badminton and tennis

psalm 1:1-2 so let's all read together "blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers

but his delight is in the law of the lord and on his law he meditates day and night." thank you tom, tell us your story basically, i just love it when people question me about my faith

because it just gives me chances to tell people about all the great things he's done for me and all the great things he can do for others. when questioned about my faith it's really difficult because i'm always tempted to give my testimony and i've decided to save it until now so i'm glad i'm not keeping it a secret any more. growing up in sutton, london, i didn't even know who jesus was. i'd probably heard of him but my parents, at the time, weren't of any faith and i remember i was quite a happy person; i was outgoing and i made a few good friends. then, later on, i moved to milton keynes and you could say life couldn't have been better for me. i had many great friends with similar interests. i was playing badminton and tennis week in week out.

i was learning chinese at the chinese school and taking all these opportunities that came my way and academically i was great. i was one of the top students in town and i came first in my county in the primary maths challenge. at this point everyone thought i was going to be great. i had all these things waiting for me. i rarely, if ever, felt bad about myself and was well behaved. i did normal things like playing football at lunch, going bowling, cinema, quasarâ„¢, you name it i did it. my mum became a christian when i was about 12 so i went to a chinese church for a couple of years. there was a sunday school which i really enjoyed; i just loved the atmosphere and learning about these great bible stories even though i didn't believe any of it was true. i just couldn't see how it was relevant or why the life and death of jesus meant anything and it wasn't helped by the fact it was aimed at cantonese speakers.

despite lacking the belief, i continued going because there were lots of freebies and christians were nice to me. i often looked back and thought "maybe i just peaked too early". things started changing when i was 9 (supposed to say year 9!) and i began to fear social situations and began to isolate myself from society. i began to get what's called social anxiety which is more than just being shy: it's a complete avoidance of social situations that could lead to embarrassment, humiliation and rejection. it was mentally disabling and led me to being housebound and i couldn't form friendships or relationships with others. you could say it's like having stage fright 24/7. i was incredibly uncomfortable around others so i was hanging around with friends but as soon as i got sa i was just in the library reading books and playing computer games. in my heart, there were 2 conflicting feelings: i wanted to be accepted

but at the same time this fear of rejection just consumed me. i couldn't even go to restaurants, pubs and even the school field was out of reach. i often made excuses to stay inside where i was 'safe'. all my hobbies and social activities, i gave them up because i just couldn't face it any more. even when friends knocked for me, i just made up excuses like "i've got loads of work" even when it was the summer holidays. i was almost spoilt as well; i received material goods like games and clothes but they just wouldn't make me happy. the worst thing was that i knew something was seriously wrong with me but i had no clue how to deal with it. it kept getting worse and worse but it wasn't all doom and gloom. i did make some friends over the years and i thank them for that because that's probably what kept me going. i'd rarely wake up in the morning thinking "i really look forward to this day" i just never had that.

every week was school, then i'd come home and play command & conquerâ„¢, football managerâ„¢ and browse some forums. i tried to invent some new life on the internet but it just never happened. i became an internet celebrity for a while but there's no point because you're forgotten after about 15 minutes so it was pointless. at that time i completely stopped going to church with the only exception being my mum's baptism at the local baptist church. the reason why i didn't go to church was because i kept telling myself "if god exists, then why does he let bad things happen to me?" despite rejecting god, my upbringing still had some effect on me: i had a strong sense of right and wrong and it was this sense that made it easier to find god later on in life. i prayed as well when i felt anxious but i never expected anything to happen. it was not what others did to me that made my life difficult

it was what i did to myself. i kept beating myself up and the emotional damage had the potential to last a lifetime. also my grades began to slip. i was predicted 11a* at gcse and on results day i wasn't surprised when i found out i didn't get one. my parents were incredibly disappointed. they thought "what happened to our model son?" for sixth form, i remained at the same school and it just continued. i stuck with the three or so people i knew and i just grew further and further away from god and stopped reading the bible. i almost threw it away because i just thought "i'm not going to use it again". i thought university would be my escape; i was really optimistic the night before it began. i thought, "i could really reinvent myself here. i no longer need to conform like i did in school." and everyone kept saying "this is where you can be yourself." i was really confident but

on the first day i realised it wasn't that simple. i looked around and saw a sea of unfamiliar faces. i immediately had an anxiety attack and just hid away in my room. i couldn't bear to go outside. i was incredibly disappointed. i thought i could do this alone but i couldn't. i did meet a couple of people during freshers' week because actually i had to leave my room to eat. i bumped into a couple of people and they were nice but we didn't have much in common. i'd heard of the christian union as well; they were doing a lot of evangelising and i chatted to one of them. i didn't take much notice, though, i thought "i've been there, done that. there's no way i'm going back there again." and when asked whether i'd be interested in coming to events i said "well, maybe later". so, instead, i joined societies like lock picking and badminton but i just found it really difficult to

find any sense of belonging there. i don't live for those things. they're great fun but it's not something you'd live for. towards the end of freshers' week i was just sitting in my room thinking to myself.....