Sometimes, I guess it takes a little rut in the road to help you realize what a smooth journey you’ve been on all this while. You’re cruising along fine, maybe believing you’ve come this far all by your own effort, be it walking, running or pedaling, and all it takes is a rut or a pothole, to help you realize that you had no part to play in the paving of miles and miles of beautiful roads and pavements to make your journey an enjoyable one.
I couldn’t believe it, but Florida was coming closer and closer. About 8 months ago, I thought of doing some research and writing a paper for submission to a medical journal. In spite of hearing rumours about how journal papers in Eye were flourishing like mushrooms in rainy season, I could find no one to mentor me. After weeks of waiting and seeking help, I finally found a supervisor who helped me embark on a project in Ophthalmology. Weeks and months of data collection, writing, re-writing and tweaking birthed an unformed mass of raw data which became enough material to write up a poster, which then took some form to become a journal-paper-in-the-making and now is making its way to being a poster presented at an International Eye Conference in Florida this May, or rather, next week. I never expected this to go so far.
Then, I hit a rut.
A few months ago, Mum reassured me I had a visa to America. It was made in 2006 inside an old passport and would last up to ten years. With work and frantic preparations for the project in between 30-hour shifts, time passed quickly. One fine day last week, I realized I could not find it. I had turned my room upside-down, getting chided by Mum about not keeping my items properly but still to no avail. I had all my other passports and identity certificates except that one. There were two weeks to the conference. Worse, being a non-citizen of Singapore meant it would be too late to get an appointment to make an urgent visa to the States.
Suddenly, everything came to a standstill. All those late nights spent after work collating data, all those weekends spent writing up and rushing to meet my supervisor’s deadlines and replying to his intense flurry of emails up till past midnight, all that effort spent applying for sponsorship, all that time spent booking accommodation and comparing prices, and all that joy in reaching those milestones of getting my project accepted and being sponsored up to $4500 for the very expensive overseas conference went down the drain.
I hit a rut. And everything just slowed down like a bad movie gone wrong.
All this while I think I did thank God for this blessing. But like so many other things in life, I also think to some extent, I took it for granted. Looking back, there was a large element of self-striving through this journey. I pushed myself. I felt immense pressure to meet up to my supervisor’s deadlines. During weekends, Cliff would sit with me trying to help with the technical aspects of uploading my slides and formatting the tables in the exact way he wanted. The night before the intense 3-day 2 night marriage preparation course, Cliff stayed up with me re-doing the slides over and over because each revision only invited another barrage of emails of even more revisions from my supervisor. I went the extra mile to polish and re-polish my project to meet his expectations. At times, I was so fearful my inexperience might exasperate him. After all, it was my first attempt. And behind all of this, was a simmering need for approval, because after all, all these efforts were partly my attempt to boost my resume to get a traineeship in a highly sought-after and applied-to department.
Fear of man. The need for approval. Self-pride.
All these emotions became crystal clear to me when my visa went missing. I tried so hard to be in control. But the missing visa made me see how God, and not me, had been in control all this while.
The opportunity to do a small project with the head of department. The chance to get it accepted at an overseas conference. The financial blessing of an overseas conference sponsorship. Though a part of me had assumed that it was to my credit, I suddenly woke up to realize how really thankful I ought to have been all this while.
We are pilgrims on a road, giving credit to our own stamina for having come thus far. Then we see a huge break in the road, a massive collapse ruining the path ahead, and learn that we never gave thanks for the pavement beneath our feet, the shoes covering our soles.
I just had to let it go. And in doing so, I felt a huge breakthrough in my spiritual walk. Suddenly, the fear of man and that neediness for approval left me like a vanishing cloud. If God had opened so many doors for me, why did I continually let that fear of man breed within me? If God had been in control of my journey all this while, why did I allow myself to feel so pressured and suffocated by my supervisor’s intensity? And if it was truly God’s will for me to achieve something through this project or even get a traineeship in Eye, then why did I worry so much about not finding my visa?
Instead of skipping bible study and going home to look for my passport again, I decided to head to church. I plunged myself into learning about God’s word and let those worries fade away. I wanted to head home early, but decided against it. I trust you, God. I’m going to let go. Everything good is from you, and everything I have belongs to You.
Even before bible study ended, I received a text message from my mum. “Hey, don’t worry. I’m sorry, I forgot I put your visa in my safe. I found it.”
Even though the incident might have seemed so silly, so immaterial, so small even, I learnt a great lesson from it. Since then, the pressure and fear that used to hang over this research project has dissipated. I later learnt from others that this particular supervisor is intense with everyone and sometimes it is okay to put our foot down and create boundaries. I learnt that God, and not us, is in control. I learnt that we can try all we want, but our achievements, our futures, our arrival at our dream destinations lie not so much in our own striving (though diligence is important), as much as in trust in a God who holds our world in the palm of His hands, who paves the road we journey on and creates the ground we stand on.
He blesses, even broken roads, sometimes.
I leave for Florida for a week in 6 days.
“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
– Psalm 27:1