Writer Stephanie Rousselle shares the remarkable story of how a determined teenage atheist set out to debunk Christianity, only to find herself captivated by the truth of the resurrection. She reveals why delighting in God, not simply believing in Him, is the secret to a joyful, enduring and fruit-bearing faith.
I grew up fiercely atheist. Religion was, to me, a man-made crutch for the weak. I was determined to build my life on reason, self-sufficiency, and control. I certainly didn’t need God, or anyone else, for that matter.
At sixteen, I left France to spend a year in the United States as a foreign exchange student. My American host parents welcomed me into their family with remarkable kindness. They also shared what mattered most to them: Jesus Christ.
What struck me wasn’t that they claimed to have perfect lives. They didn’t. Their marriage wasn’t flawless and they made mistakes as parents. But when they failed, they apologized, forgave each other, and extended grace without shame. Coming from a deeply dysfunctional family, I’d never seen anything like it. Their faith wasn’t an argument they tried to win. It was the atmosphere they lived in. Over time, their love earned my trust, and eventually, my attention.
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As I listened, I realized that everything they believed rested on one historical claim: Jesus had risen from the dead.
As I listened, I realized that everything they believed rested on one historical claim: Jesus had risen from the dead. Easter became my battleground. Surely this was the weak link. If I could dismantle the resurrection, the entire Christian faith would collapse. So, I set out to do exactly that.
Instead, the opposite happened. The more I investigated, the more compelling the historical evidence became. My intellectual objections slowly gave way until they cornered me into a crisis I never expected. If Jesus truly rose from the dead, then He wasn’t merely an inspiring teacher. He was Lord.
By God’s grace, my stubborn sixteen-year-old self had enough intellectual honesty to admit what the evidence demanded. If Jesus was alive, then He had every right to my life. That was the one conclusion I desperately wanted to avoid.
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I was a control freak. I wanted to direct my own future. The thought of surrendering felt like defeat. Convinced that Christianity meant saying goodbye to joy forever, I reluctantly gave my life to Christ in what could only be described as a martyr’s pose. I’ve never been happier to have been so spectacularly wrong. That surrender happened more than thirty years ago. Instead of losing myself, I found the One my heart had unknowingly been searching for all along. Joy and peace invaded a fiercely resistant heart. They haven’t removed every valley or hardship, but they’ve transformed the way I walk through them.
Today, Jesus is increasingly becoming the delight of my life. I still wake up amazed that the God I’d been fighting patiently pursued me instead. Every day becomes another invitation to surrender, not out of obligation, but out of growing affection for the One who first loved me.
That growing delight has become one of the deepest themes of my own journey with God. It’s also why I wrote Awaken Delight. The book isn’t about trying harder to love God; it’s an invitation to discover the beauty of the One who’s always delighted in drawing us to Himself. My hope is simply to help others experience the same surprising joy that transformed the most reluctant convert imaginable.
I’ve also discovered that God delights in weaving our stories into His greater story. He doesn’t simply save us from something; He invites us into something. He allows us to become witnesses to His grace in the ordinary places of life. Looking back, three gifts changed everything for me. First, thoughtful Christians weren’t afraid of hard questions. My faith didn’t ask me to abandon reason. It invited me to follow truth wherever it led. It always leads us deeper into Christ.
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Second, I encountered believers whose lives made Jesus believable. Their intimacy with God quietly flavoured everything they did. Long before I embraced their theology, I couldn’t ignore the beauty of their lives. And third, I learned that every conversion is born in prayer. Long before I knew it, my host parents were bringing my stubborn heart before God’s Throne. Their conversations with me mattered, but their conversations with God mattered even more.
That’s why I believe the most persuasive witness is a life increasingly shaped by the presence of Christ, a life rooted in Scripture, sustained by prayer, nourished by worship, and marked by genuine love. This is how we become the salt of the earth, or, as I like to say, the spice of the gospel. And this is how we awaken our delight in God, discovering that it’s always been rooted in His delight of us.
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