I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota with a BA in journalism. The world was my oyster. Before me lay a future filled with golden opportunities; yet, inside me something seemed to be missing. Strangely, I felt empty within. I wondered, "What's next?"

I had concentrated all of my will power on graduating. When the pressure of classes, honors thesis, and school newspaper reporting suddenly relented, I felt aimless. My plan had been to pursue a writing career with a newspaper, but seeing young news reporters made cynical and bitter from the news they covered disillusioned me. The politics involved in reporting disgusted me. I considered, "What was I made for?"

I moved to Montana and began attending a small technical college to prepare for graduate studies in hydrogeology. I had enjoyed a geology class in college and thought I would find satisfaction in thinking about rocks and aquifers and hiking in the mountains. If the answer for me wasn't the softer sciences of liberal arts, maybe I could find the answer in hard science.

It wasn't long before doors began to close. Throughout my educational career, I had been a top student, leading the class. But not anymore. I began a differential equations class, but I could not make heads or tails of what the instructor was trying to teach and eventually had to drop the class. In my "Introduction to Hydrology" course, I was mortified when the professor publicly denigrated me during one lab session, "How could you think you could be a hydrologist if you can't draw this simple schematic diagram of a well?!" And then something else happened.

On Labor Day, my boyfriend who was attending graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley called to tell me shocking news. Without preamble, he said, "Guess what? I got saved!" I had no idea what he was talking about. "Was someone shooting at you? Did someone push you out of the way of an oncoming car?" I asked. "No," he answered, "I found God." As he made this simple pronouncement, I knew that something had happened to him. Behind his words were an undeniable weight and a certainty that I could not doubt or dispute. I accepted his declaration at face value, and then immediately another realization hit me: if he had found God, where did that leave me? I plunged into despair. Throughout the conversation I felt like I was talking to someone I didn't know. His very person was different. "I don't want to watch TV. I don't want to play softball. I don't want to play games. I just want to sit in my room and read the Bible," he said. My mind was numb from shock. I felt like I was spinning downwards into a black pit with no way out. I went about my daily routine in a fog of depression, crying frequently. I had no idea how to improve my school situation or how to feel about my boyfriend's salvation.

Two days after the cataclysmic phone call, I felt desperate. There was no one for me to turn to. Then I remembered that whenever I had problems as a young girl, I would lay awake at night telling God about everything that was bothering me. I realized that I could try telling God about my problems. I managed a whispered prayer, "God, help me understand what's happened to my boyfriend."

A few days later I spoke again to my boyfriend and couldn't believe the things he was doing. He talked at length about his new life and activities. Not only was he busy meeting with Christians every day, he was even telling other students whom he didn't know how to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior. He planned to leave his dormitory room to move in with some other Christians. He bubbled on and on about the Lord Jesus. As I hung up the telephone at the end of our conversation, I knew one thing—he was really happy. I prayed a second little prayer, "God, I don't know what's happened to him, but he's happy. He's really happy." Two days later, as my dismal school situation progressed and the depression continued, I prayed my third little prayer, "God, I don't understand what's happened to him, but he's really happy. I wish I were that happy."

A week after my boyfriend's salvation, as I was preparing to leave for class, I was feeling particularly hopeless and in need of someone to talk to. I called my mom, but she was not at home or in her office. I tried reaching my dad, but he was also unavailable. In desperation, I tried my boyfriend's dorm room, only to wake up his roommate and hear, "Sorry, he's at class." There was no one else to call. My resources were exhausted, so I climbed into my truck and started down the road to the college, weeping openly as I drove. To release the pressure inside, I began enumerating my problems to God, "God, You have to fix my problems. You have to give me goals. You have to take care of my school situation. And my boyfriend—You have to help me understand what's happened to him." As I rounded a bend in the road, I heard a voice speaking inside of my being, "You just need to have Me in you." So right there, in my palomino yellow truck speckled with rust, driving down Main Street in dilapidated Butte, Montana, I said out loud, "Lord, I want You to come into me!"

He did. As the Spirit, the Lord entered into my human spirit. I felt as if I had taken a deep, deep breath and kept inhaling and inhaling and inhaling. My chest expanded more and more. I felt full deep down inside. I felt a sense of calm and peace permeating my being and heard the whisper, "Everything is going to be all right." As I stopped at a red light, I felt joy welling up from deep within. I sang a song that I remembered from Sunday school: "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine...." When I finished that one, I began another, singing loud and strong, belting it out for all I was worth: "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart! Down in my heart! Down in my heart! I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart! Down in my heart to stay!" I couldn't get to school fast enough. As soon as I parked, I raced across campus to an available computer to e-mail my boyfriend. I wrote, "I know what happened to you, because it happened to me, too!" I went to class but could hardly listen to the professor. I kept turning inwardly to make sure that the Lord was still inside me. He was. By the end of class, my boyfriend had responded to my email. He rejoiced with me over my salvation. My searching was over. By receiving the Lord, I had found the answer to my question, "What's my life for?" The emptiness within me had been filled by a wonderful Person.

By T.S.
Berkeley, California

To receive the Lord Jesus as the Spirit into your spirit, please pray the following prayer from your heart:

"Lord Jesus, I open my whole being to You. Thank You for creating me with a spirit to receive You. Lord Jesus, right now I open to receive You as the Spirit into my spirit. Forgive me of my sins and come into me right now to fill the deepest part of my being with Yourself."