Over the last few weeks, you may have read in these Weekend Reflections about how the Resurrection is being celebrated across the world, from bringing food to the elderly in Ethiopia to flower-filled streets in Guatemala to fasts in Jamaica. Last Saturday, even a brutal dictator asked for an Easter cease-fire. The evidence seems overwhelming to me that there must be something worth considering behind all of this.

I lost my faith in college, ironically enough, while minoring in theology. The skepticism of my theology professors mixed poorly with the beer I started drinking and changed my life dramatically for the worse.

For years afterwards, I neglected church as I sought my own truths and sampled different religions before just giving up on them altogether. Back then, most of the girls I dated dropped me after the third date when the subject of religion came up.

“You’re not saved?” they would ask, incredulously. I would assure them that I was raised Catholic, so I felt I had a free pass into heaven, but they remained unconvinced.

“Oh no, you’re going to hell,” they would say, very sweetly, but emphatically, and that was that. There was never a fourth date.

I didn’t care about much of anything back then, so I would move on, figuring maybe I should broaden my dating pool to include other lapsed Catholics, but I couldn’t find any of them living in Detroit at the time.

One day, something different happened. I was dating a girl I really liked for a few months, and the subject of religion never came up. But then one night when I wasn’t around, she rededicated her life to the Lord. When she visited me the next night to break the news, I already knew what was coming: eternal damnation and the end of our relationship. But she did something different that really surprised me.

She said, “You’re so angry at God, I don’t want my love for Him to make you madder.” I told her I can’t be mad at somebody who may not even exist and doesn’t seem to care even if He does.

Then she made it clear that our dating relationship was ending, but our friendship would not, and she invited me to read the Bible with her. I told her that I minored in theology and would destroy her faith (as college had done mine), but she was unmovable. A couple of days later, she returned with a gift, a brand new study Bible for me, and asked me to read the Gospels with her.

Here’s the thing: I liked this girl a lot and had to figure out whether Jesus really did die and rise again, only because I really wanted to date her again. I knew this wasn’t something I could fake or lie about. In March of 1997, I read the Book of Matthew and was shocked by how the words seemed to jump off the page. I was almost 30 with a law degree and access to all the information in the world through this new thing called the Internet, but Jesus was saying things so radically more powerful and wiser than anything I had ever said or was thinking about. There had to be something special about him, but I couldn’t quite figure out how or why God raised him from the dead. Like C.S. Lewis wrote, I had to make a decision whether he was a liar, a lunatic, or actually the Lord. There is no other option.

So, more like a judge than a lawyer, I weighed the evidence. I looked around my life and saw that the people who loved the Lord lived fundamentally more meaningful and joyful lives than my friends and I who didn’t. On that fact alone, I made a decision to live my life for Jesus late at night alone in my apartment in late March of 1997. Two months later, I asked that girl to marry me, and then married her a few months after that. I have never looked back, and have deeply enjoyed this adventure we have lived together.

If you haven’t considered recently whether the Resurrection is true, I’m writing to encourage you to weigh the evidence and make a choice. And if you know someone who is angry at God, I’m writing to encourage you to give them a Bible and ask them to read the Gospels with you. I wouldn’t be the person I am today had someone not loved me enough to do that for me.

International Samaritan is a Christ-centered organization built on Catholic Social Teaching. Our mission is to walk hand-in-hand with people who live and work in the garbage dumps of developing nations to help them break out of poverty.

We provide holistic scholarships for students from kindergarten through college, and we’re currently supporting nearly 1,000 scholars in Central America, the Caribbean, and East Africa.

Would your church or school group like to partner and travel with us? Learn about our Learn, Serve, Grow program.

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Mike Tenbusch, President

Mike joined International Samaritan in 2018 after two decades of leading social change in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. He’s a University of Michigan Law grad and author of The Jonathan Effect: Helping Kids and Schools Win the Battle Against Poverty. He and his wife, Maritza, have three children who keep them young.