Testimony of faith. An intimate encounter

It’s been ten years since my life was transfigured. Nothing destined me for this – I received no religious education – but Jesus came to me when I was 12 years old. With my parents, faithful to France 2 broadcasts, I had seen an episode of History Secrets on the life of Christ, a first and even a second time, during a rebroadcast. It didn't make me feel “neither hot nor cold”, it seems to me. A little later, alone in the small room of the house where the family computer was located, behind the kitchen, the YouTube site suggested that I watch this same episode. From the first minutes, something happened. Even today, I struggle to put it into words. Suddenly, I understood something.

But, more than a discovery, it was an intimate encounter with Jesus, so human and mystical at the same time. The following days, as if stunned, I never stopped thinking about Christ. I even saw him in dreams at night. It happens, in childhood, to have obsessions for a few days, then we move on to something else. There, it never left me. A few months later, while I accompanied my mother to Emmaüs, I spotted a Gospel of Luke in the book section. I found a few coins in my pants pocket and bought it behind his back. Reading it, in my room, was a second shock. I felt expected at the turn, and in fact, it was addressed to me. Little by little, I learned about prayer, in my own way. I was going to mass, under the pretext of going for a walk. The triggering event was too intimate to tell my parents about it. Two years later, at one of these masses, I met a priest who understood me straight away. An only child, like me, he was converted at the age of 30, after finding a gospel in a church. “You cannot remain a Christian alone,” he warned me. With him, I understood the Church as “people of God”. I received baptism on April 15, 2017 – almost my second birthday.

On my journey of faith, I have already met people and shared words that help me become the best version of myself. I think that God calls me to walk with him to bear witness, to bear fruit, and to be, with his people, following Jesus, salt of the earth and light of the world.