Before I became a Christian, I was quite stubborn and very self-confident — basically, I was the kind of person who was hard to teach. Though I was a Buddhist by religion, I didn’t really revere Buddhism itself. Instead, I loved and had faith in my ancestors, angels, and deities. It was more like I worshipped love itself. There was this phrase I always used: “Even if you’re a monk, it doesn’t mean you can teach me.” I rarely went to temples. But I considered myself a good person in my own way — I didn’t harm or take advantage of others, I liked helping people. You could say I had both good qualities and arrogance. I didn’t really get along with most people. I faced many problems in life, but I never chose to follow someone I thought was worse than me just to gain some benefit.
I clung to and held on to goodness — but not religion. To me, religion didn’t reach the heart. It felt superficial, like it didn’t answer the questions that were truly in my soul.
So by the time things changed, I wasn’t really strict about my former religion anymore. Then my daughter met a Christian. She asked me if I would support her changing her religion, and I said yes. She started dating him and later got married in a Christian ceremony, and I was genuinely happy for her, without any conditions. I told her, “Now that you’ve chosen this path, give it your all.”
After that, I had the opportunity to go to church many times. I started to like it, started to follow. And honestly, it made sense — there are fish, there are rivers, there are mountains, there’s air to breathe. So there must be a creator god. I began to thank God in my heart. I began to love God, to accept the teachings of the Bible. At first, it was all good — I loved, I believed — but I hadn’t made the decision yet to really put my faith in him. I kept postponing it. I told myself, “Let me finish my duty as a daughter in my original religion first.” But after a while, I realized: no matter what religion I was in, I’m still my daughter’s mother — why waste more time? I wanted to ask God for blessings too.
So I Asked Jim, “I want to become a real Christian now. What do I need to do?” He told me I had to accept three things:
1. Believe that God is the one and only true God.
2. Admit that I am a sinner who cannot cleanse my sins by myself .
3. Believe that this one true God sent his son jesus to die for my sins, that he is the only one who can save me, and to follow him.
So I prayed with Jim & Yuyie to give my life to jesus. later, Jim baptized me. After being baptized, I was overwhelmed with joy, to the point of tears. I felt like — now I have a Father. now i know I have someone I can truly rely on. I felt warmth on the inside. The deep loneliness I used to carry disappeared. God is with me all the time now. Everything in my life has started to get better. I no longer long for the things I had lost. I believe that God will help me. I am someone God has made new.
- Naruemon
