Enduring till the End

After almost two years of being baptized and following Jesus, I finally let my mom / my family know about my faith.

The following is the letter I wrote to my mom before translating it to Nepali:

Dear Mom,

Happy Mother’s Day. This is the first letter I have ever written to you and I hope it will be a special one. I am writing to tell you a couple of things. I have wanted to tell this for the longest time and it was giving me a sense of anxiety. 

First thing is that I love you and appreciate you for everything you have done for me.

Second thing is the confession of my new found faith. I believe in Jesus as my personal lord and savior. And I believe that Jesus is the only intermediate between a human soul and God.

I have been through many things in the past five years and experimented with many faiths and spiritual practices. I was depressed and suicidal the first semester of college. I smoked cigarettes, marijuana almost regularly. I also used to watch porn which I now know is a sin and God wants us to live holy. However, I was always searching for something. I started looking for answers in the traditional Buddhist and Hindu scriptures and teachings. I bought books written by Buddhist monks and English speaking American gurus.

After moving to Georgia, I stopped drinking and smoking completely. I became very busy with school and work but I never stopped learning and searching for more. I started following more spiritual gurus like Guru Rinpoche, Guru Padmasambhava, Ramana Maharshi, Papaji, Neem Karori Baba, Osho Rajneesh, Sadhguru (Jagdish), Nisargadatta Maharaj, Kali devotee Ramakrishna, american mystic Robert Adams and more. My phone used to be full of audio transcriptions and mystical techniques. I used to do guided meditations online. The time I had remaining apart from school and work, I would always be meditating. 

Now when I look back, I know that the meditation practices made me numb instead of giving me a real sense of freedom and peace. I did not have great social skills to begin with and the spiritual practices made it worse. I started feeling very numb to the outer world but it was better than feeling depressed. I would have to constantly remind myself to meditate and it was draining me. All the gurus taught I had to starve myself to feel some peace and ‘enlightenment’.

Three years of all this and there was no transformation of my heart and I was still addicted to watching explicit material on the internet.

Then one day a customer at my work introduced me to Jesus. When I started believing in my heart that Jesus Christ is the son of God who was killed on the cross for our sins and was raised on the third day, I started transforming effortlessly. All the peace I wanted as a spiritual practitioner was given to me supernaturally. As a believer, I have a free gift of salvation and the holy spirit resides within me. I do not have to do mind tricks or meditate 24 hours a day to feel peace. I believe God is the creator of the universe including me and it is an abomination for me to worship the creation or any idol. I have stopped watching pornography and do not need to drink or smoke to feel good. All this has happened due to the conviction of the holy spirit, which Jesus promises for all believers. Before this, I used to believe in impersonal consciousness which does not make any logical sense. Now I believe that God is a personal God with plans for each and every one of us. 

Jesus has told us in the Bible to be of service to others. The Bible also shows how Jesus himself, a sinless son of God, was of service to God and everyone else. He died on the cross for all humans for their sinful heart. I can tell this because I know I had a sinful heart before my encounter with Jesus. 

I prayed to Jesus about your surgery and also about finding a job. I believe he did all this and thank him daily for that. I want to spend the rest of my life obeying Jesus and being of service to others in some way. 

I believe the Bible to be the word of God and it instructs the kids to obey, respect and love their parents. I will always love you and my family regardless of what you think about me. The most important commandments of God are to love God and love each other so I will do that to the best of my ability.

It’s good news of the gospel that we don’t have to earn salvation with our filthy hands because Jesus, the lamb of god, is already slain for human sins. But, we have to live holy lives and repent of our sins.

Jesus has transformed me into a loving person and given me a holy life. I would have it no other way.

I love you always.

Your son,

Shailesh Thapa.