During college years, I decided to give myself to the God of Islam: Allah. I was in such a search for intimacy with my creator and thought I could find it if I immersed myself with those people who truly lived Islam, from covering their hair to reading the Quran even though we did not speak Arabic.

All this effort was for only one purpose: to find peace and love through the acceptance of my Creator. I thirsted for love. Unfortunately, I could not find it in Islam. It was all a religious show on the outside. On the inside I was dying of a longing I could not satisfy with the world. Despite the clear rules of Islam, I looked for love in all the wrong places and found myself in difficult and dangerous situations. When I did not find what I was looking for, I gave up on Islam. It seemed like everyone was looking for the divine in various ways and places, and none of them worked. I know because I tried several; the end result was a feeling of disgust and apathetic acceptance of my doom. “I know I am going to hell,” I would tell myself, “It really does not matter what awful deed I do next.”

This was before 2004. In a most God-ordained way, I ended up watching the movie “The Passion of the Christ.” I was completely confused and intrigued by the movie. I had so many questions because I did not get the message at all. Everything that was presented there was so different from what I was taught about Jesus in Turkey.

At the right time, God brought to my life a godly woman with her circle of amazing friends. Through her answers and gentle encouragement, I finally decided to give Jesus a chance. I actually dared Him to make Himself real to me. After I prayed to Him and accepted His gift of grace, that peace I had been looking for all my life filled me so completely that I was overwhelmed. I felt like I was walking on air. I could not stop smiling. I was in a different state of mind. I did not have to struggle to find God any more. He was available to me, and I would never lose His peace because it was not conditional. I did not have to live in fear of making Him angry or losing His favor.

In addition to this peace, He filled me with His unconditional love that I did not have to earn as I had to in Islam. He came and lived on earth as a human and went through the experiences that we go through and suffered as we did. In a greater sense, though, He chose to go to the cross to die for me and my sins so that I can be reconciled to God the Father and have a relationship with Him. That love He demonstrated on the cross was the love that convinced me that He is who He says He is: Savior of the world. There was nothing there for Him to gain by suffering that deep hurt. It was for His image bearers. Now I can call Him, “Abba, Father” and have a relationship with Him. He not only filled in the void in my heart with His love, but He also showed me that no earthly father could ever come close to His love and care for His children.

He calls me His child because I have believed the gift of Salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. I am not doomed any more, and I can be sure of that. Nothing can separate me from the love of God. Nothing and no one can take away my faith and salvation. It is done and finished. There is nothing I need to do to earn it. This Good News is what transformed my hardened heart. It showed me that all the peace and love I needed and looked for in this world could only be found in God’s eternal plan of salvation.

15 years after my dare to Christ, I can say with confidence that He has proven Himself to be the Savior and Lord of my life many times. He has not disappointed me all these years. I love Him more and more every day. When I look back on my life before Jesus, it looks smudged with gray and gloom despite the temporal pleasures and so-called good times.

I love Him because He first loved me. It sometimes surprises me that He was the One I had been looking for all my life. At the age of four, I wanted to call God “Father” because somehow I knew He is my Father God. It all makes sense now. It took me a thirty-year struggle to finally say “Yes!” to Him, but now I am at peace and know I am loved by the God of the universe I longed after for so long.

Hallelujah! He found me. Hallelujah! He is who He says He is!

To Christ Jesus be the glory and majesty now and forever more.

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