She used to keep a kitchen knife in her nightstand and pull it out each night wondering if that night she would finally kill herself. A first-year college student from Chapel Hill, she just couldn't find a reason to keep living.

But Sunday, she and her friends celebrated Easter at the church she said gave her hope, encouragement and faith in God.

Carrie McQuaid, now 21 and a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill, shared her testimony via a videotaped segment projected on five large screens at The Summit Church in Durham.

Sunday was a day of bold pronouncements at churches across the Triangle and the world. Easter is the day Christians proclaim that Jesus rose from the dead, and in word and song, worshippers attested to the life-changing event Jesus' resurrection had brought about in their lives.

"When we are asked on Sunday mornings to meditate on where we would be had God not interrupted our lives, the first image that always comes to mind is a graveyard, because I know that my life was headed in that direction," McQuaid said in the videotape, which she watched from her third-row seat.

In Roman Catholic churches, thousands of new Christians were baptized at Saturday night vigils. Other churches held sunrise services in parks, following in the footsteps of the two women who, according to the Gospel accounts, rose early in the morning some 2,000 years ago and went to the tomb where Jesus was buried -- only to find the stone rolled away and the tomb empty.

At The Summit, a warehouse-like church on the edge of the Research Triangle Park, hundreds of young people crowded onto the concrete floor as a choir of 110 people energetically crooned, "You are my reason; the one that I live for."

Pastor J.D. Greear, sporting a goatee and blue jeans, spoke about how Jesus' death on the cross was not meant for saints but for sinners. Only people who had given up on trying to prove themselves worthy could fully rely on Jesus' love.

McQuaid, dressed in pink pumps and a matching pink hairband, sat up close, with a red Bible and a spiral notebook into which she jotted memorable lines. Raised a Unitarian Universalist, McQuaid said the congregation her parents attended never really resonated with her. She felt aimless and unfulfilled and recognized that "something in my soul was dying."

When a friend invited her to The Summit nearly three years ago, she took a seat in the back row and, hoping to go unnoticed, left immediately after the service. But five months later, the Christian message began to change her, and in December 2005, she committed her life to Jesus.

Over the past two years, she said, the love and care of the church's members helped her escape her depression and find a life worth living. She now holds Bible study with 5-year-olds and hopes to graduate this year and take a job as a preschool teacher.

The church, she said, has become her second family. Recently, she said, she traveled to New York on a mission trip to help a sister church with AIDS education. She prays daily and said she is convinced God loves her and will never forsake her.

"This isn't the path I thought I'd take," she said. "But it's so much better than anything I ever dreamed of."