Malaysia
“Sometimes we need to believe to understand.”
I grew up in a Christian family and during my formative years as a child up until my teenage years had fastidiously attended church every week with my family. I never enjoyed going to church then because it felt like a chore and though I enjoyed my lessons as a child, as I grew up, I started to get more disconnected and feel that I didn’t belong. I was very much just a Sunday Christian. We were always taught to do things one way, and more often than not, I found myself on the opposite path. There was always this sense of overhanging guilt on my shoulders that I will never be good enough. I then took the easy way out and stopped going to church in my mid-teens.
And so for the next decade the rebel that I was merrily pranced through life fuelled by youthful vigour. I was running a marathon, but without meaning or purpose, and I soon found myself lost and alone. At that time I had already heard of Alpha, but never paid any attention to it. It was only by a chance event that I found myself attending one of the sessions.
At the beginning I didn’t want to share any of my burdens and worries with a group of strangers because I felt that no one would understand me. But I was wrong. I began to recognise that the more we met up at Alpha and talked to one another, the more we could relate with each other and I slowly could open up and share all of my life with them.
Through Alpha I realised that in the past, I was merely reading but never understanding. I was listening but never paying attention. I was thinking too much with my head, when I should have instead done it with my heart.
I chose to run away. But yet, God kept pursuing me.
And it became so clear that I am not alone in this journey, and where I was once lost, I am now a map and a destination. The Alpha group which started as strangers, I am now proud to call my family. The chance event that made me attend Alpha in the first place was a reminder that all things happen in God’s timing.
I may not be perfect, but Jesus thinks I am to die for.
It has been almost two years since I rediscovered God and opened my heart to Him, and ever since then, it has been an amazing journey of growth and self-discovery. As I continue on this journey of running towards Him, I pray that God will use me in many chance encounters for others to discover Him for themselves as well.
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“Sometimes we need to believe to understand.”
