First Year: Reflections and Regrets
My first year was… interesting. There’s been more than its fair share of ups and downs, but I’ll recount some of the things that happened.
In my fall term, I joined CCF as my main fellowship after hearing about it a month prior, during Frosh ConneXion. I attended the first night and immediately after the first night, I went to Post. Post is our way of connecting after the program and it’s where a lot of deep friendships form. However, when I went with everyone else on that day, I was extremely overwhelmed by the social scene there.
It turns out that CCF is big. Really big. And I’m very introverted.
I lasted 15 minutes (where I tried to get into a few conversations, unsuccessfully) and left for home, frustrated at how the night went. I made a promise to myself to never put myself through such a situation again.
(By the way, if you prefer interaction in much smaller groups, please hit me up through Facebook Messenger or through Discord — tag is Math Matters#3322. I don’t want anyone to feel like they’re shut out from interacting with others on a more personal level because of the way CCF handles Post.)
Fall term passed rather quickly. I had barely any free time. All my time was spent getting destroyed by school (having two Math 14x courses in your schedule basically denies you the right to free time). Even when I was fellowshipping at CCF and at church, school was still a predominant thought looming over my head.
Slowly but surely, my intentionality with God had been cut in half, and half again. Devotionals were reduced to a Todoist karma farm. I would frequently attend Sunday services in my dorm room or even work on assignments while listening to the sermon. Prayer would be increasingly self-centred, partially because I was too preoccupied to check on my friends and partially because I got increasingly frustrated trying to hold up the world I was in.
It got to a point where I had an impostor syndrome-fuelled mental breakdown at 1 AM. Just two weeks before my 18th birthday, I was unsure if I would even let myself live to celebrate it.
That’s how much pain I was in. By God’s grace I’m still alive, urging my roommate to go to my room and hand me tissue after tissue while I bawled litre after litre of tears.
Winter term rolled around and out of general dissatisfaction, I decided to try out a new fellowship, Power To Change (P2C). It’s quite like CCF in some ways and quite different in others. They are both very biblically principled but organize the fellowship in different ways. For one, P2C always invites a guest speaker as part of their Friday night programs, and also doesn’t do Bible study on Fridays.
One problem with what I did over the winter term was that I went to P2C on Friday nights but attended discipleship groups (DG’s) with CCF. Discipleship groups are same-sex groups of around 5 for more intentional and focused interactions. P2C has DG’s too, but I had a really good experience with CCF DG’s in the fall term. So, I decided to stay with CCF. What really sucked was straddling myself in between two communities — this mean that I wasn’t able to form strong bonds.
What was worse was that I couldn’t attend Frosh Cell (which if you can attend, you absolutely should!!!) because I had group project meetings at the exact same time it ran. This meant that as an unfortunate consequence, I was barely able to bond with the majority of my year.
And as if life had been on fast-forward mode, winter term was over.
I was left with a choice: CCF or P2C? They were both great options, but I had to choose one and stick with it. Ultimately, I chose CCF because I already knew a lot of people there from my home church. It’s not like it was any harder to make friends with people at P2C — I just didn’t have the foundation of friends that I had with CCF.
Then came spring term, my first co-op term in Waterloo. This meant that I could attend CCF and experience it in a quieter environment. The experience wasn’t what I expected — none of the friends that I knew before were there, but I still felt like I was at home. I gave Post another chance and thankfully, the night then was a lot less socially strenuous for me and I made a few new friends.
On top of that, God randomly spoke to me while I was working in co-op. He said, “Elijah, I didn’t call you to live comfortably.” And He’s right. While I don’t know what God has called me to do, I’m confident that He’ll reveal it to me eventually.
Oh yeah, and I attended KW Redeemer (in-person) and am now steadily (and joyfully) reading the Word.
And I lived happily ever after?
No.
Well, maybe it’s too early to tell. But I still have my fair share of regrets.
So many opportunities and chances to grow were lost to fear. Fear of making friends. Fear of putting myself in places where I could make friends. Fear of venturing out alone to find a church I could be a part of. Fear of not doing well enough in school. Fear of the future. Fear of doing poorly in life because I didn’t deserve to be here in the first place.
But where was my fear of God?
I think at that time, I knew that God was all-powerful, but I didn’t rely on him as my Rock. I knew that He was faithful, but I didn’t trust Him with anything. I knew that He was good, but I couldn’t look to His goodness. Instead, I was caught in the average university student’s thorns. Jesus talked about it in the parable of the sower:
“The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.” (Matthew 13:22)
To all incoming first-years, please, please make sure that your faith doesn’t get quenched by the worries in your world. Please stay connected with your fellow brothers and sisters. Most importantly, please remember to put God first.
