Nostalgia

It’s my 4^th year in AUP and at the same time, my 8^th week of prayer experience since first year. But everything in the past feels like they just happened last month. This morning I imagined I was watching myself 4 years ago. Same settings – in AUP and it’s week of prayer. I’ll tell you who this Jana I was imagining:

She’s 16, a transferee student so she doesn’t know many people. She knows her classmates by faces only. She knows her roommates back at the dormitory but they have their own group of friends. It’s the week of prayer; though most of the time alone, she still attends church – morning and evening. Ever since she became a Christian, she has been a student of God’s teachings. She likes listening to inspiring and rebuking messages, knowing that through this, she will grow in faith. She enters the big church timidly. She doesn’t like sitting in front, afraid to be known as dynamic in faith. But she also doesn’t like sitting at the back, she might not concentrate on the message. She likes best the left side pews, not in the middle, but more like between the middle and front pews. She thinks that this place is the most unnoticeable. She is so introvert sometimes that she feels better coming to church alone. She is neither distracted nor entertained by anyone. It’s her best time to be one on one with God. She listens intently to every song, every prayer and every word spoken. She even likes writing down notes from the speaker’s message. She also collects all the bookmarks, decision papers, pamphlets, and school newspapers handed out. She doesn’t want to miss anything from special events like this. When the worship is done, she is not one of those students who are hurrying to go out of the church. She thinks that the teacher will understand if she’ll be late for class. She usually goes out one of the last. Walking alone through a crowded place is not really sad. She’s not the only one because there are many others like her. That’s what is on her mind. She would observe other students. She sometimes listens to their conversations. It’s her favourite thing to do. Then she would walk fast and go straight to class.

I sometimes think I am extraordinary. When in fact, I really am just a common girl. I’m not as effective as the speaker at the church, I’m not so significant as the participants in the worship, I’m not so important as the coordinators behind the program, I’m not as useful as the photographers or videographers in the event.

But here’s a realization: I can be one if I choose to be one. And although in my own eyes, I am ordinary, in the eyes of my God, I am as unique and as special as a perfect masterpiece ever created. All I have to do is let God take hold of me. He knows best what I can impart.

I wish I told these things to that shy Jana 4 years ago. Or someone has told me before. But I never know what God can do with my deficiencies. I just thank Him for accepting me and seeing me special despite all my flaws.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under his feet,

all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,

the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8:3-9