There's No Place Like Home, D.W.

During my four years as an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York City, three students committed suicide. Although they were not close friends of mine, I was affected by their deaths in a powerful way. For days after each one, the campus was somber and hushed. In my senior year, I attended the memorial service held for a young man who only days before took his life. It was overcrowded with students, close friends, and relatives. Many students shared touching stories in remembrance of their friend, but all asked the same question, “Why would someone so young take their life?” Some testified of their friend's repeated feelings of emptiness and bouts of depression, especially his inability to comprehend the meaning of his life. At that moment, I felt blessed to have been raised in a Christian home where I was taught my life had eternal value, and every day I lived, meant something in God's eyes.

I grew up in the local church in New York City. From my earliest days, my parents cultivated a deep appreciation of God and God's house in me. I knew that God placed eternity in my heart and created a spirit within my being so I could contact, receive, and enjoy Him in every aspect of my life (Ecclesiastes 3:11; Zechariah 12:1). I grew up surrounded with people who loved the Lord Jesus and lived their life with the view of His eternal purpose. I considered it normal to attend church meetings where people freely sang hymns of praise, prayed, testified and shared their personal experience of the Lord Jesus. Many of the older believers are like aunts, uncles, and grandparents, people with whom I can seek fellowship and share experiences of Christ. Although sounding idyllic, the most attractive trait about the local church is not social, it is the reality of the experience of Christ. Each member has an intimate and personal relationship with God, and the issue of that relationship is realized in their daily living. They care for one another. The speaking, and the actions of these people all testify and magnify Christ.

Not knowing anything other than what I grew up with, I wanted to explore and see for myself. I pursued my education at Columbia with much enthusiasm, involving myself with student politics and student organizations. I became more attracted and addicted to popularity and power. I felt as if I could be somebody important. Soon, I had a very close-knit group of friends who were similarly involved and socially connected. As I began to enjoy this newfound happiness, the emptier I became. The evils of politics and social bargaining became a reality and I experienced back stabbing and betrayal, even in the pretend grown-up world of college. My only refuge was the church life. I knew that every week I could find a place where I was at home, without fears and anxieties. I could trust each person to be honest and loving. Compared to the environment at school, it was a stark but welcomed contrast. Over the years I have time, and time again, experienced the riches and sweetness of being placed in God's dwelling place. It has become a place where God blesses and restores my world weary and down trodden soul. My prayer has become the same as that of the psalmist King David, “One thing I have asked from Jehovah, that do I seek, to dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of Jehovah, and to inquire in His temple.” (Psalms 27:4) There is no greater joy than to be in the church life with all the brothers and sisters for eternity.