Why I Felt So New

While in high school I grew increasingly aware of a painful loneliness. Social situations made me feel ill-at-ease, and I avoided them whenever possible. My parents provided well for me, but in many ways our relationship was a distant one. I spent lots of time alone, reading, listening to music or tinkering with electronic gadgets. Later on, I began to write poetry and songs, most of them depressive and sad. A recurring theme was my desire to be a “real” person—uninhibited by fears or feelings of rejection, able to be myself wherever I was. Yet the marijuana “high”, which I regarded as somehow spiritual, fascinated me. So I withdrew even more, through drugs, into myself and into the social, cultural and spiritual rebellion of the “counterculture.”

The school assemblies became a burden I was eager to be rid of. One morning several students stepped forward to speak of their faith. In the middle of one girl’s testimony, I burst out laughing. Heads turned, and I turned red, embarrassed and straining to control myself. Eastern religions appealed to me more now than Christianity, and I dabbled a little in some innocuous-looking occult arts. I sometimes spent hours lying on the floor three feet from the stereo, listening to loud acid rock. All of these things got me “high”, in one way or another, by requiring me to surrender myself to something external—whether a deity, a drug, or a swirl of sound—in passivity of mind and will.

Living a life divided three ways—one when I was alone, one at school and another at home—was a terrific strain. I thought of travelling, hoping to change myself by changing my surroundings, but I lacked the nerve. And try as I might to throw off Christian ideas, I was often nagged by things I read in the Bible or heard in the Bible class. Scripture verses sometimes came to mind just when I was about to do something wrong.

My interest in school nearly disappeared. Many times I would do homework for half an hour or so, then close the books in frustration, distracted by my misery.

The friend who had introduced me to marijuana was caught and had to leave his school. I was badly shaken when my parents began to suspect me and questioned me sharply once or twice.

Then one night, I simply gave up. I flung down my homework, and in desperation, I threw myself down on my bed and cried out to the Lord. I had come to the end of my rope, and was filled with hopelessness in my own ability to straighten out my life. I poured out what was in my heart: “Jesus, my life isn’t worth living any longer like this; I know I can’t make it without you, and I don’t want to live without you in my life any more; Please help me!” As I wept, I had an assurance I had never had before that I was on the right track.

I listened intently in the assemblies now. One visiting preacher spoke with evident joy about the Christian life as a personal relationship with God made possible through Jesus. I lingered after the assembly to talk with him. He encouraged me to keep right on seeking Jesus and prayed for me right there.

I agreed, reluctantly, to be the accompanist for the school Chorale on a week-long Spring tour that took us to six northeastern states. Our second stop happened to be a Baptist church in New Jersey, where the man who prayed for me at school was the preacher.

I had never heard preaching like his before. I found myself trembling when he spoke of the necessity for a deliberate decision to repent from sin and to receive Jesus as Savior in order to be saved.

I silently called out to God, confessing my sins, and asked Jesus to be my Savior. For the first time in my life, I believed with all my heart that Jesus had taken away my sins when He was crucified.

During a break in another concert, I stood before another congregation and told them of my new faith in Christ and of its immediate effects. I told the people from my heart that these had been the most wonderful days of my life. I said I felt like I was finally home, where I belonged and where I was loved, since I had come to Jesus.

A great weight was lifted from me that week, and for the first time in years I was free of guilt. Some of my friends also believed and received Jesus. But others couldn’t get it: “Weren’t you always a Christian? Weren’t you always forgiven?” They said it was just another stage I was passing through. Praise God, I have not passed through it, and when I do, I will pass right into heaven.

The end of that week of travel that turned into a week of praise saw us all wet-eyed and very happy. We began to pray intensely for our school. After several weeks, a young preacher came and shook up the school for three days. His preaching melted many stony hearts, and a large number of students went forward to receive Jesus at his invitation.

The life of the school changed remarkably. I had never seen such rapport among students, or between students and faculty.

A short time later colleges began to reply to my applications. I had fully expected to remain in the Boston area, but to my great surprise, Columbia emerged as the only possibility.

That last summer before college, the Bible, which had been uninteresting, and often puzzling, turned sweet as honey to my soul. As I read and understood, my mind began to catch up with what had happened in my heart and spirit. Verses like these expounded to me what had become of my sin, depression and misery and why I felt so new:

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows …. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities….and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray…and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6)

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)