Hi friends! For this blog post, I will be sharing my testimony. I’ve never been really great at sharing personal things like my faith but I truly hope that my story encourages you regardless of where you are at with God.

I grew up in a Christian home and so being Christian was something automatic to me. I remember attending church and Sunday school every week growing up. Because of this, I never had that “aha moment” where I surrendered my life to Jesus and became a Christian. However, I remember growing up and never really thinking much about what it means to have God in my life. Sure, I read the Bible occasionally, listened to worship music, prayed before meals and bed, and tried to have good character. But as I got older, I knew that I was missing something even though I was in a good place with God. I felt like I was lacking a closeness and relationship with Him.

I didn’t grow up in a Christian school and so coming to Biola has been such a blessing to me. During my transition of moving to another school for high school, I started to really have questions about faith and wondered if God really loved me. Everything in my life was going great, but still I felt this emptiness that I couldn’t quite explain. I went through a really tough time with friendships and my identity coming into high school. A lot of the times, I didn’t feel like myself and that was a horrible state to be in. I felt like I was constantly in search of something but I didn’t even know what I was looking for in the first place.

Flash forward to senior year of high school and looking at colleges, I applied to three secular colleges and didn’t even think about applying to Biola. I knew that I wanted to go to college abroad to see what life was like outside of Indonesia. I felt like I wanted to pursue something but, again, I didn’t know what. I was experiencing a lot of identity crisis and I remember praying for the Lord to grant me acceptance to at least one of the colleges I applied to. Unfortunately, I didn’t get into any of the colleges I applied to. Somehow though, the Lord really closed all of the doors and opened the one I was supposed to go through. I applied to Biola super last-minute and I got in! When I thought about going to Biola, I felt a sense of peace and comfort. The first day of global student orientation was my first time on campus and this is wild to think about. I can see now that God really paved my path and led me to where I am now. All those times when I was questioning whether He really loves me or not, I know now that He really does. Even when I wasn’t in the best place with Him, He still took care of me and held my hand through life.

My Biola experience has been nothing but growth and more growth. As a human being and as a Christian. I’m in a really good place right now but the journey was not easy. I guess this isn’t necessarily a testimony,  but more of a story of how the Lord has been so good to me. If you’ve read to the end, thank you for reading a little bit of my heart :) If you’re having doubts, know that He has a great plan for you. His timing is never early, never late, but always on time.

Much love,

Fiona