I come from a large Catholic family with five brothers and two sisters, where faith has always been a priority. I went to a Catholic elementary school and, in Grade 7, after winning the Religion award, I thought I was set in my faith.

But in high school, I began to question the existence of God; if He is so good, why is there so much suffering in the world? Why am I unhappy?

This doubt slowly grew, until eventually, I forgot about God entirely. 

I stopped caring about prayer and the importance of Sunday Mass. I put on a fake image that I believed, but inside, I couldn’t care less. So I began to look for happiness in places far away from God. I struggled with substance addiction and hung out with the wrong crowd. On multiple occasions, the trust between my parents and I was broken.

My relationship with my twin brother was especially impacted. In Grade 12, he made a significant decision to fully commit to his faith, something that I didn’t understand at the time. We began to see life differently, and grew distant.

When I went to University, it felt like a fresh start. But as a first year engineer, I found myself overwhelmed academically and I didn't even think about God. I was so distracted and distant from Him that I just assumed the questions I had about Him were unanswerable. I concluded that God can't exist because he's supposed to be "good" and there's a lot of bad going on in the world.

One day, I bumped into Father Fernando, the former Catholic Chaplain of the Interfaith Centre and a family friend I’ve known since I was a child. Despite my lack of faith, I still respected him and looked up to him, so I was quite excited to find out he was the chaplain at SFU. He invited me to come to the IFC so I did, with zero expectations. Little did I know that this little invitation would change my life forever.

It on this tour that  I was warmly greeted by several members of CCO, including Joseph San Jose.

Joseph invited me to join a Discovery faith study. It clicked that maybe those questions I’ve always had about faith weren’t unanswerable… Maybe there was an answer here. I decided to go.

I’ve had years of religious education, and there was a lot that I knew, but didn’t believe, until this faith study. After every session, my mind was blown in one way or another by the logical answers we had.

I realized that God wanted a personal relationship with me. After lesson three, I was challenged to consider whether or not Jesus was truly God. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. That night, after really thinking about it, it became clear to me that Jesus is God, and in that moment I truly felt His presence.

Going to Discover was the best decision I’ve made this year.

My life continued to change as the semester progressed. I began to have hope in my academic life, and I began to see my education as, not only just doing dozens of math problems, but as serving a greater purpose. I stopped being stressed about the future, and began to understand that things were going to turn out alright, because God’s got my back. My relationship with my brother improved, and we are reconnecting on a new level. I’ve never felt closer to him than right now.

It’s a tough place to be in—knowing but not believing. But there are answers to the questions, you just can’t be afraid to ask. 

I still have a lot of room to grow, and there are many challenges ahead. But I know that I have support from a loving God, and an awesome community at school.

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