kissing up to professors for good recommendation letters.

I was burnt out from high school, and I was discouraged to be surrounded by students who seemed so much more motivated and driven than I. It seemed like they had what it took to accelerate ahead and succeed, while I would straggle behind, crippled by my half-heartedness.

This would lead me to dream and fantasize of all the other things I could be doing, like becoming an animator, a world-class chef, a character designer for Squaresoft video games, a traveling bum, a fashion designer, etc.

Then I’d see where I was, and immediately these dreams, would burst and evaporate, leaving me bitter and soaking in a puddle of self-pity. I’d be left with the question of why I’m here pursuing an engineering degree, and not on the path to pursue my one of my dreams.

Growing up with a pessimistic outlook on life, the bitterness struck me hard at this point in my life. I began to feel sorry for myself as I started to see myself as a helpless individual sucked into this system that would mold me, and process me, and spit me out once I have earned society’s seal of approval.

In my mind, this system had no concern for the individual as it forced fit the individual to society’s needs and demands. I hated how my life was so planned out: four years of school, then scramble for a job that I won’t enjoy, buy a house, buy a car, and then keep working at that unfulfilling job till I die.

I felt cornered; I hated school, I hated this system, I hated the United States for its greed and its promotion of competition and capitalism, I hated my mom for not sending me to art school, I hated my circumstances - you name it and I probably hated it– my bitterness had no end.

By this time, I dug myself into a deep hole, and it didn’t help that for most of my life I’ve lived trying to repress and bury my emotions. I thought that detaching myself from my heart would prepare me for life and help me breeze by future trials and tribulations and avoid pain altogether.

But the problem was, once I dissociated myself from my emotions, I became insensitive and callous to everything else, to the extent that I didn’t care much for anything or anybody anymore.

Of course I didn’t really show this; towards my friends and family I behaved the way I was supposed to behave, the way they expected me to behave; I had fun with them, but I can’t really say that I really cared for them from the bottom of my heart because I had locked it up.

Everything about my relationship with my friends was light-hearted and fun, I could never get myself to really get serious with them because nothing was worth getting serious over.

I decided to do the same thing with society that I did with my emotions: dissociate myself from society, so that I’d be immune from its rules because I’ve decided that I didn’t belong in a society that was built on an obsession with superficial, meaningless values.

I’d lift myself up by convincing myself that only I realized a truth that nobody else could see because everybody else had been brainwashed by society. Even on my high horse, I felt empty because I really had nothing inside me to drive me forward.

I was sort of stuck in one place with nowhere else to go. I was trapped in a room, whose blank walls screamed with emptiness. I had flushed out everything out and I became only a shell of a person.

Now I stand before you, with a new, more optimistic outlook, the once self-devouring emptiness is now filled with God’s love. I’m still amazed that I’ve made it out, and I know I had nothing to do with this: it was God who rescued me from myself.

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment my attitude changed because it happened gradually over time. I stubbornly resisted him at first, but my attempts were weak and feeble compared to his might and power. Soon he was able to break me, and humble me.

He worked in me through the people who had invested their time in me, through prayers, through his words, through sermons, through lectures in class, and even through the media. I realized what I had become, and I realized it was I who had been constricting myself, and not society because it was I who closed off options that were always available to me.

I just needed to stop complaining, and see things for what they really are. I had to stop and think about God’s ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ, his one and only son. Jesus, who had to suffered so much for me– he didn’t die in the middle of flogging, or while he was carrying the cross up to the hill; he went all the way and suffered but all of it.

He didn’t flake out on us, and it’s this kind of unconditional, incomprehensible sort of love that saved me.

What was I complaining about? All I need is his love to live. Not only has he poured forth his unending love, he blessed me with so many other things. Ultimately, I realized that He has brought me this far, even when I had ignored Him, and He’ll continue to lead me in the right direction.

He has been taking care of me, loving me, and most importantly, he had saved me from my sins with the sacrifice of Jesus. That sort of commitment is and never will be of man, but only of God.

Because of this I will try to live my life fearing him and keeping his commandments, for it is my duty as a servant of him who is worthy of my love and so much more.

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