My favorite author, Robin Jones Gunn, once wrote something to the effect of "there are two things that should never be taken for granted. One is good friends, the other is godly heritage." I am blessed enough to have the benefit of both in my life. That idea has greatly impacted me, as has the following verses of the Bible:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through who we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.-Romans 5:1-2

When I was 15, I made a very big decision. I decided to become a Christian. Although I had grown up in a Christian family, being a Christian was never something that I did, rather it was something that I figured I inherently was, like being an American. I went to Sunday school, participated in youth group, played the hymns on the piano for Sunday morning worship, and did my best to be a good kid, and a moral person.

I eventually realized that all those things were fine, but unless I did them in response to my belief that God loved me, they were meaningless. At 15, I knew that I needed to do things out of personal conviction, and not just because it was something I thought my parents expected of me. I also needed to stop thinking that I was the one who was in charge of my life. I had to let God have complete control. I began my lifelong surrender to God two weeks before my 16th birthday.

For the last eleven years, I have been deepening my relationship with God. There have been times when life has presented me with huge challenges, and I have wondered if being a Christian even matters. Like many people, I have struggled with questions about why God allows wicked things happen to his children. I have had times of feeling completely blissful and content in my relationship with God, as well as experiencing frustration and fury with him for things that I thought he should/could have prevented from ever happening.

I cannot say that I have discovered the meaning of life, but I have learned that my life is meaningful to God. He has been making himself evident in my life in a number of ways, large and small. He has blessed me greatly through different people, and he has taught me valuable lessons in times of pain. I have confidence that I am going to heaven when my time on earth is over. I believe that any pain endured here in life will be insignificant when compared to the future glory of being in God's awesome presence. The decision to become a Christian was the greatest decision I have ever made, in terms of magnitude and importance. There has not been a single day that I have regretted the decision to identify myself as a follower of God.