Andrew Bellamy

I grew up in a Christian household but to me, church was just a weekly interruption of my life. The songs were boring, the sermon was even worse, and the Bible was an outdated reference. My pastor would say that ‘Jesus died for my sins’ but I had no clue what he meant. As soon as I left my parents’ house, I quit church and lived as a ‘Christian’ in name only.

Years passed and nothing much changed. One morning, though, I received a message that a life-long friend of mine committed suicide. I was stunned. This person was like a brother to me and, as cliché as it sounds, I never saw it coming. My immediate response, after grieving, was to question how the God that I grew up with would let one of His children agonize on this Earth and then suffer for all of eternity because of it. What was the purpose of his life? It didn’t make any sense.

But in darkness there is light. I decided to challenge the only authority I had ever considered in my life – the Christian God of my childhood. Through the loss of my friend, I rose from complacency and actively searched for the truth. I opened the Bible and looked for a reason to either find God or give up on Him.

That was nine months ago and since then I have placed my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. As I study the Bible, I am seeing that there are answers to the questions I have in life. Devoting myself to God and His Word has given me peace of mind and a renewed sense of purpose. What happened to my friend is terrible but I have found hope in my relationship with Christ; my prayer is that others in his situation would be able to find the same.

Andrew Bellamy