Immediately upon accepting the truth, I didn’t know what to expect regarding the rest of my life.  I didn’t know of the ramifications or responsibilities.  Quite frankly, I didn’t care.  What I did know was that it was the truth, and there was no way I could deny it.    

            Something did happen immediately, though - I felt an indescribable peace.  It was as if an emptiness inside me - one I wasn’t completely aware was there - was completely filled.  This emptiness was a longing deep within me that I thought money and success paired with a wonderful woman as a wife could directly or indirectly fill.  I never felt like I was an 'unpeaceful' person.  I certainly never got in any fights or purposefully started problems, and I have always despised war and not understood it.  Plus, like I said earlier, I was always rather unassuming, apolitical, and did not even like to get in the middle of common debates.  I didn't hold any strong opinions about anything.  I was a quiet person, and I pretty much got along with everybody.  Externally, perhaps I looked like a very peaceful person even before I accepted Jesus.  I enjoyed everything and would rarely grow bored with anything.  The big thing, though, was the internal environment.  For who really cares about the external environment when we really live within our internal environment.  Any difference between the two reveals our insecurities, and the difference in our external environment is nothing but a mask or shield covering up our internal environment.  I tried to give you an idea of how I was a complete mess inside, especially in early parts of this testimony.  I tried to explain to you that in my junior year at college, this came to a very dramatic climax.  Inside, I was literally going crazy about everything.  This did not match my external nature though.  This mismatch, in and of itself, reveals that I was very insecure and had many shields!  There were a few friends to whom which I cracked the door to my mind in college, and they can testify to the wrestling going on inside.  They saw pages of thoughts in lengthy emails or participated in conversations filled with questions, thoughts, and disjointed beliefs!   However, they only saw a mere glimpse...perhaps only part of one jigsaw puzzle or one boiling pot!  For how much could I divulge to another person?!  How much could I burden them with my endless thoughts?  They would think I was insane and have me committed!  Sometimes I would think that that was where I was headed - I mean, why is it that some people go crazy, anyway?  For many, if not all, medicine does not offer a cause; it simply states symptoms and risk factors!  Perhaps the minds of some people are just overloaded with thoughts...and this eventually leads to insanity.  Then, it is this insanity of thoughts that leads to the brain changes, rather than vice versa, as medicine unsuccessfully tries to prove.  I hated my contemplative mind and despised any intelligence I had.  I truly believed that ignorance was bliss and wished that the thoughts of my mind would just stop!  I just wanted it all to stop.  It did stop, and it was Jesus Christ that stopped it all.  He saved me from this internal torment.  A gentle serene breeze came by and whisked away all of the insanity.  The crashed plane revealed that it was just an illusion and disappeared.  All of time seemed to slow down as if life was one calming walk through a glorious park.  Things came into perspective, and along with all of the boiling pots and jigsaw puzzles, all of the worries and fears disappeared.  My searching was over.  

            Plus, there was joy and excitement!  How could there not be?!  Alas, I felt as if all of the searching everybody does in life...all of the problems of the world...all of the issues people have - here were the answers!  I had to tell my family, I had to tell my friends, I had to tell everybody I knew, I had to tell the entire world!  Here it was, at last!  The key!  Search no more!  Just read the Bible...see and hear Jesus, and you will find the answers to success and happiness in relationships, career, parenting, life!  All other books, magazines, videos, etc. on these matters are mere distorted imperfect echoes of what Jesus said so simply, succinctly, and perfectly!  These are my current sentiments, and were my sentiments in the spring of 1995. Did I tell you, though?  Did I tell the world then?  No.  I didn't.  Why not?

            I held back sharing the truth immediately with everybody in fear.  I told only a few people about it, and hid it from others.  It wasn’t a fear of being different, unpopular, or thought negatively by others - this certainly did not hold me back.  The great fear I had stemmed from something more serious and deeper inside.  Basically, I feared pushing people away from God just as I had been pushed away from God up until my junior year in college.  In other words, I feared that people would see my iniquities and my shortcomings and use them to reveal my hypocrisy and conclude that the truth that I claimed was untrue.  Thoughts of this killed me inside.  I wanted to share the happiness and glory of Jesus Christ to others because I saw the sorrow in the world and wanted everybody to know the truth.  That is all.  Now that I knew the Key to happiness, that is what I wanted to share!  Jesus was, is, and always will be the answer!  However, I was and still am so imperfect!  In fact, in my walk, I realize more and more how far I fall short of the example Jesus gave.  I was, am, and always be a person who sins.  How could I speak the truth without fault so that others may know it is true...just as Jesus did?  I feared that I would just end up pushing others away...away from the joy, happiness, and peace that is available in abundance to them through Jesus, even eternally.  I couldn't bear the thought of that...so I kept the truth hidden in my heart.

 
            We have taken something so awesome...so incredible...so magnificent, and we have made it into something that people squirm at!  How deplorable!  You even say the name "Jesus" out loud in public, and people will get offended, quickly turn the other way, get a little nervous, and/or make a strange face!  I'll tell you something about this situation...this truth, Jesus, is a like a baby lost in the Atlantic Ocean.  A vast majority of what people see from the outside is this huge ocean of useless salty water...water that promises to fulfill your thirst, but then it kills you because it dehydrates you.  People drink and drink and drink and even call others to drink, but they are not fulfilled...and they dehydrate!  Either they die or they eventually 'throw the baby out with the bath water.'  In the case with Jesus, though...it isn't just a bathtub full of dirty water, it something immense, like the Atlantic Ocean.  Why is the Atlantic Ocean there?  It is because of us – men held captive by worldly desires.  It is because of pride, love of money, and love of power.  These things comprise the salty water and deceive men into thinking that happiness will come from them.  Furthermore, these salty deceptions also build upon themselves to create something as immense as the Atlantic Ocean.  However, the baby is still there...and He promises to fill the emptiness within you so that you will thirst no more, and have life...not a dehydrating death.  
   
            So basically, I thought I had to become perfect and learn about every bit of truth proclaimed in the Bible, and then without reservation proclaim the truth.  And because I wasn't at that point, I closed my mouth for many years.  Inside though, I was at peace with who I was and where I was going...and God started to work more obviously in my life.  In the spring of 1995, applications for Eastman Chemical Company scholarship and internship were handed out to me along with several other students at the upper end of the class in Chemical Engineering.  At first, I dismissed it.  I still didn't like Chemical Engineering, and planned on working at Chick-fil-A as I had for the past 3 summers.  I loved working at Chick-fil-A (and, yes, I still love the food!).  So, when I received the application, I casually tossed it in my apartment and did not plan on filling it out.  When the deadline approached my roommate and friends convinced me that I should fill it out and turn it in.  Begrudgingly, I did.  After turning it in, I was one of three students that the professors picked from the applications to be interviewed by Eastman.  The night before the interview, I had to drive several hours halfway home and meet my parents in order to get my suit.  The interview went amazingly well.  I was open and honest and did not hold anything back because I figured Chick-fil-A was a great fallback.  The lady interviewing me was very nice, and she asked situational questions to which I had immediate answers bombarding my mind.  I was chosen as the only Chemical Engineering student from Clemson to obtain the scholarship and internship that year.

            Eastman was incredible.  I was drawn in by all of the great people and by the ‘real world’.  Work was much more interesting than school and I developed a newfound interest in Chemical Engineering.  At the end of the summer, Eastman offered me a full time job to start after my senior year. I accepted the job without even interviewing anywhere else, and was unconcerned and didn't worry through my senior year.  As for choosing engineering over medicine, I figured that if I liked it, I liked it.  If I didn't like it, I would go back to medical school.  It seemed so simple and straightforward, and I wondered why I had not seen it this way before.  Others reminded me why, though, when they would echo my previous doubts, "Hmmm...I don't know.  The problem with that plan is that you become 'hooked' into the money and lifestyle...and it is so hard to give it up and go back to school... and you wind up getting caught in corporate America for several years and regret past decisions you made.  Then, you can grow apathetic in your job and feel stuck."  I was no longer worried about this though - with my stubborn nature, I was confidentt that I would get out if I wasn't happy.

            So with confidence, I went back to finish my last year at Clemson.  I was content and at peace. I wasn't searching after answers to religion or God, I wasn't searching for answers to which career to pick, I wasn't searching for a job, I wasn't in pursuit of perfect grades anymore, and I wasn't searching for women anymore!  Why should I?  I felt no longing void within – I felt no emptiness that I thought should be filled with these things – I was full and at peace!  I was just relaxed...enjoying life...minding my own business.  Then entered a beautiful, but extremely stubborn, Christian woman into my life.  After having only briefly spoken with her twice before in the previous year, she had the audacity to come up to me with a grin and say, "So when are we getting married?"  Ohhhh...the nerve of such a woman!  I quickly fell in love with her.

            In the beginning of the relationship, we both grew enormously, individually and together.  We drew each other closer to God and glorified God in our relationship.  I learned about and experienced extreme emotions that reminded me of the night I had first read the New Testament.  Even within the first two weeks, thoughts of marriage entered my mind.  At the end of the first month, we had seriously spoken about it and considered it together.  We felt certain that we were getting married; it was only a matter of when.  This coming from me - someone who made bets with many friends in high school and college claiming to be the last one that would get married!  In the relationship, among many, many, many other things, I learned a lot about myself and about love and fear, passion and rage, jealously, envy...and eventually loss.  Without going into the details, what happened is easily explained as this: our passion and love for God was replaced by our passion and love for one another.  When we did this, we stopped growing in Christ and fear consumed us.  I learned this years after the breakup when I finally received closure, and up until that point I did not understand this and was left speechless and contemplating when others asked why we had broken up.  I learned that the only source of lasting happiness is God, and His infinite love must overflow within each partner in order to enjoy the most successful and happy relationship.  If there is no source of happiness or energy except for that which each is trying to draw from the other, all of the happiness and energy will quickly disappear from both!  They will take turns literally sucking the life out of the other until each is left empty and wondering what happened to the love and passion in their relationship.  However, if each is drawing the source of their happiness from the infinite love of God and shares that love with each other, the love and passion between the two will extend in great abundance, even beyond the couple as they love and serve others as one flesh!

            In this relationship and other experiences, I began to see a pattern develop in my life.  I would be close to God and seeking Him avidly, and it would fill me up and overflow...but then, I would go off in my happiness as if I could live the truth without anybody's help, including God's help.  What foolishness!  I would end in despair and go right back to God.  There was no comparison, though, in the despair I felt in these cycles as compared with the mental torment I went through before accepting Christ - make no mistake about that!  And the brief despair would only serve as a reminder, and its intensity dependent upon how long it took me to realize that I had not been focusing my life on God.  As the cycles continued, they wouldn't last as long, but I realized that my goal of living exactly like Jesus and then to proclaim the truth to others was going to take forever, and seemed to be an impossible task! For the more I learned and the closer I came to God, the more I realized how far I was and am from such amazing love!  So, I continued to stay quiet, not sharing the truth and about what had happened to me.

            I worked as a full-time employee for Eastman for three years, and there were many aspects of the job that I really enjoyed.  The employees were great, the company was great, and it was mentally challenging.  I worked with many incredible people, including the husband of the lady I had originally interviewed with before my internship - both very encouraging Christians!  Working with him and others, I had an incredible experience.  However, I would complete a project or accomplish something without feeling any joy in it.  I was left feeling empty regarding my job.  I felt the desire to serve others more directly.  So, as with my original plan, I decided to go back to medical school and serve others as a doctor.  I applied to fourteen schools, but ended up getting rejected from all but one school - Emory University.  They had placed me on the waiting list, which was usually a bad sign.  However, I still quit my job with intentions of volunteering at a hospital and taking upper biology courses in order to get into medical school the following year.  By the grace of God, Emory accepted me off the wait list in the middle of the summer and I started medical school there in the fall of 1999.

            God was, and is, guiding me through all of this, I have no doubt.  He blessed me with getting the internship and full-time job at Eastman, blessed me while at Eastman, blessed me in getting into Emory, and has blessed me numerous times since then (especially while sharing this testimony!).  If I had worked at a company inferior to Eastman, perhaps I would have had lingering thoughts about Chemical Engineering as I embark on a new career in medicine.  If I had gotten into many medical schools, perhaps I would not have chosen Emory and been blessed with the incredible fellowship and people I have met here!  If I hadn't gotten involved in the Christian fellowship group at Emory, perhaps I never would have gone to the retreat I did.  If I had not gone to the retreat, perhaps I would not have been drawn to going on a medical mission this summer.  Ifs...ifs...and more ifs...they could go on.  And they did and they do and they will, and they led me to conquer my fear of sharing my testimony, sharing my life, and most importantly sharing with you the incredible love of God, which is available in abundance to you!

            The conquering of my fear to proclaim the truth came in the spring of 2000 through prayer, reading more of the Bible, and the help and encouragement from fellow Christians.  Of course, it really came by the grace of God through these vehicles, and even other vehicles that He uses.  Paul, a Jewish Christian, is one of my favorite ‘vehicles’ in the New Testament.  He was an amazing man truly inspired by the Holy Spirit, walking in a manner similar to Jesus.  He, though, struggled desperately with sin and even stated that nothing good lived in him!  He admits his faults and says that he continues to sin...even while proclaiming the truth of Jesus!  And the big thing or message to me is - do his faults push ME from the truth?  NO!!!  His inspired words of truth irresistibly draw me closer to God!  You see?!  My mistake before, and the mistake of the world today, is to look at the faults of man to make judgments about Jesus!  We peer at the Atlantic Ocean - full of useless salt water, and from it we throw everything away!  But it is the Baby in the Atlantic Ocean that we all need to consider!  Yes – the truth speaks for itself!  It cannot depend upon people living perfectly to show that it is the truth - for we are all sin and we all fall short of God!  So, I will continually to grow closer to God and remove sin from my life, but meanwhile I will proclaim the truth about Jesus!  I no longer fear that by proclaiming the Good News (Gospel) that I will push you away from the love available to you!  I would just ask that you look at and scrutinize the truth of Jesus, not scrutinize me!  If you scrutinize me or even this testimony, you will find fault in it.  But, you will find no fault with Jesus.  Besides, I now understand that I am commanded by God to invite others to share in the happiness, joy, and love offered through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ!  And through this invitation, I also clear myself of your blood while fulfilling me joy!  This comes not because of your response to what I do or say, but comes from the action of the invitation itself - that is how my heart overflows with joy!

            So, as I started this section...I propose the question yet again: as you cast your eyes upon this fourth part of my testimony, what is it you expect to see from ME?  I am not perfect!  I am not sinless!  I am not Jesus!  Do not make your judgments regarding Jesus Christ or God based on my faults, or the faults of man!  This in part is what I did, and as the result I became an atheist.  I guarantee you that it is a piece of cake to tear down or disprove what you think Christianity is based on the actions of any 'man' or religious organization run by any 'man'.  But I also guarantee you that it is absolutely impossible to tear down or disprove Jesus, the very Son of God...who is the very heart of pure and true Christianity.  In fact, I challenge you to do so by reading and seeing what Jesus said and did in the New Testament!  And, far be it for me to boast of my life in an attempt to show you that Jesus is Lord!  Far be it for me to boast even about what I have found in Christ!  Far be it for me to boast and say, "Hey look!  I have found the truth!  Through my hard work and thorough searching, I have figured it out!"  NO!  I am a taxicab that was hailed by Jesus, and anything I have found is because Jesus has driven or directed me there!  In other words, it is by the grace of God that anything has been revealed to me! It is a gift from God!  It does not come of intelligence, diligence, or hard work.  If I boast at all, it is boasting in the Lord...proclaiming His glory and the happiness, love, joy, and peace in Him - even eternally! So none of this testimony is an attempt to build me up - only Him!  I have tried to be as open and honest as I could - the positive feelings, experiences, and fortunate blessings I have had and ever will have in the future, I owe all to the loving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.  So...why then, you must ask, do I write this at all?  What is my motivation, because ALL people have a motivation for anything that they do.  Well, John explains why he wrote his testimony (20:31), "These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."  My sentiments are exactly the same.  I wrote this because I wish for you to share the peace, joy, and love available to you in abundance in your work and play, and especially your relationships, through the saving grace and love of Jesus Christ...right now, for the rest of your life, and through eternity!  

In short:  All good things that have happened to me or will ever happen to me, I credit solely to the love and gracious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  All ‘good’ things you hear or see from my, I credit solely to the workings of Jesus Christ (or the Holy Spirit) inside of me.  All ‘bad’ things you hear or see from me, I fully take credit for and ask for your forgiveness and the Lord’s forgiveness.  I agree with everything the Bible says, whether I understand it or not.  Therefore, I point you to the Word of God and the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us – Jesus Christ.  May you find Him (or rather, He find you), and bless you by filling you with His love, joy, and peace forever!


Back to beginning of my testimony

Homepage