Marshall Kim
Easter 2026 Baptism
Marshall’s Testimony
I underwent major open-heart surgery. Two cardiac surgeons spent six hours repairing a faulty heart valve, closing a congenital hole, and fixing an aortic aneurysm that was on the verge of rupturing—all discovered by chance during a routine exam.
I spent five days in the hospital connected to IV lines and chest tubes, and then weeks at home in pain, slowly recovering. Staring at the 14-inch scar down the center of my chest, I came face to face with my own mortality. For the first time, I understood that I am not in control of my life. God is.
In the quiet of my recovery, the full weight of what had happened crashed over me. There were questions I couldn’t ignore. Had He allowed this? Was it mercy in disguise? Was it His way of finally getting my attention?
His presence arrived with both wonder and piercing sorrow. I felt shame for all the years I had believed the world offered more than He did.
After four months of wrestling with these thoughts, I searched for the nearest Korean American church and walked through the doors for the first time in years. I was desperate for answers, but I sat in the parking lot, heart racing, wondering what I was doing there.
Despite the anxiety, I walked into the service.
During worship, tears came without warning. Suddenly, it felt like coming home, but I didn’t know how to process the emotional volatility of that experience.
That Sunday, the church was celebrating a baptism. I had never seen a baptism ceremony before, so I stayed. The young woman’s testimony resonated with me deeply: I was truly lost without God. Nothing in this world could replace the purpose and meaning He offers.
At that moment, I made a decision to come back the next week.
And I kept coming.
A few weeks later, I attended the Alpha course not knowing what to expect. Part of me braced for a sales pitch—someone telling me why I needed to believe.
Instead, I found something I wasn’t prepared for: people who genuinely wanted to understand my perspective. Where I had been, what had shaped my view of God, why I had stayed away so long.
Over three months of honest conversation, something began to shift.
For most of my life, God had felt distant and demanding—someone to perform for, or cower before. But in those discussions, I began to see Him differently: His grace, His patience, the reality of His presence—not as a concept, but as something I could actually feel.
And for the first time, the weight of what He sacrificed began to land as something that mattered deeply to my existence.
Doubt was welcomed. Questions didn’t need tidy answers. For someone who had spent years performing faith without possessing it, that environment was a breath of fresh air.
Alpha didn’t hand me a finished faith—it gave me the freedom to seek one.
It sent me deeper into Scripture, hungry to understand God’s character and to discover where a real relationship with Him might begin.
What drew me further in wasn’t fear anymore—it was Jesus.
The God who became human. Who stepped into our brokenness, experienced rejection and loneliness and every human struggle—yet without sin. Who reached the outcasts and the sinners, not from a distance, but from inside the mess.
That personal empathy made faith tangible in a way no self-help book ever had.
I joined a community group last winter and began studying Scripture with others. Through those connections, I began to see God’s plan unfolding in my own life.
Now I stand here ready to profess that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior—to die to my old self and rise to new life in Him.
I am grateful for His relentless grace that never stopped pursuing me through the depression, the wandering, the operating table, and the long road back. What I once saw as suffering, I now recognize as revelation—God opening my eyes and drawing me back to Himself.
And if you’re sitting out there today still wandering—still convinced you’ve gone too far, or that God couldn’t possibly meet you where you are—I want you to hear this:
He will meet you there.
All He needs is an opening.
He will not judge you for where you’ve been. He will show you love, grace, and life the way He always intended it to be lived.
After all my wandering, I have finally come home.
-Marshall Kim
My name is Marshall Kim, and I’ve been coming to New Life for almost two years. Standing here on Easter Sunday feels special to me in a way I couldn’t have anticipated—because Easter is about resurrection, and in many ways, that’s exactly what this story is.
I grew up in the church. Every Sunday, whether I wanted to be there or not. I was involved in youth group leadership, but it was entirely superficial—it was out of obligation and courtesy, not a relationship with God. I was hiding real struggles behind a well-kept appearance, convinced God couldn’t actually help with them.
Outside the church walls, I was severely depressed. My identity was built entirely on academic achievement, and when I fell short of expectations—my own, my parents’, my teachers’—I felt empty and hopeless. I became increasingly suicidal, though I never acted on it. When I graduated high school, I left the church quietly. No drama. Just a decision to look for answers somewhere else.
What followed were years of chasing everything the world promised would satisfy. I became a nurse practitioner and finally obtained the academic validation I’d always wanted: a six-figure salary. I spent lavishly on things that looked like success from the outside—social status, material comfort. But the hunger never went away.
Throughout my 20s, I numbed myself with alcohol and drugs every day, trying to escape a depression that never really left. The world kept promising fulfillment that never arrived.
Fatherhood found me in my 30s, in a season where I had nothing left to give. Becoming a father left me more lost and overwhelmed than ever—crippling anxiety, and a painful awareness that I didn’t know how to love my daughter the way she deserved.
But that fear pushed me into uncomfortable self-reflection. I began asking not just how to be a better father, but who I actually wanted to become—a man who could lead his family with strength and be a steady, dependable presence. I knew something in me desperately needed to change.
I tried everything available to me: therapy, psychiatry, antidepressants, personal development books, podcasts, motivational content. I built my own pedestal of mindset shifts and habit optimization. They gave me some stability, but after a while, the ideas became redundant. They couldn’t reach the deeper place I was searching for. Something transcendent. Something this world alone could not provide.
Then on April 11, 2024, everything changed.