I was born in Italy, “the beautiful country where the sì resounds”, “that fair country the Apennines divide, and Alps and sea surround”, as described in the words of Dante and Petrarch, two of its greatest poets.
I have fond memories of growing up in Emilia Romagna, about half hour drive from the Adriatic Sea, on my mother’s family farm. An only child, I enjoyed the company of my younger cousins, all of us born and living in the same home : my mother, grandfather, grandmother, great grandmother, two uncles with their wives and children – never a lonely moment!
My mother, the oldest and brightest of five children, met my father in the middle of World War II.
My father, a brilliant Italian Air Force officer, died before my birth and I was never able to meet the person so many people loved and spoke highly of. Dad always was the handsome young man I admired in the portraits sitting on the chest of drawers of the bedroom I shared with mother; one with a serious look in his elegant Air Force uniform and the other with a big smile in his baggy flight suit, standing by the airplane he was piloting.
From the time I entered elementary school through college, I had always been at the top of my class, excelling in all subjects. Even though I never sought to be popular, many of the sharpest guys at the University wanted to date me. On several occasions, while going out dancing during my summer vacations by the sea, I was selected and won beauty contests. A pleasant surprise, but not something that affected my way of thinking or what I wanted to do in life: hadn’t my mother taught me that physical beauty is fleeting? Sure, I could see a twinkle in her eyes when people commented what a beautiful daughter she had, but you should have seen her beaming face after parent-teacher conferences! Mother’s life was not easy and I wanted to give her reasons to be happy, I wanted to give her joy.
Yet neither the respect of my professors nor the admiration of my peers brought me any lasting satisfaction. For quite a few years I struggled with some fundamental questions about life and while attending one of the best private Catholic boarding schools in Northern Italy, I began reading different intellectual books intensively, hoping to find answers to my many questions.
Philosophy, psychology, literature, history and art history were my favorite subjects. The ideas of some French existentialist philosophers and writers attracted me very much because they expressed my feelings:
Man is unable to comprehend the reason for his existence, nor what his purpose on earth is. Human life is absurd and senseless, consequently we experience anxiety and uncertainty. There is no truth, there are no absolutes; as for life after death… an obscure abyss into nothing!
These philosophical beliefs left me even more empty and unhappy.
My eagerness to find the truth often led me to ask others what they thought.
August 5, 1970: I meet Roland on the beach in Fregene, a posh sea resort near Rome.
Since our very first conversation, walking along the shore of the Tyrrhenian Sea as the sun was setting on golden waves, I was strangely drawn to this unusual and attractive young man who spoke to me in a way I had never heard before. He was so confident of what he spoke of that he seemed presumptuous; but I was looking for something that would give meaning to my life, so that late afternoon at the beach I asked Roland many questions, even what he thought of Jesus Christ, even though I had already completely rejected Christianity. Roland told me that Jesus had changed his life and that apart from Him I would never be happy or fulfilled.
He also mentioned a book I had not read nor was I planning to read – the Bible. Old, outdated stuff, I thought. It was that very book Roland encouraged me to examine! To be intellectually impartial, I decided to give this ancient text a chance too, and started reading the Gospel of John.
The period that followed was difficult. I had fallen in love with Roland, but because I was attending university in Italy and Roland college in the USA, we could only write long letters and sometimes talk by phone. During this time I started meeting with other Christians and continued reading the Scriptures.
Who was this Jesus and why did he come to earth?
Throughout his public ministry, Jesus claimed to be the Messiah Israel had been waiting for and to be God in human flesh.
About Himself, to the Jews Jesus said: “The Father and I are one”(John 10:30).
To the high priest: “But Jesus was silent and made no reply. Then the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus said, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61-62).
To Martha: “Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?” “Yes, Lord, “she told Him. “I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God”(John 11:25-27).
To His disciples: “When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets”. Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”…Then he sternly warned the disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Messiah” (Matthew 16: 13-16, 20).
The Gospel of John ends with these words: “The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in Him you will have life by the power of His name (John 20:30-31). The main reason for Jesus’ miracles was to prove that He was the Son of God.
Some of the historically fulfilled biblical predictions hit me. I discovered that during His lifetime Jesus had fulfilled more than three hundred clearly defined Old Testament prophecies. Centuries before, the prophets had foretold where the Messiah was going to be born and live, what he would do, how he would die and return back to life. No magician or fortune teller had ever prophesied with such accuracy. Painted in the Scripture, I could see all of man’s history: past, present and future.
How about death and evil in the world? The Bible answered this explaining in Romans 5:12 that: “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned”. How could we overcome death, the result of our sin?
Again in Romans 3:23 it is written: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Well, I thought, there should be a way to win God’s favor by being good, doing all kinds of good deeds, helping others, applying the golden rule, and the list could go on forever…
But the prophet Isaiah says: “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind” (Isaiah 64:6). Sin is part of our nature and, like a very contagious infectious disease, it spreads to everything we touch, stains and ruins everything good we try to do. At the same time Matthew 5:48 states: “But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect”. So how can we be perfect, and perfection is what God requires from us, even if all our good deeds are useless to reach that goal?
God, the one who created us to have fellowship with Him, to spend eternity with Him, knew that we needed help, we needed someone who could do for us what we could not do for ourselves: we needed a Savior. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). Jesus took our place, became our substitute and our sacrifice; He – “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), died in our place so that God’s justice could be satisfied.
2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God”.
1 Peter 2:24, “He personally carried our sins in His body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed”.
Romans 3:21-28, “But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of His blood – to be received by faith…Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law”.
Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast”.
Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. Well, a gift from God…eternal life! A gift received by faith – not earned by my good works!
My questions were being answered.
I began to see that salvation can only come from God through Jesus. A gift received by faith; not earned by any good works or righteousness of my own.
Jesus, the only perfect man, had died for a very imperfect me. His death had paid my ransom so that all my sins could be forgiven ; His death gave me life – eternal life; so I would not spend eternity away from Him in hell.
The evidence before me was clear. I had the choice of either accepting or rejecting Jesus as my Savior. “But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).
I chose to accept Jesus.
Everything changed. Joy flooded my soul – no more doom and gloom! I can smile at the future, because I know my future. It’s with Jesus! God was planning and handling everything for me – nothing was happening by chance!
Today I am secure. God’s unconditional love as seen in his promises has given me the confident expectation of going to heaven to be with my Savior.