(Click here to see a video of my testimony and baptism! I am the last video from the bottom…thanks to the communications team from my RCEFC family for filming and posting it!)
I have been to church since I was six years old. A family friend brought our whole family to church when we immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada, and my Mom, my brother, and I accepted Jesus Christ as our Saviour soon after.
My childhood, like most church kids, was filled with Sunday School, church programs, and other church activities. I learned many Bible stories and verses, and that God was my Creator who loved me and wanted me to obey His commands. I tried to be a good kid and be kind to others, but my life at that time was mostly taken up with piano, theory, swimming, tutoring and other lessons, and my favourite hobbies, reading and playing video games with my brother.
I entered Grade 8. For some people, entering high school is a difficult transition, and it was for me. I moved from a Christian school to a public high school. It was hard to be in a place where few people shared my beliefs. I was also a shy and introverted girl, and making new friends was harder than I thought. I also stopped speaking Chinese because I thought it sounded embarrassing.
I remember the first two years of high school as a time of loneliness. I wasn’t confident in myself. Although I was good at academics and had straight A’s most of the time, I felt socially-inept, unprepared to face the “real world”, alone, and unable to take care of myself. I sat alone during church services. When I had breaks from school, I would wish it would end so I was back at school again, because I would feel loneliest when I had so much free time to myself.
During this time, many people invited me to join the youth fellowship, but I always declined. But one day during Winter Break in my grade 9th year, some friends invited me to go to gym night, and since I didn’t have anything to do, I agreed to go. I remember being welcomed there and being really touched by the experience.
That same year, our pastor preached a sermon about being “plugged in”. He said that all the members of the church should feel plugged into the church, for example through fellowship or small groups. The following September, I decided to give the youth fellowship another try.
Within Joshua fellowship, we were divided into smaller, same-gender small groups for Bible Studies and out-of-church activities, and the next September I found myself in a small group called “Sticky Rice”. Rice because we were Chinese, and Sticky because we wanted to grow closer in friendship and unity with one another. The Bible Study that year was on the book of First John, which was about Love.
Through our Bible Studies, we learned about God’s love for us and how He wants us to love each other. We learned that human love is conditional, but God’s Love is unconditional. This means that His Love for us doesn’t depend on what we do but who we are, and nothing we do can ever make Him love us less. God wants us to love one another. We discussed how “loving” is different from “liking”, and how we can even love people (though we might not like their actions) by wanting the best for them and seeing them as the precious people they are to God. And as we love God more, we will come to love others more (love triangle illustration).
Best of all, our leaders in our small group really exemplified what they were teaching. They shared honestly about their own lives, laughed over their own imperfections and mistakes, and loved each of us, the group members, just as we were. Through them, I really saw God’s Love for me.
As God worked in my life, I began to desire to put into action what I learned and love others more. For example, I started doing dishes and folding laundry around the house. I made more effort to communicate with my parents and to celebrate Mother’s and Father’s Days. I still made mistakes, but I learned that they were all part of the process, and even learned to enjoy my mistakes with a sense of humour. Although it wasn’t always easy, like the time God convicted me to start speaking Chinese to my parents again, God always blessed my efforts to reach out more in love and obey Him.
Many years later, I looked back again at my life and wondered if it really was God who worked in my life, or was it just a bunch of good people and good rules. I looked at archaeology and history, which helped to confirm that Jesus really walked on this earth and places in the Bible actually existed. There are many scientific arguments about whether God is real or not. But the thing that convinced me most was the supernatural love of God I saw in my brothers and sisters.
Sunday after Sunday I would see my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ serving cheerfully in the church, striving to love one another despite the imperfections we all have. I met people who were joyful and loving, yet so forgiving and willing to accept their own and others’ mistakes. Their hearts were different from anyone I had ever known and I knew that this was because God had changed them.
Today we live in a broken world, with broken relationships, inequality, and an abused environment. I realized that I, who had always been the good Sunday School kid, obeyed my parents, got good grades, etc., even I was someone full of the pride, prejudice, selfishness, and sin that contributes to the broken state of our world. I need God in my life. God says that “the wages of sin is death”. However, He sent His Son, Jesus, to pay that death penalty for our sins, so that we can be reunited with Him and receive His Love, which is the only thing which can satisfy us.
God loves me and is waiting for me to turn and follow Him. He wants to change me and to shower me with His blessings. He wants to call me His daughter. He has made me and knows my inmost being, and He wants to make me into who He intended me to be. Knowing this, I could no longer refuse His gift of Love. On January 7, 2011, I re-committed my life to the Lord, and I look forward to the rest of my life learning to love Him more and to grow more like Him every day.
