My name is Sunny and here is my testimony. Like many, I came to know Christ and Christianity from a young age. Having moved to Canada from Hong Kong when I was 6, the church was where my family found connection and community.
Growing up, the church was where I met with friends and would be the launching point for sleepovers and weekend hangouts, to my young mind that was church. Of course, I went through the motions, going to church, memorizing bible verses, and reading the bible, but to me, they were all things I did because I was a good Christian boy, there was never really a personal relationship with God.
In high school and university, as I grew older and because I never had that personal relationship, I fell farther and farther away from the church. At one point I stopped going to church altogether. During this period in my life, I was focused on school and doing well in it, I focused on my priorities and my own abilities. I thought that if I wanted to succeed all I needed to do was work hard. Inevitably this led to the lowest point in my life when I failed to get into post-graduate programs I was looking at. I remember having a mental breakdown one night as I preparing to write the MCAT, I was lost and broken as my efforts failed me. Little did I know that God always has a plan and even though I had placed all bets on myself, he wanted me to put faith in him, he had a plan for me all along. During this time as I was about to graduate from university in BC, lost and without a plan for the future, I started applying to nursing schools in BC and Calgary. With rejections from nursing schools in BC and just as I thought I was going to have to stand still in my life, I got an e-mail from a school in Calgary, within months I was packed and flew to Calgary for school.
Being alone in a new place, church was something that looked for again. It was that place for me to find community and connection, but again I fell into the same patterns. I was again just going through the motions.
When I graduated and started working, being a nurse, I worked Sundays, I just saw missing church as part of the job. I think things started to change once I joined a small group with people in the same life stage. Learning about their service in the church, hearing their testimony and seeing how God was present in their life, made me realize that God was also working in my life. At first, I joined the small group to form connections, but as we did bible studies and as the group renewed each other’s focus on prayer, I started seeing God’s place in my life. Thursdays became not just a time to meet but a time to learn about Christ and Christianity with others. Sundays weren’t just another day of the week, but I recognized that it was the Sabbath and that I should take a day out of the week for the Lord and to rest.
As I started to see Christ in my life, I started to count my blessings, and indeed the Lord has always had a plan and always provided. He moved me to a new province, and provided me with a meaningful career, when I was burnt out from bedside nursing he directed me to a new job away from the bedside so that I could rest. The Lord has a plan, and it wasn’t my work that made all this happen, it was him all along.
So why now, why decide to be baptized now when I had known Christ all along? One, my parents have been bugging me about it. In talking with them, they would always remind me that the Lord has blessed me with much and yet I have not done what Christ wants all believers to do and to be baptized and let people know that they are his believers. Second, 2023 was a hard year for my extended family. My uncle was diagnosed with cancer and passed away quite quickly. Despite this, before his death, he believed in Christ and confessed that the Lord was his saviour. If my uncle who only knew Christ for a short time confessed to being a believer of Christ to those around him, why shouldn’t I who has known Christ much longer, what was holding me back? What held me back was always a feeling of inadequacy of knowing that I was a sinner and not being good enough, but that is not what Christ asks of us. It is not perfection he seeks but an acknowledgement of our sins and to confess that we are sinners. It is through him that we are sanctified and saved. Through this public confession of my belief in Christ, I want to tell others that I am a sinner, but through Christ, I am reborn in him, Christ is the master of my life, and I will endeavour to be a Christian, a follower of Christ where first and foremost he leads, and I follow. Though I know that life will have its ups and downs, what I endeavour to always do, even if the times are hard, is to count my blessings and realize that God always has a plan.
For I know the plans I have for you declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11