A Christmas Story: My Testimony

My favorite time of year is right around the corner. Putting up the Christmas tree, baking cookies with my mom (okay, mainly watching her bake, but that’s off the point), giving and getting presents, and enjoying a time of coziness and rest with people I love. But to me, despite how wonderful these things are, there is much more to Christmas. This year I decided to reflect back on the journey I have come with the One whose birthday we are celebrating and take you right along with me.

Chapter 1: Childhood

I don’t remember how I met God. I don’t even remember the first time I heard about Him. I became aware of Him the same way a child grows aware of her parents; I couldn’t remember a time when He hadn’t been there. However, I do remember the moment I decided I wanted Him in my life.

Having grown up in a Christian family and attended Sunday School every week, there was nothing about Jesus I didn’t love. The image of Him carrying a lamb in His arms, the way we were told He carried each one of us, stuck with me the most.

When I was six, I approached my mom and told her I had decided to accept Jesus into my heart but didn’t know how. She smiled widely and helped me say a prayer to do just that. There were no fireworks, no supernatural experiences. I had simply invited into my life the one who had made me, the one who knew me even before my own parents did, and who would love me through every experience I was to live through in my life.

After that, Jesus was my best friend. He was the one I ran to to complain about my parents, my brother, my very big childhood problems. And through a book called Children Can You Hear Me? (which I read to this day), my mom helped me learn to hear His voice right back and to see the loving eyes with which He looked at me.

Chapter 2: Surviving Adolescence

My upper school years were a lot darker. Struggling through bullying and heartbreak for several years, my self-esteem plummeted to the ground. A day came when I couldn’t bear it alone anymore and canceled my violin class, went straight home after school, and poured my heart out to my mom, bit by bit, over the course of the next months and even years.

What I didn’t know back then was that making that choice started me on a journey back to God’s arms. Through our daily several-hour-long conversations, my mom helped me find my security and self-worth in my Heavenly Papa, whose love for me would never waver. It was also at this time that The Shack came into my life and healed me more than any book could.

I would wake up early in the mornings to hear and write down God’s encouraging words to me. Songs like Mandisa’s “He is With You,” Casting Crown’s “Who Am I,” and MercyMe’s “I Can Only Imagine” were my lifeline throughout the day. I would listen to them in the school bus, during my breaks, before bed. They would remind me of how valuable I was in God’s eyes, that He was with me in every situation, and that no matter what pain I went through now, I could always look forward to a time in which there would be no pain.

Coming home, the first thing I did would be running to my Bible; I would read it for hours on end, wondering how it was possible that every word was meant for me, despite having been written thousands of years ago. The only description that does justice to what I experienced is from Psalm 42:1: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.”

Looking back, I find it fascinating that the darkest period of my life also became the sweetest. Only God can do that. Not only did my intimacy with Him grow to a whole new level, but through my own pain, God opened my eyes to a world that is desperate for Him, even when they don’t know it. I could no longer be indifferent. I had found the source of Life, like the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-42), and I couldn’t contain it inside of me anymore.

I began caring for my classmates and praying for celebrities I would never meet. I carried around a little pouch with names of people I felt moved to pray for; every morning, I would pull one name out and pray for that person throughout the day. Whenever I began seeing changes in that person’s life (imagine how cool it was when I noticed changes in a celebrity’s life!), I got encouraged to continue. I used every opportunity to share God’s love, through words or through actions, and somewhere in the process of feeling my way out of my dark pit, my heart became one with God’s, breaking for the same things that broke His.

Chapter 3: Crossroads and Adventures

One of the ways in which my overflowing desire to help others meet Jesus expressed itself was through ministry. For many, many years, I was a part of a student organization called Crossroads, with the vision to share the Good News of the Gospel with our peers. It truly was a time of adventure as I learned to overcome my fears and reach out to people in practical ways alongside my equally fearful (but willing) friends.

One thing I learned was that in order to experience God in extraordinary ways, I had to be willing to step outside of my comfort zone. That is when the real mind-boggling miracles happen, like the one I wrote about in my old blog and called “Waiting for Reuben.”

A book that greatly inspired me during this time was Always Be Ready: A Call to Adventurous Faith, written by an astrophysicist named Hugh Ross. He tells story after story from his life about how, when you’re open to it, the opportunities to talk about God and allow Him to do miracles in people’s lives will come running to you. I realized that that was the kind of life I wanted to live; one that was simply an adventure with God. 

Chapter 4: University

I genuinely loved my university years, but I also remember them as a time in which my faith was truly challenged. Something about professors I admired talking about religion as outdated and discussing Christianity with my atheist friends made me question my confidence in what I believed. To this day, I’m surprised at how quickly I began wondering if my relationship with God had been a part of my imagination. However, I don’t regret it, because there is such a thing as healthy doubt, one that can leave you with an even stronger faith if dealt with correctly.

I started taking a deep interest in the field of apologetics and spent so much time exploring how science and philosophy point to a Creator. A wonderful podcast and YouTube channel I would recommend if you also have questions is Unbelievable?, in which Christians and skeptics sit down for respectful discussions on topics of faith.

A memorable experience I had was attending a FEUER conference in Spain, where I spent several days talking with and learning from the giants in the faith. I even got to meet my dear John Lennox! Seeing all these authentic and intellectual Christians who could bet their life on God’s existence strengthened my own faith. I cannot thank my own parents enough for being available when I had questions and for giving me the best gift they could have given–the foundations of my faith that saw me through every doubt and storm.

At the conference, I met a couple from Scotland who absolutely loved an essay I had written called “Has Science Made God Irrelevant?” and decided to publish it in their magazine, The Record. That essay was the culmination of all the research I had done, summarizing the arguments and discoveries that not only strengthened my faith, but filled me with awe towards God’s creation.

As a result of these years, what I had known in my heart all along became something I knew and could defend in my mind as well. I learned to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks [me] to give the reason for the hope that [I] have,” but always with “gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

But beyond science and theoretical arguments, one thing I can never doubt are the real-life stories of people who have encountered God. Stories like those told in The Torn Veil, The Cross and Switchblade, and countless other books. They take me outside of myself and into the lives of people from every part of the world who would die for God with a smile on their faces. And in moments when I wonder if my relationship with God has been my imagination, I look to people like them and find confidence in my own experiences, knowing that I am most certainly not alone.

Chapter 5: My Life Now

For the first time in so long, I get to live a much slower-paced life, enjoying my new marriage, adapting to life in a new country, spending time with my husband’s lovely family, and focusing on my studies and writing. It can be easy for me to look at all that’s going on in the world, the heaviest on my heart being the situation on the Armenian borders, and wonder if God is really here with me in the quiet of my life.

I asked God one morning during my quiet time to give me a sign, any sign, that He is with me, when suddenly, out of a cloudy day, the sun shone out and filled our living room. I thought to myself, Oh, how cliché of God to use sunlight as the answer. How can I even know it was Him and not some crazy coincidence? I decided to just go back to my Bible and keep reading from where I had last left off. That is when I noticed two lines I had underlined during my last quiet time, right at the very top of the first page, that read, “The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment” (Psalm 104:2).

That is the God that I believe in–the one who is with me in every valley, every mountain, and all the ordinary days in between. The God who chose me as His dwelling place and promises to be with me and work through me everywhere I go, even when I am not aware of it.

I am so grateful to you for coming on this journey with me. I hope that my story has filled your Christmas with a little bit more light, wherever you are in the world and whatever situation you find yourself in. Also, if you want to experience the story of the birth of Jesus Christ from a completely fresh perspective, I can’t think of a better way to do that than to watch “Christmas with The Chosen: The Messengers,” which is free on “The Chosen” app and includes an amazing short film called The Messengers.

Have a very Merry Christmas!