My name is Mickey

Oh boy I'm excited! Let's start with testimonies!

My name is Mickey Sheu, a student at Stanford University majoring in mathematics. I love mathematics, ultimate frisbee, and above all, God.

I was born into a non-Christian family in Minnesota, moving to a suburb of Chicago in Illinois at the age of two, I remained there for the duration of my youth. As someone who seemed to have a knack for academics, I loved school and as a whole did well, especially in mathematics. I was not very influenced by religion too much, but my mother did go through phase after phase where she would get involved in some new "spirituality." Different chants, prophets, energy sources and whatnots. Thankfully, I didn't fall into any of them with her. Unfortunately (but all in accordance to God's gracious plan), I was (and still am, for the most part) incredibly prideful. Though I never came off as arrogant, I certainly thought I was better than others. Everyone had the same talents, I just used mine better. I hung out with the intellectuals. We took all the AP classes together, did our labs together. And we thought that God was a crutch for those who were weak. How ironically right I was!

But out of my sin and arrogant pride, God found me. It began for the most part with a girl. We were incompatible but she had confessed during my junior year that she was attracted to me. Of course, being the irrational guy I was, I was overjoyed and threw myself into that relationship with as much effort as I could muster, hoping against hope. But that was not to be, and out of my subsequent depression (such attachment to something I knew was going to fail!), one of my friends reached out to me and comforted me, listening to my griping and tried to encourage me.

Fast forward another 3 months and I still kept in contact with him, though not as much. He started asking questions about what I believed about life and eternity. Of course I didn't really think about it much, so I flipped off some answers and fired back questions. What about evolution? Wasn't it all a myth? Who cares really? To top it off, he was such a hypocrite, claiming that he really cares about life and everything, yet he was so lazy. Who was he to tell me that there were things that mattered? It didn't seem like he cared. But I didn't care anyways.

But I pointed that out to him and he broke down and I realized that he honestly was changing. Something about the self-betterment appealed to me. And out of my pride I decided that I wanted a piece of that as well. I prayed a prayer and started going to church. In all honesty, I don't think I knew about sin or faith, I just wanted to be a better person.

Fast forward a year and I'm at Stanford (and that's a story of God's grace as well). On a whim I decide to join a fellowship, FiCS. I start coming to small group and in all honesty, I don't remember when God broke my heart. But Douglas Wilson makes a good point when he writes, "You do not need to know what time the sun rose this morning to know that it is up. You do not need to know what time of your life the sun rose in your hearts to know that it is up." So somewhere in there my freshman year, something clicked. God grabbed hold of me and shook me. Shook me of my passiveness toward the Gospel and gave me a taste of the paradise of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He awakened me to the depth of my sin and the majesty of His love.

And by God's grace, those gifts of a quick comprehension and fast reading speeds were slowly brought under the heel of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I started reading. Lots of fluffy stuff. But then my deacon gave me "Back to Basics," an introduction to reformed theology. I read it and didn't understand it but it piqued my interest. Read it again and discovered I was a Calvinist. Read it once more and discovered I was Reformed (but always reforming). What can I say, God's Word spoke loud and clear and God opened my eyes to receive it. And I never looked back.

Now, I am a Christian, purely by God's grace. To Him be all glory.