Hi, if you're wondering who I am, my name is Amanda Richardson. I'm a computer animation student at Rochester Institiute of Technology, but first and foremost, I'm a Christian- not because I go to church, read the Bible or celebrate Christmas (I do, but it goes far beyond that) but because I have a personal relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ.
It started when I was in high school. I was always a good-grade-getting, talented at art and on the track team kind of person. On the outside it looked like my life was great, but on the inside, I had this strange emptiness. At school everyone thought I had it all together, but I knew that at home I was always angry and arguing with my family, and bitter about how we never quite had enough money to get by without continually getting kicked out of apartments for not paying rent. I started to develop signs of clinical depression (it runs in my family) and it seemed as if nothing could ever fill that need I had to be loved, accepted, and have a stable life.
I was falling apart until some friends of mine brought me to their youth group (Young Life), where we had a great time, and then one of the college student leaders would always share about how their life was changed when they asked Jesus to come into their lives. I was blown away- finally I found the answer to filling that terrible emptiness- by accepting the fact that Christ died so that i could be reconciled to God, I could know God, and know His great love for me.
When I accepted Christ, I was changed. I no longer felt that I had to be selfish and disrespectful toward my family- I gained the abilitly to love them unconditionally like God loves all of us. He gave me the love and strength that I needed to get through difficult times (He doesn't promise that things will be easy, but He does promise that He will give you peace, love and strength), and taught me that the true value of a person lies in their character, not in their grades or number of awards they win. (And He gave me the courage to seek medical treatment for depression, which helped a lot too).
Here at RIT, I got involved with Intervarsity Christian fellowship which, to me, is like a family away from home where I can get support and encouragement, and just have fun. I co-lead a Bible study for freshmen with my friend Tim, and he thought it would be a good idea for us all to take some time to write out a statement of what we believe, because it's pretty hard to tell people about how cool God is until you can nail down what you yourself believe, so here goes:

This is sort of a rough outline of what i believe, with what i consider to be the most important points. I hope to get my thoughts a little more organized, and be able to provide Biblical references. But hopefully this makes it a little clearer as to where i'm coming from, and how i manage to see examples of biblical principles in the interactions between various cartoon characters ^_^

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