I went to college at Texas A&M University in College Station. If I had not gone to school there, my life would probably have been very different (in a bad way), if I even survived at all.

When I entered A&M as a freshman, I was arrogant and didn’t believe in God–as a matter of fact I actively DISbelieved in him, and I was happy to debate anyone foolish enough to believe in God or religion. Fortunately for me, our Lord is patient and merciful beyond understanding, and he allowed me to follow the course I had chosen in life right down to the gutter.

During college, I developed a social anxiety disorder that grew worse and worse every month, until my junior year when I could no longer hide its awful affects. It had eaten me up from the inside-out, and ultimately I faced a choice: either kill myself or try to believe in something that could help me.


I contemplated the former but first figured I’d give the latter a try, since I had nothing to lose. My godless way of believing and living my life had left me in a state of constant, intense anxiety, which imprisoned me in my own fears. So I picked up the Bible that I had been given when I was 10 years old and began to read it. When my Christian friends at A&M discovered I was reading the Bible and trying to pray, they were flabbergasted, but they discreetly kept their shock to themselves and bought me an NIV Bible that I found much more readable than my old King James one.

I prayed for God to help me–to help me believe in him, to rid me of my anxieties, to take away my relentless headaches, and began talking with my Christian friends (both Catholic and Evangelical Protestant) about God and religion. I had been graced by God to have made many good friends at A&M who were practicing Christians, and I believe these friends were powerful instruments of God in bringing me to him when I was most desperate.

If I had not made these friendships with Christians, where would I have turned? I believe one of the main reasons that I chose Christianity instead of another religion was because I greatly admired my Christian friends’ virtues, even as an atheist. They were truly joyful, sincere, kind, and friendly, and I wanted to be more like them.

Texas A&M attracts many young Christian men and women, and so the probability of any given student meeting a Christian and befriending them is high. So for me as an atheist, going to A&M was the best decision I ever made, though when I chose A&M in high school the Christian factor was not on my radar. God had his plans made and masterfully executed them.

So why is it a good place to send your Catholic children? Well, I became an Evangelical Protestant, as most of my friends were of that bent, but I had one very strong Catholic friend, and so he and I began to engage in debates about Christianity (classic sola fide, sola scriptura type discussions). Because of him, I knew that the Catholic Church was not what many of my Evangelical friends thought it was. I knew it made serious claims and had some measure of evidence to back them.

By the grace of God, through prayer, by logic and reason, he lead me into the Catholic Church. My last semester in school I entered RCIA, and I was received into full communion the following Easter. I only got to briefly taste the beauty of the Catholic faith at Texas A&M, but it was enough to know that God is alive and well there.

If God brought an atheist like me into the Catholic Church at A&M, imagine what he can do for your child who is already Catholic!