Meeting God at the Bus Stop

(This testimony was shared at Regent's chapel on 25th Jan 2022)

If I were an actress learning to cry on command, if I needed to summon memories that could bring tears quickly, then last Fall was the perfect experience, guaranteed to work faster than cutting onions. Have you heard of the rom-com “Four Weddings and A Funeral"? Well, my last few months was a true story of Five Funerals and A Wedding in Middle of COVID. Surely not even Rowen Atkinson nor Hugh Grant can make that story funny! It was really hard. But God’s comfort sustained me. His comfort is constant, timely, and specific. It often even comes ahead of time. Without God’s comfort, I would not have functioned through the most action-packed semester I have had at Regent.

Over the New Year’s break, in fact, I stopped functioning. My five lovely housemates were spending the holidays with their families, so I had the house all to myself for a week. I had looked forward to being home alone. Every year I would take a personal retreat to revisit my journal entries, pray, and to do some emotional stocktaking. Those were always good times spent with God. But alas, that did not happen this time. Instead I went into what I call my “hermit mode”: I hide away until someone or some responsibility calls me out of my cave. Normally, one of my housemates will come checking to see if I am alive - Heather would want to debrief our day; Vivian would drag me out for a walk; Maureen would always offer food. Either way, someone would be knocking on my door. But since I was home alone, this hermit hardly got out of bed and never got out of the house except to shovel snow.

Midway through the week, I realise that this was not rest; this was procrastinating. The messy task of emotional stocktaking was easy to ignore when there was plenty else to do, but paralysing when there was nothing else to do. By the end of the week, I felt pretty lousy about wasting a perfectly good week that could have been spent with God.

On the fourth day of the new year, I finally left my house for Regent’s beautiful library only because I owed them a pile of books. It was the snow-storm week, so there were slippery steps and muddy snow to navigate on my way to the bus stop. As I wiggled my toes to keep warm, an elderly lady joined me there. She had a friendly smile and snow-white hair. She said she was about to walk home but decided to keep warm on the bus instead. I agreed that it was a good idea because the bus will be arriving in just two minutes. “Oh, thank you, dear!” She replied and sat down on the bench.

The bus arrived right on time and approached slowly. The lady stood up and greeted me as if to part ways. Then what she said next felt random but striking. She said,

“All the best with your studies, dear! And don't worry that things are not the way you expect them to be. Just enjoy school and when the time is right you will find what you are meant to do!"

A complete stranger was saying these words to me, and yet it felt like they came from someone familiar. Time had suddenly slowed down I was listening to her in slow motion. When time snapped back, all I could managed was a heartfelt "thank you!" while we both boarded the bus. That whole time, I was wondering:

What tipped her off that I was a student?

I know I look young, but surely not that young?

Was it the heavy paper bag that I was carrying?

The bus was not headed directly to school, and our two-sentence conversation was not informative, and yet she spoke to my circumstances with such precision!

Why does this stranger sound so familiar?

Before I could strike up the courage to ask her anything, it was time to get off the bus. But something tells me that it doesn’t matter, that I should just receive it as a blessing.

It was not until the next day that a lightbulb went on in my head...

Some time ago, I had wondered to myself:

What would it be like if our Lord Jesus were to check in on us, like how my housemates would if I went into hiding?

This was it. This was God checking in on me.

I am no Elijah, but maybe this is how it feels like when he went into hiding and the Lord sent him food and asked in a gentle whisper, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

If my personal retreat had happened the way that it should, I would have asked God about what is next after graduation. I didn’t exactly get to it. But it doesn't matter, because God got to me first. It is as if God was saying, "I heard you. You don't have to send me a formal email about it. Here is my reply. And by the way, we did spend of all of this week together, even if it wasn't how you imagined it to be."

The funny thing was, an hour after that bus ride, I received an email from Thomas titled, “Sharing Testimony in Chapel?” I had no excuse to refuse.

Whatever storm you are hiding from in this season, I pray that you too will hear the Lord’s gentle whisper and receive His sweet comfort.

PS: The initial blog entry titled "O Love that Will Not Let Me Go" was posted on 6 January (after a conversation with Sharon D). It became the draft for the above testimony. (The "draft" was ready by the time I saw Thomas' email; another reason why I couldn't say no). This blog has since been updated with the version used in the testimony.

Image: Regent's chapel (On the day of celebrating Regent's 50th Anniversary online).