Hi brothers and sisters, I'm Ally and I'm in year 4. Today I'd like to share about God’s faithfulness in my university journey.
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I first entered university in 2017, after attending the school of witness 2017. School of witness is an 8 week live-in discipleship school organised by OYP. It was at this school that I encountered the Lord and met like-minded brothers and sisters who loved and pursued Christ. As I grew closer to these newfound kingdom friends, especially in the months leading up to the start of university, my desire was to go to the same uni as them. It was also my dream since JC to go to NUS FASS, being the more arts-inclined person that I am. However, when I received my university offers, I did not get offered the course that I wanted in NUS, with only NTU offering me something that I would actually want to study. While most of my friends were headed to NUS, I accepted the offer from NTU, though grudgingly and very reluctantly. Naturally, I felt very upset and disappointed. I felt upset with myself for not doing better, and also felt upset with God for seemingly not giving me what I wanted so badly. It didn’t make sense to me why God would choose to lead me on a path apart from what I had thought to be the best for myself. I felt like God had intentionally left me out from His good plans and that He gave me what I did not want simply because I was not good enough. Though I felt a strange sense of peace with the reality of entering NTU, I still wrestled with the Lord a lot, often lamenting and feeling indignant because it felt like He intentionally wanted to leave me out of what I was looking forward to most.
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As I settled into NTU, the sheer distance away from the rest of what I was familiar with definitely did not help my wrestling with the Lord. Additionally, as I entered uni, the Lord invited me to be discerning with what and how I chose to spend my time and energy in this new phase of my life. Hence, I chose to only attend CSA FOC and half of my SOH FOC because I knew how much of a social butterfly I could be. I knew that choosing to attend many FOCs and putting myself in big social circles would not have been the most helpful if I wanted to live out my discipleship intentionally in university. This resulted in me having a relatively small social circle in university, something that I was not used to. All these accumulated to me wrestling with the predominant struggle of feeling lonely, and struggling with lies that good things were not mine to receive.
However, it was being stripped of many things I thought I needed where I was able to learn how to truly abide with the Lord. In my loneliness, I was able to turn to the Lord more quickly and learnt how to be still with Him. I learnt how to move from loneliness to solitude with the Lord. Simultaneously, I was also beginning to grow more comfortable with the community on campus. Though we were so different in personalities, the Lord expanded my heart to love and be loved by the people in CSA. Soon enough, CSA became my home away from home, and a place I knew I could fully be myself. It was in my finding of my place in CSA that I recognised just how much the Lord loved me through the people He placed around me. Though it was not what I had expected, it was exactly what I needed.
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Much of what I can proclaim now is retrospective and when I was in it, it was definitely difficult to trust in the Lord’s plans especially without being able to understand why or see what lay ahead. After my first year of discomfort and wrestling, the Lord did not stop there and continued to call me out into the deep by inviting me and placing a desire in me to step up to serve the community. It was through this call of leadership and service that the Lord saved me more than I could have ever imagined. When I first stepped up, I wrestled tremendously with my sense of worth. I often belittled myself and my abilities, and so I really felt like a fish out of water when He called me to lead the community. But it was through this call that the Lord revealed Himself to me even more, making me recognise just how much I needed Him. I truly believe that the Lord’s call for me to serve was really to save me, bringing me further on this journey of healing of my self consciousness, my self obsession and my self condemnation. Through the discomfort, He empowered me, giving me eyes of faith and expanded my heart to love and be loved. I grew more fully alive through the call to serve and give of myself, as I grew in certainty that there was nothing more I would rather be doing with my time and energy than to serve the Lord in this capacity.
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I now see how being placed in NTU was the necessary desert I had to be put through- to be stripped of the things I thought I needed, to be given exactly what I needed. It was truly through the wrestling and discomfort that I learnt how to respond to the Lord in humility and obedience, regardless of how unfair or outrageous I thought the Lord was being. Throughout my 4 years in NTU, the Lord gave and took away but never once did His faithfulness fail or disappoint me.
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Having experienced His love for me in such a tangible way, I dare to hope in our Lord as I look forward to the path that lies ahead. Though I am unsure of what lies ahead, I am filled with a sense of excitement and hope for I know that He who holds my tomorrow is good and faithful. Over the past 4 years, I have come to a lived experience of what it means that the Lord’s ways are higher than my own. And it is from this place of faith that I will continue to dare to dream the big dreams the Lord has for me that calls me to fullness of life and joy in Him.
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My brothers and sisters, I pray that each of us will dare to recognise how God’s goodness and faithfulness is personally empowering us to live our lives more freely, fully and joyfully in Him. Amen.
I dare to hope in our Lord as I look forward to the path that lies ahead