Hi friends! For this blog post, I will be sharing my testimony. I鈥檝e 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 鈥渁ha moment鈥 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鈥檛 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鈥檛 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鈥檛 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鈥檛 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鈥檛 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鈥檛 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鈥檛 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鈥檛 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鈥檓 in a really good place right now but the journey was not easy. I guess this isn鈥檛 necessarily a testimony,  but more of a story of how the Lord has been so good to me. If you鈥檝e read to the end, thank you for reading a little bit of my heart :) If you鈥檙e 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