Called to love....

I was encouraged by Sharmaine to blog about my testimony of why I went church and then youth service after I told her about it.

Actually, I accepted Christ into my life through a prayer when I was quite young when my aunt’s friend shared with me the 4SL. I can’t recall if I know what she was talking about then but I definitely didn’t know the significance of the prayer, because the person told me to repeat after her and so I did.

Last year about this time was the probation period for leadership position in CCA, I damaged my clarinet which was the newest clarinet. I was at a loss of what to do and I didn’t dare to own up because my conductor is a monster (ask yating) so she'll most likely slaughter me.
It was a horrible period of time because the thought kept bugging me day and night. And I think the only place that repairs instruments in SG is my conductor’s company so I can’t possibly send my instrument there because she’ll know. And around this time, I also met this guy while I was eating at Macs and he shared the 4SL with me. It was quite strange because I thought normally these people only approach those who appear to be very free but apparently I was eating and studying at the same time. Then again, I was alone which made me an easy target. He asked if he could have 10 mins of my time but he took 2hrs! But it made me consider being a Christian…but I was thinking probably next time, maybe JC or after that.

Anyway, everyone knows there are such things called miracles and when you know things are hopeless, u ask for one. And so I prayed every day and night, consciously and sub-consciously to God that if he's real, please fix my instrument. Then, sometimes I would shut my eyes real tight hoping that when I open them, my clarinet will be okay again. But of course it didn’t. Meanwhile, I was also waiting for the right time to own up but somehow my conductor always seems to be in a terrible mood. Then one day the conductor brought along with her this repair guy. And the conductor asked me to go and ask the repair guy to check my junior's instrument so I told her mine needed to be repair. Then she assumed it was some small problem and didn’t question me further. So the guy repaired my instrument and my conductor was wondering why I took so long because normal repairing process takes only a short time. But coincidentally, that guy cut his finger while repairing my instrument so he was going to take a long time anyway so that saved me from the explanation.

Then I was thinking this is really like some miracle to me. I mean my instrument was really fixed without me even getting into any trouble at all. I was like ok, I shall go church if my aunts ask me to but they didn’t.

By the way, Mr tan shared that last time he would go over his uncle’s house to stay during the holidays so that he can go church. Guess what? I did the exact opposite last time. I would go church during the holidays so that I can stay over at my aunt’s house. And I think they stop pestering me to go to church about 5 years ago? Probably because I was too busy to meet out with them so they didn’t really have the chance to ask me and when they do, I wouldn’t show much interest but I would still go because I feel bad rejecting. I tend to avoid them after that so that they won’t have the chance of asking me again. That time, I went for the adult service at Marine Parade. I was quite young so my attention span was short. My brain goes on a stand-by mode once the worship songs finish when the pastor starts preaching so I don’t understand the sermon.

Anyway, I was quick of brush this whole my-clarinet-got-fixed-miraculously incident aside and get on with life since I didn’t dare to ask them to bring me to church and they didn’t ask me to go.

Then there was Magic of Love on Christmas Eve. My aunts invited me and my sis there. Prior to that she invited me to some ghost thing at FC also but I didn’t go. Anyway I was kind of like hoping they would start to invite me to church after MoL but then it didn’t happen. I started praying to God occasionally, asking Him to get my aunts to invite me to church.
Then there's this G-12 thing and one day my aunt finally did asked me to go church again and I agreed. And I think the week I went, the Pastor was saying that you just ask the person like you usually do and the person will surprise you by agreeing to go to church because God will change the circumstances and I think that happened between my aunts and me so I guess to them it's like God's miracles that I'm like finally going to church.

First time I went after several years was on 2 Apr 06 and I saw someone looking like mr tan during service, but I wasn’t sure. anyway, my aunt told me this "next time, if u want to come church u tell me yourself ok, so that it wont seem as though I’m pestering you" nevertheless the following sat,.. I waited for my aunt to invite me to church, and it was like 9pm plus already and she hasn’t sms me to ask if I want to go so I was like.. ok, maybe I should take the initiative then and indeed they found it very weird to receive an sms from me that I want to go church.

And soon, I go church for like one month and that was my longest consecutive going church record. and i never found seeing mr tan in church a coincidence despite there being so many people because it's something that happens almost every service. Anyway I was starting to find that something is wrong, not because I couldn’t understand or relate to the adult service, but because I hear about God from no one else but the pastor for 2hrs every Sunday as my aunts don’t have the habit of sharing with me probably cause they think I wouldn’t be interested and I don’t have the initiative to ask them cause I fear they would find me strange, like u know the sudden change in a person can sometimes be too overwhelming for others to take. It’s kind of weird that I suddenly wanted someone to tell me more about God or answer my doubts but there's like no one I can really turn to without them looking at me o.O (like this). but anyway, this time I was praying to God that honestly, I can’t keep up with this and I’d probably stop going to church soon… and I prayed to him to do something about it because I don’t think anyone that barely knows about God is capable of surviving on just listening to a pastor talk weekly unless the person is really that hungry for God and really cling on to Him.

And that same week 7 May I happen to see mr tan and lydia along the walkway in the morning. I thought that was really a coincidence because we were walking in the same direction and they were actually only 2m in front of me so I pointed out to my aunts that the person in front is a teacher from my school and they didn’t believe that a teacher can be that young... but that’s from back view haha. Then they told me he’s a church leader because he’s wearing the G12 black shirt.

Then 16 May, I attended a HCJC dsa talk which I didn’t really intended to since I want to go RJ but I thought since it's cca time, why not go listen. Then I came out and along the way I saw mr tan and I thought ok maybe I’ll go up to him and tell him I saw him and his gf to see his reaction for cheap thrill. Because as students, we know some teachers don’t like to see students outside of school especially when they are with their gf/bf. and some of them when they see us, they will run away and it’s quite amusing.

But! I was so shock, when he gave me his gf's no. I was like thinking most teachers don’t even give their own number and this teacher is like giving me his gf's number and asking me to call her! Then I started wondering if he gives his gf’s number to the whole wide world for them to call her. Then I thought this is like madness, how did something so simple end up so complicated with me having to call someone but also at the same time, I was thinking maybe I should really try and go so I sms and to cut the story short, Lydia call me and after 1hr I agreed and after I put down the phone, I thought I was out of my mind. Firstly, for talking to this person that I don’t know for 1hr and secondly, for agreeing to go service with her and meeting this whole big bunch of people that I don’t know. And the person that I know the best among everyone I was going to meet is mr tan. But I only know his name and his face because he never taught me before and I don’t pay much attention to teachers that don’t teach me, especially new teachers.

And actually, I only intended to go once for youth svc, that's why I lied to my aunts cause since it's only for one week, don’t need to explain so much... and I was really nervous about the whole going to youth svc thing. I think that week I lost a lot of hours of sleep but it turned out quite okay.

But anyway I thought the whole timing of starting to go youth service was quite good. haha cause it was the last week of school so I have some time to spare and I don’t think I saw mr tan in school during the holidays either so if on that Tues didn’t see him, I wont be at youth service for June or if it was till school reopens, I think it’s likely I won’t be interested in going cause school start already and I don’t have so much time to spare to try new stuff and adapt to it. As mentioned earlier, if I continue to go adult service with my aunts, I would probably have stopped going to church when school term starts.

And throughout this whole thing, I didn’t realise god was answering my prayers and changing things for me. It's not like He told me, ok go youth service, it's actually indirectly what you've been praying about. But later I began to realise that he actually answered my prayers cause now there’s people to share with me more about God and occasionally my aunts do share with me as well, now that they know I won’t run away. haha. And God answered my aunts' prayers as well, according to them because they were really shock when I told them the truth that I went youth service that week. And the convo sort of went like that:

Me: did u find me acting strange on Sunday? You know smth, actually on Sunday I went changi airport and then later I went back expo for youth svc.

Aunt: Orh hor, lie ah.. haha wah! so who did u go with?

Me: my teacher’s gf.

Aunt: huh?! Your teacher’s gf?! Are you very close to her? U know her very well is it?

Me: no. I don’t know her. (starts laughing)

Aunt: huh?! So u know her through your teacher, the one that u told us that time is it? Oh ok so what does your teacher teach you?

Me: err.. he doesn’t teach me….

haha god is so amazing in his ways~

(in case anyone wonders how I can rmb the dates and my thoughts, it's cause I keep a blog, so I referred to my entries while writing this)