Student Profile: Stuff about Drema
personal insecurity | emigration | why go to school
Finding acceptance
My world revolved around "me". When I was young, I had lots of friends and was accepted by everyone.
Seeking people’s attention just seemed a natural thing. In high school, having a lot of friends made me feel popular and accepted. Being a very shy person I depended on other people’s opinion of me.
Deep down my need for attention made me a person who did not really care genuinely about anything or anyone other than myself. What was important to me was whether I appeared good to people and if did the right things. But as long as I got what I wanted or needed, I was satisfied.
I am still shy in some ways, but I’ve grown in boldnessince I stopped focusing on my own insecurities.
In high school, if I was unsure about people’s opinion of me I would question my worth. But now I understand that my identity is not based on how I am accepted by people but in how I am accepted by God. But I struggle with that sometimes; I still worry about what other people think of me.
My life changed when I immigrated to Canada from Taiwan when I was nine. It was so hard for me to talk to people and make friends because my English wasn’t very good.
Compared to the life that I lived in Taiwan, I was devastated here. My self-confidence plummeted. I worried a lot about what other people think of me. I based my happiness and self-worth on others’ opinions of me. Having a lot of friends and being accepted was important because I found my security in these things. But sometimes though, I wondered, why do I still feel so empty?
There were times when I ran away, hid myself and cried. These were times when I had no real friends and felt very lonely. I felt like nobody cared, not even my family who was supposed to be the closest to me.
It hurt so much. It’s the hardest feeling in the world-of not belonging or being loved. This was when I felt like my world did not revolve around me anymore. I had little control over anything. And I felt completely helpless.
This was when I turned to God. Since I was little, my grandparents took me to church where I learned about God and Jesus in the Bible. I thought he was just a higher being up there in heaven. I did not think he was a real person I could relate to or that any of the stories I heard was of any relevance in my life.
But at that point in my life, I remembered I learned about how God loves me. He created me and loves me so much that He even let His son die for me, for the bad things I have done in my life.
How can anybody care about someone so much as to die for them? I didn’t completely understand. But what I knew was I desired that kind of love. And somehow I knew that God’s unconditional love was something I could not achieve and had to accept as a gift.
One day while I was in the church parking lot I realized I needed to accept God into my life. In a parking lot, amongst a bunch of cars, it was just me and God. I knew at that moment God was reaching out to me and I decided to accept him.
The situations in my life did not change dramatically after that. I still struggled a lot even through high school and university, of the need to feel popular and accepted but I know that I have found my identity in the One who created me. And that is something I can always come back to when I questioned my worth.
I realized that I don’t always have people to turn to and I will still face many other problems and challenges, but God is someone I can always count on because he’s always there for me.
Because of what happened, I did gradually started to change. It was God changing me. Coming to know God gave me the boldness to reach out to other people instead of focusing on myself. What Jesus did on the cross showed me that it’s not just about "me".
If you asked me this question when I was in high school, I would have replied with one word: pointless. I did not see the need to suffer through four more years of schooling when perhaps I could’ve tried doing something I loved right out of high school.
Now I’m glad I’m still in university. It’s been some of the hardest yet best years of my life. Now I just finished my third year and I’m already feeling like I’m gonna miss it!
For me, university is a place that allows me to discover and grow. Many people like myself ask these questions: What is my purpose in life? What am I here for? It does serve as a channel for gaining knowledge, but it’s not just about studying and accomplishing a degree.
I’ve discovered that it’s a place where you develop your character and yourself as a person.
University is about changing as a person: developing your character so that you will be prepared to live in the future.
Drema’s 3 tips for university students . . .
Related reading:
- Questions about spirituality? Read our spirituality articles
- What’s your Spiritual Interest Quotient? Take our SIQ quiz and find out
- How you can know God personally
- Back to Student Profiles
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