[00:00:00] Speaker A: When I came to understand that my sin is forgiven, past, present and future, and that I depend on Him. I trust in Him. But if I mess up, he forgives me. He loves me. He's adopted me into his family, and he's not going to kick me out because I messed up.
This enormous weight that I had been carrying was lifted off of me, and I felt free. I felt confident. I felt bold.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to Ex Skeptic, where we explore personal journeys of those who once doubted but found themselves convinced of God and Christianity. I'm Jana Harmon, and each episode we dive deep into the stories of former skeptics and atheists who once wrestled with life's biggest questions and came out believing.
Whether you're a curious skeptic yourself or someone who simply loves the beauty of a changed mind and a changed life, this podcast is for you.
Maybe you've been there, maybe you are there. You've done all the right things, worked hard, achieved success, tried to be a good person. But something still feels off. The big questions about life and meaning, the ones you've pushed aside, start creeping in. What if success alone isn't enough? What if there's something more in our story today? Laura knew this feeling well. Growing up, she had no time for God. No need, really.
Life was about achievement, academics, and athletics.
Perfection was the goal, and she was good at it. She reached the top, won the awards, checked every box for success. But instead of satisfaction, she found herself haunted by the questions she thought she had never asked or had never really stopped to ask.
Who am I, really? And why does any of this matter?
What if there's something beyond just being good enough? Her journey from skepticism to faith was an instant. It was a slow unraveling of assumptions, a search for truth she never thought she'd take seriously. But at the end, she found something more compelling than achievement.
She found answers and meaning in something much greater than herself.
Maybe you've asked the same questions. Maybe, like Laura once did, you felt the weight of a life that looks successful on the outside, but leaves something within unsettled.
If that's you, then I hope you keep listening.
Welcome to X Skeptic. Laura, it's great to have you with me today.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Wow. Terrific.
We have a lot of history together through the women in apologetics. That's how we. We've met or spent a lot of time together. And I know that you're going to tell us about that, as well as other things that you Do. Can you introduce yourself, Laura, to us, give us an idea of your educational background, your ministry background, the things you've been working with and working on, and even now your doctoral work.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Sure, sure.
Let's see. I guess I'll start with my undergraduate work. I went to Duke University and majored in Public Policy Studies. I was not a Christian for almost all of that time. I'll talk about that later, I'm sure. I got married in 2000 and went to Denver Seminary from 2001 to 2004.
And that was also an incredible time of growth and learning.
I was reading voraciously. I was so excited to be taught and mentored and discipled by such incredible men and women of God and to be reading the Scriptures and have so much time to learn and grow after that. Let's see.
I worked for a ministry called Engineering Ministries International.
Through that I ended up traveling to. I've been to over 30 different. Different countries now, mostly, mostly considered third world countries, places mostly where people do not go for vacation.
And it's been such an incredible blessing.
I've loved getting to know the different cultures and the different people and really connected with a lot of the women in particular around the world. And over the last few years, I've been involved with women in apologetics, as you mentioned. Really just wherever I go, whatever I do, I love interacting with people. I love sharing the truth. I love sharing the reasons for the hope that we have, because it radically transformed my life, my interests, my mind, and my worldview.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Beautiful. And just very briefly, tell me about your podcast.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Yes, it's called the Night and Rose Show. K N I G H T and Rose Show. It's actually on YouTube as well as anywhere you can get podcasts, Apple, Spotify, podbean, wherever. So it's a lot of fun. We address Christian apologetics topics, worldview public policy through a Christian worldview, economics through a Christian worldview, relationship issues.
Really kind of the wide spectrum of apologetics and worldview theology issues.
So we have a lot of fun with that.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Terrific. Terrific. Wow. There's a lot there in your life, Laura, a lot of rich history and experience and obviously knowledge that you bring to the table here. So you mentioned there in your introduction that you were from Florida.
So why don't you tell us about your childhood growing up in Florida and the kind of family that you were raised in? And was it religious at all or was it anywhere to be found in your world among your friends and family, family and your experience at all?
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Yeah. So let's see. I would say that I was definitely not raised in a Christian home.
My dad was nominally Christian. He had a Catholic background.
He had prayed a prayer in a church. At some point. He certainly would have called himself a Christian, But.
And I understand that we went to church some when I was really little. I have virtually no recollection of that at all.
What I remember is that from age 8 on, tennis was our. Was my religion, so to speak.
Every weekend was spent at tennis tournaments. My mom would drive me all over the state, and I would compete on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, a lot of times the finals were on Mondays.
And that really my.
I used to listen to tapes that my dad had given me that were like motivational goal setting, self discipline tapes and learn basically to. To set goals and to work hard. And the tapes had, you know, a lot of really inspirational stories from great athletes and businessmen and others who had succeeded in their professions.
And I.
I think I kind of naturally, by the grace of God, of course, have a lot of discipline and focus and drive determination.
But through listening to these tapes, I learned about that if I visualize what I want, then I can make it happen through my own efforts, through my own hard work, through my visualization, through my goal setting. And so I was a good kid. I followed all the rules. I did what I was supposed to do.
I was very focused on academics and athletics.
But I carried a very heavy burden, a very heavy weight, I would say, of thinking that I had to be successful. My value and my worth depended on my achievements.
And it was entirely up to me. And there was really no excuse, no grace for no room for failure or mistakes or anything other than the utmost success.
And so those, those kind of principles, I think, were maybe kind of subconsciously transmitted as well throughout my family. You know, I think my. My brother would probably say that kind of a similar thing about the values and the principles in our home. We were good people. We did the right thing, we made right decisions. We were good community members.
I think probably inherently with that kind of a mindset also comes maybe a looking down on others, though, who aren't as successful or don't perform as well, who don't always do the right thing.
But I had certainly not thought about issues like. Or questions like, well, who determines what is right? Is this just my little community? Is this just my family? Is this my opinion until I went to college? And that. That really opened the floodgates of questions for me.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: So it sounds like you lived, I guess, the quintessential kind of American life where you Were you're good people in a good community, doing good work, hard work ethic, achievement oriented, all of those things. There was no felt need for God. So from what I'm hearing from you as you're going through high school and before you get to these kind of more question asking and challenges at college, through that entire time, God, Jesus, what was that? Was that just something that other people did?
[00:10:35] Speaker A: It just wasn't even on my radar at all. I had never read the Bible.
I think I was aware that people went to church on Sundays, but I didn't see the value of it. I guess I never questioned why I was really so intently focused on what I was doing. And between being committed to academics and expected to get all A's and, and achieving that and expected to, to succeed in tennis and, and ultimately play professional tennis, I just really wasn't thinking about much else. And I do remember one time when I was in high school, a friend asked me if I knew about God and if I might be interested in learning more. And I said, yeah, I think I told her that we were Christians, by which I meant like we're good people. I think that, and that's definitely what I thought was the definition of a Christian was if you're a good person, you're a Christian. And I hadn't killed anybody and I didn't go around beating people up. I was a nice kid. So sure, count me and whatever. I guess I'm a Christian.
And when she asked though if I wanted to hear more about it, I said, yeah, I would be interested in hearing and learning more about it.
But she never got around to telling me. And I think she was either, I think she probably had been assigned at youth group or something to talk to a few people because she was really caught off guard when I said that I was interested and she didn't want to talk to me about God even though I had just said I was interested. So yeah, it's very accurate to say I was not pushing back against Christianity going, oh, that's stupid or that's a bunch of myths or that judgmental or any of that. I didn't know enough to even think that seriously or deeply about Christianity.
And in fact I, in college I could tell you more about this, but in college I actually signed up to take a New Testament class at the Duke Divinity School because I, I had studied Roman and Greek ancient writings and I considered myself to be an intellectual or at a minimum, a budding intellectual. And I had no idea what the New Testament was and I Thought that if you're going to be an intellectual in the west, you should probably have some clue what the Bible is. Some clue, some idea what's in the New Testament. And before I went on my way to class the first time, the first for the first class when I signed up for this, I, I was picturing, I was wondering what we were going to do. And I was picturing people like standing up and singing in church out of the hymnal. And I thought that the hymnal might, was probably what we were going to read. Like I thought the hymnal was the New Testament. I didn't know there was any distinction.
And so I was wondering are we just going to, are we going to sing songs? Are we going to learn what those songs mean that people sing? Or like what I wonder what we're going to do in this class. So I really had no background to speak of.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: So you were saying earlier that when you went to college you began to ask some questions, talk to us about that.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Well, in my family there were moral rules and they were not questioned. And I assumed that everybody had the same moral rules and everyone just agreed everywhere. I didn't know why, but I assumed again, not thinking deeply about things, that everybody had the same moral standards.
And so, and so it was wrong to have sex before marriage. It's wrong to steal from people, it's wrong to lie.
This doesn't make for good relationships and it makes you a bad person and it makes you not trustworthy.
And it's wrong to drink so much alcohol that you get drunk because then you act like an idiot. And we don't act like idiots, we're good people.
And so when I went to Duke, all of these morals that I thought were universal like and universally accepted were not. I found out they were not. And in fact people who were doing things that I was told you don't do because others will look down upon you.
Those people were getting celebrated and I was being looked down upon for not drinking and, and sleeping around and things like that. And I was not getting attention from boys because I made it very clear I was not interested in sleeping around.
And so there was just a lot of confusion for me and I didn't understand. And that's when I really started to ask questions like were those just my parents morals?
Are those my morals?
And on what basis? And I, I knew that I didn't have any basis for what I thought was right and wrong.
And I just, I just thought is this really all a matter of people's opinion? And, and and if so, are you just supposed to adapt your behavior to whatever the culture is where you are at the time? So if nothing is really universally objectively wrong, then is murder even wrong?
And on what basis again? And so I took, I had to take an ethics class as part of my public policy degree.
And I was trying to wrestle with these things and work through them. And I just, I realized I had no foundation whatsoever for saying that anything was good or bad or right or wrong or just or unjust. And so these, these questions were swirling around in my head, as I would say, kind of background, a background to this college journey.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: I'm curious. You were a young, a young woman with high moral standards, obviously going into college, and you were holding to those, it sounds like. Were people, were they thinking, are you a religious person? I mean, why are you, why are you doing this, Laura? Why are you not drinking? Why are you, why are you having all these hard lines that you're drawing? Where's that coming from? I mean, did, did you have, when people were asked, I don't know if they were asking that or not, but did you consider at that point, well, am I an atheist? Do I believe in God? Where are these morals coming from? Did you identify in any way? Was that pressed upon you?
[00:18:00] Speaker A: It really was not a big discussion because I was so heavily focused on academics and athletics again. And so people, I think a lot of people were assuming that I wasn't getting drunk because I was. So I needed to excel at tennis and I was at Duke on full tennis scholarship. And if I stopped performing and, you know, and succeeding and doing well, and certainly if I were to test positive on a random drug test, I would be kicked out, I would lose my scholarship, and I would not be able to afford to go to Duke.
So I think that was a big part of it.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And you had all these kind of external constraints and demands on you and your life and your performance. So I can see why.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: It would be easy just to stay in that lane and that people would presume that upon you anyway and you presumed it upon yourself. Right? Those self expectations of performance and not doing this and not doing that.
But I am curious though, how these questions started causing you to reflect on where are these standards coming from? I mean, where is this morality grounded? Is there grounding or is it just people's opinion depending upon the group that you're in? Did that, was that just a fleeting thought or was that something that really bothered you?
[00:19:26] Speaker A: It was, it would come and go. It would bother me at Times and then I would go back to focusing on the task at hand. I didn't see how any of this related to God and I didn't really, I didn't really care at the time, I think it's safe to say.
But I was thinking of it from a very, I guess, rational standpoint. What kind and what kind of world do I want to live in?
[00:19:53] Speaker B: So you started raising some questions and some issues in your own mind. What else happened to you to help make you think? You said at that time you really weren't thinking about God or associating these questions, these larger questions with God.
Walk us from there. Yeah.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: So I had, I decided to take a course in the Divinity School in the New Testament. I wanted to learn what the Bible said. And I thought the New Testament, you know, it's being offered, it's, it's shorter than the Old Testament, but.
And it, and it's, it seems like something I ought to know if I'm going to call myself any sort of intellectual.
And so I registered for a class in the New Testament.
And we were told by the professor who was not a Christian from the very first day, he said that one of the main objectives for this course was for us to see that the, the Gospels have a ton of contradictions in them and that they are not a reliable guide for living your life. That the entire Bible, in fact, as this is what he said, is a hot mess of contradictions and untrustworthy advice and it is absolutely not reliable as a guide for your life.
He said, though you will find that it is fascinating as a historical document that or collection of documents that will give us insight into how people lived in the pre scientific age. And so that was his main purpose, to teach us about the, how people thought before the age of science and to show us that while we can be interested in the Bible in the New Testament and see it as a useful history book, we cannot see it as any sort of word of God or certainly any sort of inerrant document that should be any sort of guide for our lives. Well, so, I mean, my thought was cool, that's good to know.
And I was, I was good at, I'm good at getting at kind of predicting what teachers want and getting A's by putting what they want on the test. I really, I thought again, I thought that going to school, taking courses was the per. I thought the purpose of it was to get A's and to I guess, you know, prepare for the next stage of life and to, to show again that I'm smart and that I'm good and that I do what I'm told and that I get good grades. A big part of my identity was definitely found in my good grades and then also, of course, in my tennis accomplishments.
And so I did the assignments, I answered the questions. A lot of our test questions were asking us to identify contradictions and explain them. And so that's how I read the Bible, the New Testament. I was reading it looking for contradictions. I was reading it looking for problems.
Some of them, I would say several of the so called problems or contradictions that the professor wanted to hear from us and pointed out to us, I thought were actually very reasonably reconcilable. I was even kind of skeptical then that the professor was all that trustworthy. But again, whatever, give me my A here, here are your answers here. And so I took this course and I, I got my, I got my A and I went on with my life.
But that time, then after, I just kind of moved on and forgot about it. Didn't particularly care. Check the box. I've read the New Testament. I have an idea of what it's about.
Couldn't tell you too many specifics except, you know, maybe some contradictions, perceived contradictions.
But my focus kind of changed, you know, when I went back to my, you know, my, I went to my next course, my next class, my next semester, my next tennis match, my next practice, and I started kind of wrestling with a new challenge, which was I was a junior and.
Well, I was a sophomore and a junior and a couple things were happening. First of all, I was having some serious health issues. My sophomore year, I, I was in the quarterfinals of the individual national clay court championships, which is a huge deal. And so I needed to win one point and the other girl needed to win a whole bunch of points.
And so I had a whole bunch of chances to just win one more point.
And when I. And it was my serve, my serve was very strong. And when I served, you know, you bend your knees to serve and then you come up into it to gain power.
And when I bent my knees, my legs, the muscles in my legs all spazzed and tensed up and gave out and I fell to the ground screaming. It was probably the most painful experience I've ever had in my life.
People, coaches started running toward me because I was screaming bloody murder.
And the 911 was called and they came. And as, as I was laying on the court in the dirt, people were trying to like, massage my legs and help me to stop screaming. And to get a little more comfortable, I was sent to the hospital where the doctor told me that I had no nutrients in my body, which is insane because I ate like six or seven times a day back then. You would not believe that a girl my size could eat as much food as I ate during that whole time. And my coach knew this. He, you know, my coaches saw me eat during tournaments and he said, you are very lucky you didn't die this time, but next time you could die. There's nothing in your body. You cannot sustain this lifestyle without eating. And I was so confused because I ate so much.
Well, I found out much, much later, long after. So this health issue ended my tennis career not at that moment, but a couple years later.
But I found out years later that I have celiac disease and that every time, every meal I was eating, you know, the bagels we were given for breakfast, the subway sandwiches for lunch, the pasta at Italian restaurants for every dinner in order to carbo load for competition. I was poisoning my body. And I was kind of paralyzing the, the cilia which absorbed the nutrients. So I had no nutrients in my body.
And so this, you know, so I struggled.
I was scared to play every match for the next, for the rest of my tennis career because I knew how painful that was. The doctor told me I'm going to die.
I think everything's over at this point. You know, I thought everything's over when you die.
And I didn't know what to do differently.
And so with my, you know, with my tennis career being in peril and my academic career is about to come to an end, although I was looking for ways to prolong it, maybe thinking about law school and some things like that. And I was just, I started thinking about, you know, so I'm going to go get a job. There's nothing I'm excited about doing, but I have to have a job to pay the bills so that I could survive another day to go to my job to pay the bills.
And I may get married and have children and that's difficult and challenging and family is hard.
And I've not seen anything about it that looks fun or enjoyable. I don't even, I didn't even want, I didn't want a family.
So you work hard, you pay the bills, you maybe rest for a few years when you're elderly and then you die.
And I was depressed.
And so when I was seeing this psychiatrist for my so called imaginary lack of nutrients in my body, I did say, I did share with him that I was having these thoughts and. And he's about life and what the purpose of it was and what the meaning of it was and how the best of it seemed like it was about to be over. And I wasn't looking forward to adulthood. I didn't want to do adulthood.
And so he said, okay, well, you should meet with a counselor psychologist and we'll set that up weekly.
And she. So I started meeting with her and she, the psychologist, she said, yeah, you're just thinking too negatively. You really need to think more positively. So let's start by you making a list of all the things in life that you really enjoy.
And so I went home and back to my dorm and I made my list and I put on there things like dogs. I like dogs. I like roller coasters, I suppose I like flowers, some of them.
I like sunshine.
And as I was making my list, and especially when I finished my list, I.
My heart just sank. I was like, this is the most depressing activity I've ever been asked to do. If this is all that I'm supposed to be living for, I would rather it just end now.
This is so pathetic. If the meaning of life and the purpose of life and all I have to look forward to is roller coasters and dogs, I don't care to live anymore.
And I went back to my psychologist and she said, okay, well, I suppose this is a good start, I guess, but you're still thinking too negatively, so we need to get you thinking positively. And I said, well, look, I'm not. I'm not going to think delusionally. So if you can tell me something that is genuinely hopeful and genuinely positive, I'm all for focusing on that. But if you're asking me to be delusional and tell myself that working 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week at a job I don't like for a boss I'm intimidated by to pay bills for who knows what reason so that I could then eventually die.
I don't want to delude myself into enjoying this waste of time.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: That's a hard place to be. Really?
[00:31:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: I mean, you are achieving, you're meeting your goals.
And definitely the health problems I'm sure hampered those achievements for sure, but for the most part, you were doing as you should. You know, you're the, again, the hard worker. You're the achiever, you're checking all the boxes, but you're also a pragmatist. You're a realist.
And you can see what this life brings for you or what's ahead Is this all there is, these bigger existential questions that we ask?
How did you resolve that tension?
[00:31:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And you bring up an important point that I was still achieving pretty remarkable things. I was in the Duke newspaper frequently, and people, and, you know, people would come up and celebrate me and, you know, want to get to know me so they could say they knew me because I was in the newspaper. I was, you know, I was, I was accomplishing these impressive goals, and yet I, it just wasn't ever enough. My, my thought process was, well, in order to keep my value, my worth, I need to keep accomplishing at this level or more. And yet when I achieve something, it lasts for about 10 minutes that people celebrate me. And then the next morning it's time to get up again and work my butt off again.
For what? To get the same degree of celebration that left me empty yesterday at the end of the day.
And so it's not that.
Yeah, I think it's not that. I, I think if someone had said, well, this achievement such and such is, is within reach and that's what's going to bring you the ultimate fulfillment, I would have been all about it. But knowing that I had really achieved pretty much everything I had set out to achieve and it left me empty was very despair inducing for me.
So this was kind of all going on in the background.
I do remember one night I was particularly hopeless, and it was my junior year. I was, I was studying and I started crying. I was in my bed because, I mean, I guess a bed and a desk is all that fits in a dorm.
And I, I, I cried out to no one or to God.
I said, God, if you're real, will you please help me?
Make it known to me that you're real and help me.
I have nothing left to give.
I don't know where to go from here.
And I prayed and nothing happened. And I dried my tears and I got back to studying and I got back to getting my good grades and finishing my senior year out, or that was my junior year, finishing out the year strong.
Coming back my senior year, well, my senior year I was again just kind of doing what I'm supposed to do and in.
It was coming up on the end of November, and I was talking to my roommate and she said, you know, you are, you're.
I think the reason you, you are just so kind of despairing is because you haven't had any fun. You've been working so hard your whole life at just tennis and academics. That's all you've really done.
And, I mean, we need to just do something fun. You need to relax. We need to have a party.
And it was coming up on my birthday, and so we. We had a party and we had a bunch of friends over, so I had. I didn't drink.
And so we had this party where everyone else was drunk and I was stone cold sober. And it was just the lamest thing. It was just so lame. People making really bad decisions, doing dumb things.
And the next day I felt emptier than ever.
And so anyway, I went about my day, though, and I don't remember really, like, what I did, but it. It was.
The party was a Friday night, so on a Saturday, I would have.
When we were in town, I would have had probably six hours of tennis practice that day.
And I came home that night and was going to get, you know, shower after tennis and do some studying and go to bed.
And I was in the shower.
And all of a sudden.
I cannot explain this, really, apart from the Holy Spirit. It's going to sound very strange to people, I think, who don't know the Holy Spirit. But the New Testament that I had read years prior and had not thought of for two seconds since and could not have told you what was in it, certainly could not have recited any sort of verses or anything like that.
Verses were inundating my mind.
And they were all verses about how not to live.
And they were all passages that I had violated.
And I knew, and I can't describe how I knew it other than the same way that I know that I'm talking to you right now. I knew that God was real and that he was there with me and that he had certain expectations for people and that he had every right to have those expectations because He's God and I'm not. And I knew that I had violated them. And I knew that I deserved whatever punishment he saw fit. I don't know how I knew those things, but in that moment, I knew those things were true.
And again, the verses from the Bible that I had read were convincing me that I had not lived up to God's standards. But I just knew that God was there and he was real and that I was in big, big trouble.
And I started bawling, crying and crying in the shower.
And I said, God, if there is any way that you can give me a second chance, my life is yours. I will live the rest of my life for you. I just.
I just need a second chance.
And I didn't know that there was a second chance available.
I didn't Know, I don't know how I read the New Testament without picking up on the whole forgiveness and grace, but I didn't know it. And so I got out of the shower, having bawled for a good 20 minutes, having asked God, if there's any way my life is yours, please, please let me know. If there's a way I will live for you.
And so I got out of the shower. I called a friend of mine who had become a Christian who I hadn't seen in a while. She was on the track team.
And I said, look, I think God's real, and I think I'm in trouble, and I don't know where to go from here.
And so that was a Saturday night. She said, do you want to come to church with me in the morning? And I said, sure, I'll go to church with you.
So we went to church.
And I don't remember what the message was about.
What stands out to me, and I have a picture of it, is that there were these four girls there who had been in my freshman dorm, who I just. I knew that something was always different about them.
I never saw them walking across the quad drunk. Never heard of them being at any parties.
I saw them on the track team. I saw them at the library. I saw them in my dorm. But they seem to not be all caught up in the. In kind of the performance race and finding their identity in their grades. And they had this calm confidence about them, and they were really friendly to everyone.
They. They weren't bringing guys back to their dorm, and they. They were definitely living differently. They.
Again, it's hard to describe, except that they had this. This peaceful confidence about them.
And they were at that church service, and we took a picture together, and I was like, if I knew this was where you guys hang out, I would have been coming to church the whole last four years.
So they're like, well, you can come the next few months, right? And I was like, oh, tennis season's about to begin, and I'm not going to be in town very much on the weekends. But anyway, after that service, I went to lunch with my friend Jen, who had invited me.
We talked some, I think mostly about kind of superficial things I don't really remember too well. But she invited me at the end of that lunch to come to Athletes in Action, which is a ministry of Campus Crusade, which I think is now called cru.
It was specifically for varsity athletes.
And so these girls at the church service were on the track team. They went to Athletes in Action.
I was on the varsity tennis team. I had also remembered that the director of Athletes in Action had come and talked to our team a couple times and said, hey, we're on campus. Just want you to know about us. If you're ever interested in hearing more, learning more about the gospel, about the good news about God, this is where we meet, and this is the day and time come check us out.
And so I recognized him when I went to this meeting, and Michael Thompson was the director. He shared.
He gave a talk that night, and then he shared the gospel.
And he said, if anyone is interested in giving their life to Christ, we can pray. And before he even finished, I was like, raising my hand. I, I do, I do. I do. And he's like, great.
And I was sitting in the back, you know, and I had never been there before, and, and he's like, I'm sorry, I don't think we've met. Are. What's your name? And, you know, everyone else had been going, you know, for years. And, and so I, you know, I told him who I was, and I said, are you sure about this? Like, you're sure about this, this the second chance thing, right? Because if, if there really is. If, if, if Jesus really has paid the price for my sin, I definitely want in his life. My life is his. And he's like, let's pray. So I prayed to receive Christ, and I went back to my dorm, and I found my New Testament and I started reading it. Well, what I did not hear that very first night of hearing the Gospel was that sanctification is a process. I, I. My understanding was I was selfish, I was sinful, I had hurt people.
And so from this point forward, everything in the past is forgiven. But now I told God, I'm living for him. My life is his. I have to be perfect from this point forward. Now there's no room for error because now I'm his and there's no excuse, right? So as I'm reading Matthew, though, you know, Sermon on the Mount, doesn't take long to get to that. And I'm reading about, you know.
[00:43:41] Speaker B: You.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: Know, if you've ever looked at someone lustily with lust, you're guilty. If you've gossiped, if you've hated, if you've lied, you are. And so I, you know, go about my day and go to tennis practice, come home and read that and go, dang it, I messed up again. Oh, my goodness, I'm not perfect. So for about 30 days after receiving Christ the first time, I prayed to receive Christ again. And Again and again, until I realized and understood that it is, in fact, a process.
I was being changed day by day. Growing in Christ, maturing in Christ. There was a radical difference in my life. People noticed it. My teammates asked me about it, and God was doing an incredible work.
But I realized that I didn't have to be perfect. He was calling us to perfection to show us not only what we're growing toward, but also how desperately we need Him. We need a Savior, because we cannot be perfect on our own. We need a Savior. And so I, you know, I. When I came to understand that my. My sin is forgiven, past, present and future, and that I. I depend on Him. I trust in Him. But if I mess up, he forgives me. He loves me. He's adopted me into his family, and he's not going to kick me out because I messed up.
This enormous weight that I had been carrying was lifted off of me. And I felt free. I felt confident.
I felt bold. I felt happy.
Overwhelmingly happy and thankful.
And I knew that I wanted to learn more. I wanted to know.
I wanted to know God more than I wanted anything else. And I knew that I wasn't equipped to make the huge decisions I was being asked to make as a senior in college, as my worldview was being transformed day by day. And so I.
We had a guest speaker come one day to Athletes in Action, and he shared about this ministry called Du Loss Ministries in Denver, Colorado, where we would be discipled and we would take care of troubled teenagers whose parents couldn't take care of them. And, and so I signed up for that. I applied for that and was accepted to. That went out to. To Denver for a year.
And that year was absolutely transformative as well. I. I read through the entire Bible that year.
I lived with women who loved the Lord, who, when they messed up, intentionally or unintentionally, they would come and ask for forgiveness. Was like, what. Who does that? How do you.
And they were like, christians do that.
Like, man, okay, well, that's humbling. I'm going to. I have. I have some things to ask forgiveness for. I would unintentionally, you know, just with my, my, you know, 21 years of living for myself and, and, and just speaking whatever thought came to my mind. I said things that were inappropriate. I hurt people's feelings, and then I'd have to go and ask for forgiveness. And we were studying the Bible together. We were. We were studying world religions. It was the biggest gift.
It was the. The best possible way to start off my walk with God for the rest of my life. It formed my Christian worldview and helped me to see how the gospel applies to every single area of your life. And life has never, has never been the same. It has not been easy by any stretch.
I'm not celebrated by the world anymore.
After becoming a Christian was when I started experiencing people really hating me for my beliefs. Even though I think I'm, you know, pretty friendly and, and diplomatic and kind, but they, they hate my beliefs. And so, you know, people hate me.
I, I've experienced greater loss since becoming a Christian. I don't think I had really experienced much loss in the first 21 years of my life, but I absolutely would not change it for anything because this, it's an incredible adventure. And I know the meaning. I know the purpose behind it. I know that God. I see God working in the hardest things for my good and for his glory. I see him giving grace and giving me the high points of my life in this great adventure of sharing the reasons for the hope that we have with others.
And so that's how it all began.
[00:48:53] Speaker B: That's incredible. It sounds like those struggles that you had through your life, achieving, pressing hard, working hard, figuring out morality.
Why am I so strongly moral? You had some very strong moral intuitions. They were taught to you. But you also lived, lived it. And then you also struggled with meaning and the vacuousness of, of life without God. In terms of what's this all about?
And, and I think you're, you're talking a little bit about even through your whole journeying, perfection was the goal.
And there's very little grace and that kind of achievement mentality. But what I'm hearing from you is that now that you have found the grace that was given to you and the forgiveness given to you in Christ, that you have a freedom, an acceptance, a value that you know that you're loved despite. Even if you mess up, it's okay, right? But you're, but you found a place to ground your morals. You found a place to ground true meaning and hope and purpose by giving this peace, this freedom, this joy and love that you found to others.
And that's an extraordinary thing.
And even this renewed sense of value in learning, it's a passion that the Lord put in you from a child, and now he's using it in extraordinary ways. Not to, like you say, achieve for yourself, but you have stepped into a larger story and you're actually doing it for God and for others to help them find what you've found.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:50:53] Speaker B: And it is A beautiful story of transformation, Laura. And I'm wondering for those who may be stuck somewhere, there were a few ruts that you talked about in your life in terms of, like, places people can get stuck in their lives.
Like, they don't know what life is all about. They. They're trying to achieve, and it's just really hard, or trying to be perfect or not feeling forgiveness for themselves or for others even.
But. But you've obviously found something and they're going, wow, I, I like what she's talking about, that she has a peace and a joy that transcends all of those human struggles. Not that the, the struggle isn't there. The struggles are there. Right. But they've been transformed in a way, and they're looking for something like that. How can, how would you encourage someone to, To. To look for a life that you found? Is it reading the Bible? I know you read the Bible the first time. It wasn't so transformative. But is it. Is it. Being around Christians, it sounds like you saw something in others that maybe they had.
How would you encourage somebody to let go and have that even moment where you're saying, God, if you're real?
[00:52:13] Speaker A: Yeah, Well, I would certainly encourage people to ask God to show them who he is.
I do think it probably started with that prayer my junior year when I was crying and discouraged and prayed, God, if you're real, show me who you are. Show me that you're real and help me.
And I believe he honored that and showed up in the most unexpected way in my senior year. It was not immediate.
It was at least a year later.
And sometimes for people, it's a lot more. It's a lot longer later. But also, I would encourage people to read the Bible, and I would. I encourage people to read the New Testament first.
I'm reading through the Bible with a seeker right now. And we started at Matthew 1, and that was very intentional to get to the Old Testament. Second, because I think we're a lot more removed from the culture and the time, and it's a critical background and context for the good news. But I like to go New Testament, Old Testament, back to the New Testament. And.
And I would also say, so another part of the story, actually, was that about a year later, although I had seen God transform my life, I started sharing my testimony with others.
And I heard from Muslims. Oh, I am a Muslim, because I also have a feeling and had kind of a supernatural experience.
I heard from Mormons. Yes, we. That's exactly why I'm a Mormon. The Same reason you're a Christian. I had the burning in my bosom. It sounds like the same thing you experienced in the shower. I've had the burning in the bosom as well. I started hearing from Jehovah's Witnesses. Oh, I have a feeling too.
Or I had a subjective personal experience as well. I heard from atheists. Oh, I experienced the kind of freedom that you're experiencing as a Christian. I've experienced that as an atheist, as I've thrown off all the chains of religion and the chains of God's expectations. And. And so I really started wondering and doubting, did I meet the one true God? Am I following the one true God, or did I assume that the God of the Bible is the one true God? Because I was surrounded by.
I was in. In the, you know, breathing the air of Western civilization. And I knew a Christian and I called a Christian, and a Christian invited me to church. A Christian Christian invited me to Athletes in Action. And a Christian shared the Gospel. And did I just believe them naively when perhaps if I had been living in some other country, I would have called a Muslim friend who would have introduced me to the imam, who would have told me about Islam.
And given my background with my motivational program and my success in tennis and in academics, from visualization, goal setting, self discipline, determination, focus, all of these things that I was really good at and that I had honed through basically listening to inspirational and even, I'd say, at times, indoctrinational tapes, did I change my life and attribute it to God?
Am I assuming that it's the God of the Bible that is, who is the one true God, when really I have concocted this in my very powerful mind, because I know how powerful my mind can be.
And so at that point I started investigating and looking into Christian apologetics and looking at the evidence.
And it was at that point, through studying the evidence for Christianity as well as for Islam and Buddhism and Mormonism and basically every major worldview that I became absolutely certain that Christianity is the way, the truth, the way. It is the way. And that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life and that, that Christianity is true. And I am absolutely confident that you will come. You may not have a supernatural experience like I had. You may have access instead to the evidence, to the scriptures and things like that. I think that God gave me a supernatural experience that was that intense and that unusual because I wanted the truth. I wanted to know the truth. And I didn't know about.
I didn't know how to find it. And I didn't know who to talk to. And I didn't know.
I just. I didn't know what to do. And nobody was coming, seeking after me, sharing the gospel with me.
And so God came after me.
But if you have other resources, those may be the way that God is going to show you the truth. And he will work in your life if you ask him to, and he will forgive you if you ask him to. He will be faithful to his promises. That doesn't mean, of course, that life will be easy, not even. Not even close.
But it does mean that it will be good, it will be adventurous, it will be amazing, it'll be fulfilling and rewarding and purposeful. And even the very, very hardest events and circumstances, God will work in those for your good and for his glory.
None of it's meaningless.
There are new joys in the morning, there is new hope every day, and there is hope for all of eternity.
This is a tiny little dot in. In the context of a whole line of eternity that goes on forever.
And the dot is hard, but it forms us for all of eternity. And I would much rather live for eternity than for a brief 85, 100, 120 years in a. In a broken world. And so that, that's my encouragement to people, is, is seek out the truth. Seek out evidence.
Talk to Christians, talk to atheists, even talk to Buddhists and Muslims. But look at the evidence for Christianity. Give it a chance, give it an open mind, Pray and ask God to show you the truth.
Read the scriptures.
They're unlike anything you're going to find in any other religion. And follow the truth wherever it leads. Because I'm absolutely confident you will find that it leads to Christianity, to new life, new hope, and the greatest adventure you could possibly imagine.
[00:59:38] Speaker B: Yes.
And if someone is saying, okay, where do I look for evidence? Do you have one or two quick resources that you can just recommend off the top of your head?
[00:59:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's. I tell people it's easier for me to recommend 90 resources than one or two, but I don't have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler. I like it because it introduces scientific evidence, philosophical arguments and historical evidence.
Probably. Also, I'd maybe go with the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. It was just because it was one of the. It was, it was one of the first books I read on Christian worldview. Actually, the very first book I read outside of the New Testament when becoming a Christian was How Now Shall We Live by Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey. That was an absolutely phenomenal foundation for, for a Christian worldview and seeing how it impacts every different area of our lives to be a Christian. And another kind of introductory, broad spectrum kind of book is Is God a Human Invention? Or I think it's Is God Just a human invention? Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow wrote that one. So those are, those are a couple introductory resources. I do I, I have to say one more.
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Michael Lycona and Gary Habermas introduces the minimal facts argument, which is one of my favorite.
I've got some personal stories behind that one where I've seen that that argument have a huge impact.
And I just really appreciate that you can share evidence for Christianity for the. Because of Jesus was who he claimed to be and he was crucified and he rose from the dead.
He's God. Right. We have to listen to him. And so this, this case presents evidence for the resurrection of Jesus without assuming that the Scriptures are the God breathed inerrant word of God, which I certainly believe the Scriptures are those things. But the person you're talking to doesn't have to already believe that the Bible is the word of God in order to make this case. So that's. So it's a, it's a very simple case, pretty easy to learn and to share quickly.
And so that, that also was an early argument that I learned that was really helpful for me.
[01:02:20] Speaker B: Excellent. Excellent. And just here quickly at the end, you've had, you are obviously an incredible ambassador for Christ and you've encountered a lot of interactions and discussions and conversations. And there were some Christians in your life that came along, even, I think of the young woman, even in high school who asked you if you wanted to know more about God but then never followed up.
[01:02:47] Speaker A: Right.
[01:02:48] Speaker B: But would you give any advice to us as Christians as just just some things to think about when, when we're, when we're trying to help others know about Jesus?
[01:02:59] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I think I would tell people that you can't really be the kind of effective ambassador for Christ that you want to be if you're also caught up in people pleasing. And this was a challenge for me early on.
And I, when I was at Denver Seminary, I set goals to kind of put myself in a situation where I would grow and God would grow me kind of out of a place of people pleasing and being too dependent on what other people think.
And he has really, really honored that.
I would tell the truth is on our side. And also if that's an issue, I would say apologetics is also incredibly valuable because when you're talking about the evidence, it's not personal. You're not, you're not saying, well, it's my opinion that, you know, such and such is wrong and you need to repent and that sort of thing. You know, you're able to say, here's, you know, what do you do with this evidence? I mean, this such and such evidence really seems to indicate an intelligent designer, and this evidence really seems to indicate that Jesus is Lord and that sort of thing. And so I do think that apologetics is absolutely critical to being an effective ambassador for Christ. And we see it modeled throughout the Bible.
And I would say to people, so count the cost, count the cost.
Because if we are sharing truth or just calling ourselves Christians to be celebrated today, we're going to stop calling ourselves Christians and walking with God when we're not celebrated tomorrow. It has to be independent of what people think about us. And so counting the cost, there's a reason Jesus said that he. And he shared boldly, he shared truthfully. He didn't seem that concerned with not offending people or portraying himself as this uber tolerant, kind of pluralistic person. He was very forthright and sometimes, you know, seemingly offensive.
And obviously we don't want to offend people unnecessarily, but the gospel is offensive and people are not going to take it well sometimes. And.
But we are living for an audience of one. We seek to live for and please God. And one day, you know, one day the celebration will be there. And one last thought. You know, one of my favorite passages is from Romans 12:1 and 2.
Paul talks about being transformed by the renewing of our mind.
We can, we do have decision to make about what we put into our minds. We can put trash into our minds. We can put pop culture into our minds. We could put trashy romance novels into our minds. We can put gossip magazines into our minds, or we can put truth into our minds. And when, in my experience, the more committed I've been to filling my mind with truth, the more equipped I am to live it out.
So that would be my encouragement.
[01:06:32] Speaker B: Yes, that's an encouragement and an edification at the same time. I think we could all be exhorted by your word.
Laura, you are a beautiful example of what it looks like to be someone who you.
It just makes me think of when you were standing in the shower and you were saying, lord, you know, if you're real and you show me I will give my life to you.
And that's what you've done. It's so obvious. It's so obvious that you live and you walk with the Lord.
You read His Word, you're obedient and not out of a need for perfection, but just out of love for him and what he's done for you.
[01:07:18] Speaker A: You.
[01:07:18] Speaker B: You're a truth teller and you are just a beautiful example through the way that you not only know truth, but live it.
And I know that because I can testify to it. Because I. I seen you walk through through it and, and you are faithful and it's it.
[01:07:38] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:07:39] Speaker B: And, and I. I just appreciate you. I appreciate you coming on to Ex Skeptic to tell your story and I know that so many people are going to be blessed. So thank you so much for coming on.
[01:07:49] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me.
[01:07:52] Speaker B: Thanks for joining us on X Skeptic to hear Laura Zypher Powell's journey. We hope her story encouraged you to reflect on your own path of faith and belief.
If you'd like to learn more about Laura's work, her podcast and other resources, check out our show notes. We've got everything linked there for you.
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