“Love Keeps Chasing After Me” – A Testimony

“I was raised in a loving household but not a Christian household.” Senior Antoni Campbell told me. Antoni shared that his parents were deeply interested in education, so they put him through a Christian school near Chicago. “But my dad was an alcoholic and I felt unsafe in my own home.” Antoni continued, “My mom allowed it to happen.” Not only that, but often he would find himself pushed into a situation to be in the middle of the marriage. “I’m a triangulated child.” He stated.

With everything going on in life, Antoni found himself compensating in depression which led to suicidal thoughts. “I accepted Christ at a young age but went to a school that didn’t do a very good job at explaining grace.” Antoni thought at the time that because he was struggling with depression, he wasn’t a good enough Christian. He thought, “If I could do enough good works, maybe God will love me.”
When Antoni was in middle school, his older brother had just gone to rehab for being a meth addict. “Why is it that he got better, but I continue to get worse?” Antoni wondered why his brother who had an addiction was able to get help, but he wasn’t. In response, Antoni said he put his identity in girls and hockey.

The first time he began to understand what Christ’s grace looked like was a night where he questioned the narrative that God is good. “It was a huge shouting match.” He told me, “I asked if he was even real. It’s in that moment where I broke down and started crying. I saw a vision of Christ.” He told me that in his mind, he saw Christ holding him as he broke down crying.

When college came around, things started to unravel. “I had come to the point where I did make an attempt on my life here at CCU. I had a plan to call the police and tell them there had been a suicide.” He told me that he was planning on taking pills and was waiting to see if the police could get there in time to pump his stomach. “I hesitated and my roommate walked in.” He shared. Antoni said that his roommate had clearly seen that something was off and that began the 6-hour process of talking him down. “It was 2 AM by the time I went to bed. There’s still somedays that I’m angry that he walked in, but most days, it’s the most beautiful thing that he walked in. That was the beginning of the road to recovery.”

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes ever since.” Antoni confessed, “I’m consistently running away from love, but love keeps chasing after me.”

Thank you for being so vulnerable. You’re an inspiration.

-Jessica Jean

If you want your testimony to be featured, reach out to me at jjean@students.ccu.edu.