Hello, my name is Rachael Kerr and I am a sophomore here at Hopkins. I also attend Peabody, the music school for piano performance. I want to tell you about my freshman year here.
Let me just tell you that at first, I thought I was the perfect person coming into college. Throughout the first semester, I built a perfect little world for myself. I entered college scared to death about classes, making friends, and living in a brand new city. I also came into college as a Christian, and I was worried about finding a church. Pretty soon, I got used to the routine of college, though. Even though I was a double degree student, I felt like I was managing the stress of two schedules at once pretty well. I was enjoying meeting people on campus, and I made friends with some great people. I also found a church that welcomed me with open arms.
During that first semester, a group of freshmen in my building began to meet in a friend's room to do a Bible study every single night. Although I had been a Christian for a while, this was the first time I had ever met Christians my own age who were actively seeking God. It was cool to make and have friends who shared the same love of Jesus with me. Our Bible study grew to include freshmen from all over campus and various ministries, and we got to know each other better. We saw prayer requests answered, and we were encouraged by sharing what we learned about God from the Bible. I felt that I was living the ultimate Christian life.
Then Christmas break came. I went home for the first time in three and a half months. I was pretty homesick, so it was good to be home. But while I was there, I didn't read the Bible, pray or even hardly think about God. I was discouraged. These were all things any "good" Christian would do, right? By the time I got back, to Hopkins for Intersession, I was determined to be more disciplined about Christianity-as well as study harder, practice piano more, and get to sleep earlier! But while I read the Bible every day during the month of January, my heart and my actions didn't line up with what I was learning in the Bible. I gradually started pursuing the wrong things with people. I pushed myself to please everyone for fear of letting them down. I ended up compromising myself in some areas, but I couldn't understand why I didn't have the self-control to stay away from what I knew was wrong. Eventually, the three short weeks of Intersession ended with me hurting a friend of mine really badly. I was disgusted with myself. I realized that I had really compartmentalized my life. My actions didn't line up with who I thought I was. There was such a lapse between who I appeared to be and who I was inside. I felt like a fake.
The lowest point of this downward journey occurred one night during the second semester as I was sitting in a practice room. All of a sudden, I just started sobbing. I felt as if I didn't know who I was anymore-and all this after many years of being a Christian. I cried out at God, told Him I could not do this "Christian" thing without his help. I begged Him to take control of my life literally this time. And at that point, God completely broke me. He showed me how He wanted all of me to actively love Him. He wanted my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I realized that I had been keeping my spiritual life in a box. Piano, academics, friends, and relationships were completely separated from what I learned in church.
God also showed me that I only had to be myself. In middle school, I went through a couple of hurtful experiences with friends abandoning and rejecting me. Coupled with the fact that my parents were divorced and my dad left my family when I was very young, I realized that I was left very wounded. God showed me that this was what was driving me to be a perfectionist, a people pleaser, and a control freak. God also showed me that I carried this notion inside of me that I was inherently inferior to everyone else. So I worked hard to hide my real self while projecting an appearance of confidence to everyone around me.
What God showed me was really important and changed the way I lived everyday. I didn't have to try to be a perfect person anymore. God loves me for who I am inside, because that's who he created me to be-not anyone else. In fact, God sent His Son Jesus Christ to Earth to die on the cross in place of the death I deserve. Jesus, a perfect human being died. I, a sinner, was spared by God's love. But Jesus died for me. Not for the version of me that was trying to be perfect, but little old Rachael Kerr. I could trust God to love me for exactly who I am. For me, this was really freeing. I didn't have to try to be a Christian anymore. Since Jesus died in place of me, God looked at me and saw Jesus' blood covering my sins. I didn't have to earn God's approval like I did with friends. I didn't have to worry about God abandoning me like my dad did. No, God allows us to call Him "Abba" - "Daddy". He loves us just because we are His children. Nothing we do or don't do can make us more acceptable to Him.
In the book of Romans in the Bible, it says "For God demonstrated his own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." The good news for us is that we can simply be ourselves and know that God loves us more completely than we could ever imagine. We no longer have to impress people, earn approval by pleasing them, or try to be perfect. I hope that all of us can have and exercise this trust that God loves us no matter what.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Trieuduong Nguyen. I'm a senior English major from Buffalo, NY. My road to finding God has been a really long one. When I was pretty young, we were sponsored to come to the United States after a couple years in refugee camps in the Philippines and Malaysia. We were actually sponsored by this wonderful lady from a Protestant church and my family absolutely loved her. But we didn't believe a word she said about "higher authorities," "salvation," or "Lord and Savior."
Growing up in Buffalo, with two parents who were always working, I learned to work on my own, since it was usually just me, my sister, and my folks. My dad was a new immigrant who really stressed that we had to grow up fast and be able to survive on our own, without depending or relying on anyone. Seeing the contempt and even racism that my parents, who had trouble speaking English, were treated by others around them - this attitude really made sense to me. As I went through elementary, middle, and high school, that attitude got really ingrained into me. I had a few close friends but for the most part I distrusted most of the people around me. I especially disliked the Christians, since many of the ones I met were drunkards, liars or outright thugs. Some of them took it seriously. Yet, being someone who was proud of his self-reliance, I thought of them as being weak for needing a spiritual crutch to get through their lives. College came.
When I got to Hopkins, stuck in that little AMR II double, I was finally forced to room with another person, and let's be frank - we frequently drove each other absolutely crazy. My roommate was a hardcore Christian and I would sometimes lay awake at night listening to him mumble his prayers and wondering what on earth I had done to deserve this. His friends were even more obnoxious and annoying. What on earth were they getting so excited about? Whose sick idea of a joke was it to stick an atheist with a Christian? Why hadn't I been dormed with someone who was well - normal? But, as the months went on, I started to respect him for the way he lived his life his kindness and generosity and faith. Through him and others that I met, I started to realize that my opinion of all Christians might have been slightly wrong. I started going to church and attending a small group to see just what it was that made these people tick. I started learning about Christ how he died for us, to redeem our sins and reunite us with God. It started to make sense to me, but I don't think I really took it seriously.
At the same time, however, I was still struggling with the temptation within myself to say "screw it" and find something more productive to do with my time. I didn't need these people. I didn't need some foolish ideology running through my head. Sure, God exists but He doesn't actually care about any of us. And I told myself that I would find something more "useful" to do with my time. The problem was that I never actually did find something useful to do with my time. I spent a lot of time going out, playing cards, shooting pool, surfing the Net, getting out of town for a few days, but I never did anything useful. What I did do was sleep through most of my classes, miss a few labs, screw up a research position, aggravate my roommates, and almost burn down our kitchen. My grades started to slip and I could feel my life starting to fall away. My temper would explode and I went berserk over the most trivial things. I would be up until 7 or 8AM in the morning doing virtually anything but my school work. I neglected my responsibilities to my family, to my friends, and to pretty much everyone who depended on me.
The seriousness of the situation didn't really hit me until junior year. Through my own stupidity and for other reasons that I couldn't control, I got hurt. I was hospitalized and sent to the ER twice in four months and almost got sent there a third time. There's this thing called despair. It gets into your heart and it starts squeezing. When you're stuck for hours on that gurney, with IVs stuck in your veins, all alone no family. No friends. No one you expected to see at all, except maybe for that disgruntled janitor or bored nurse. This sickness - it really starts to eat away at you. It was almost the finishing blow for me. That fall semester of my junior year was as close as I ever want to get to dying. I self-destructed mentally and physically; for all intents and purposes I was a wreck. And those around me wondered where I had gone for all those days, weeks, months.
But something pulled me back. For no apparent reason, I started reading my Bible seriously this time. I started praying seriously this time. It was the longest, hardest prayer in my life. I started putting my heart and my faith and my trust in the Lord and in someone immensely greater than myself. My prayers to God to pass that semester, to pull myself out of this emotional death that I had trapped myself into were answered. Praying alone in my cold room in Buffalo, I started to enjoy life again. And when I came back, I started trying to reconnect my old friendships. Through those prayer meetings and small groups and retreat I finally began to realize that God had been speaking to me all along. The signs had been there. You can't go through life completely alone. No matter how strong or tough you think you are, it eventually starts making you so narrow-minded, so callous, that you actually start hating the world around you. It gets into your soul, and hardens you emotionally against the cries and pains of those around you who could have used your help or shoulder to lean on. It's a sick, sick cycle. But through faith in God and constant striving to build a relationship with him, I feel like I've finally broken it. Proverbs 3: 5-6, says to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." Now, more than ever, I believe that to be the case.
So where am I now? My life is still a struggle. Years of living solely for myself have made it hard for me to reach out to people. I still struggle in my attempt to build meaningful friendships and be there for those who have started to trust me again. But I'm learning. I'm always trying hard to make God relevant in my life to follow his laws and live out his dreams and purposes for me. There is a higher call. There is something greater than yourself. For those of you who are freshmen, there is a lot of propaganda. Your lives do not begin and end with Johns Hopkins. Your lives begin and end with Christ and ultimately, he is the only one worth listening to. It's funny. If you had asked me four or five years ago, I probably would have laughed in your face and said, "You're kidding, right?" But. God has tested me is testing me. But I know I trust in Him and Him alone. And I know I will succeed.