Defying the Data
how I found God after being raised in America’s most secular city
Haubenstock-Ramati, Roman, “Konstellationen”, musical sheet of graphic score. 1971
This article is part of the Claritas fall 2022 issue, Mystery. Read the full print release here.
By Seika BRown
By the time I was eight years old, I watched my older brother attempt suicide and saw my family struggle with money and substance abuse. Quick moves, empty plates, quiet days, and lonely nights fill my childhood memories. I was raised by non-religious parents in Seattle, the city with the highest percentage of atheists and the second-fewest percentage of Christians of any major American city [1]. So a part of me laughs when I say I’m a recent convert to Christianity. God shines most brightly in dark places, I guess.
My story is one of overcoming data, and the data for Christianity in America is pretty bleak these days. In the U.S., “an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the population attended church in 1700 and 1740,” and in the “1990s about 90% of U.S. adults identified as Christian.” [2] But Christianity is on the decline. Looking at data collected in 2020, only about 64% of the U.S population (now including children) identify as Christian – a 26% decrease over three decades. A recent Pew poll found that for the first time, fewer than half of American adults attend church. Still, God isn’t afraid of statistics.
Before I found my faith, track and field was my crutch in life. I dedicated every moment to it because, despite all the trials that I faced, I knew I’d always be able to run. However, track never gave me peace in my struggles. I still found myself frustrated over my circumstances. My friends from high school were my encouragement – with every failure or bump in the road, they were there for me. As my family was doing their best to manage what they could, my friends would drive me to school, buy me coffee, support me in classes, invite me to dinner, and pack extra lunches in their bags for me. They were the ones that gave me a place to stay when I needed an out. They were the ones that helped me establish a non-profit organization around mental health policy. They always pushed me towards excellence.
Yet, with every “thank you” I gave my friends, their response was always the same: “It’s not me, it’s God.” One night, at dinner with my friend and her mom, they asked, “why have you not considered God yet?” Over the warm meal that they prepared for me, I told them “why would I give credit for everything I have done to some random god?”
When this conversation happened, it was my 12th year running track and field. And on the side, I was running a non-profit organization that passed mental health-related bills in Washington State. I had great friends, hope for the future, and passions leading me forward. I was proud of the life I was working for. It’s not that I wanted the credit all for myself either, but why not credit my friends too? I could not understand why they wanted me to credit God for all the good that they did for me.
On the first day of practice for my junior track season, I was tasked with leading warmups. I was thrilled to be in that position for a sport that I loved. I had brand new running spikes for competitions. For once, things were looking good for me.
But that was short-lived. Within the first minute of practice, I collapsed on the track. For the next six months, I was in and out of hospitals and doctor's offices to get a diagnosis of what went wrong. This changed everything for me. I was reliant on track scholarships to get me to college. Without running, I lost those opportunities forever. I had terrible grades and a low SAT score, so suddenly, it felt like my chance for a better life and future was erased. I never got to run in my new spikes and never had the chance to run one more race. In a matter of one minute, I was completely humbled.
Despite how crushed I felt, my friends were instantly there for me. From driving me to and from doctor appointments to quitting the track season with me and pushing me to pursue my mental health policy work more, my friends encouraged me to never settle.
But I didn’t know how to continue. I wasn’t like them—joyful despite circumstances, genuine yet loving. As someone who was forced to grow up quickly, without family dinners or celebrated moments, my friends loved me more than I had ever been loved. My closest friends in life have been those that have given me the chance to be my age. They gave me a new and optimistic childhood. I did not understand how I got so lucky to be on the receiving end of their goodness. And so I asked.
For my 17th birthday, just a matter of months before I collapsed, my friend gifted me her old Bible. At first, it felt overwhelming, but when I realized that she gave it to me out of the love she had for both me and it, I felt honored. Down the line, when I was getting my diagnosis, my friend asked me once again, “why not consider God?” One friend, in particular, said, “what else do you have to lose?” It was either give up or get up once more and try to find hope. My friends told me their hope came from God. And for the longest time, my hope was in track, but also in them. I trusted their judgment and began asking questions about the God from which their hope comes.
At the beginning of my senior year, my friends and I began to get coffee and talk about Christianity. For the first time in my life, I prayed. Unnerved by the new experience, I asked God to show me something radical.
That week, in a random conversation with my brother’s girlfriend's dad, he asked me what universities I was applying to. At the time, I had a poor list. He told me that I should apply to Cornell University, across the country in New York, and see what would happen. I applied to Cornell the day before the early decision deadline was due, and a month later, I was accepted.
One prayer seemed to change my life trajectory. Statistically, I shouldn’t have gotten into Cornell. Two weeks after my acceptance, I turned 18. I spent that birthday with my older brother. He and I reflected on the past ten years since his suicide attempt, and we sat in awe thinking about how our lives took a turn for the better. Today, my brother is married, working a job he loves, and living a life he couldn’t have imagined. He and I are always left thinking about how our lives came to be—how we got so lucky is beyond comprehension.
From the beginning all the way to that moment, my life was one beautiful story. It was then that I really began to ponder on if God was real.
For the first time in a while, I felt at peace with my life.
And then in February, my dad had an affair. In March, the pandemic hit. I remember being so confused—if God was real, why would He give me something good and then something so bad? I flipped to a page in the Bible the night of my dad's affair and read James 1:2, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” [3] When I read that verse, the word “joy” reminded me of my friends. I realized that they had been my joy through all the hard trials I have faced. I thought about how they would always tell me that their joy came from God. And so I considered God and thought that maybe for once, I could choose joy in the face of my trial.
My friends and I began a quarantine Bible study. In June, we graduated high school. I spent that summer exploring new books in the bible, drawing out verses, and praying to God in my free time. By the time I left Seattle and my friends for New York, I felt confident in this newfound faith. As I entered university that fall, my roommates saw that I was reading the Bible and asked if I was Christian. And I felt so happy to say that I was. During the spring semester, I joined a Christian fellowship. I prayed out loud and with others for the first time and went to church for the first time. My life began to change. I felt myself healing from all that my family experienced and was able to have conversations about it.
Stress, anxiety, and depression overwhelm Cornellians, making us stumble and doubt. It is not that my life is magically better because of my faith. I just know that statistically, my life should look a thousand times worse.
It was the bold and audacious love of my friends that kept me going when I had every reason to give up. It was the mystery of where their character and value came from that ultimately led to my faith.
I still find myself drawn to every individual I meet that embraces joy well. Therefore, I encourage you to do either one of two things. Embrace joy or seek it. Either way, it may help other broken people overcome the data. Our joy does not eliminate our trials, but rather accompanies them and gives meaning to what was once meaningless. Sometimes, all it takes is the bold love of another to recognize that.
This article appeared in Claritas’ fall 2022 Mystery Issue
Sources
[1] “Religious Landscape Study,” Pew Research Center, 2007, 2014. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/metro-area/seattle-metro-area/
[2] “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic,” Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel02.html
[3] James 1:2 NIVThis article appeared in Claritas’ fall 2022 Mystery Issue.