#omg wait this is actually crazy that the origin of my old pfp is still findable

[paulinemarcher]

If God Wasn’t In My Life

I was just talking to God about how much my life were to differ if I haven’t met Him and accepted Him. I have to thank my 13 years old child-like faith who accept anything to escape the problem that I still currently face till today. But today I am not writing about my problem. 

Today is it about God’s involvement in my life.   Honestly speaking, I’m not talented when I was very young. I still remember how my mother taunted me for not playing the piano well overseas in Malaysia. 

“See lah, cannot play the piano, how?”  

That made me scared and hopeless. I scored 182 in PSLE and I was really pinning for Express Stream. My tuition teacher said I had potential to do well but I was lazy. Wow, I wished I knew that. Overall, primary school was not my defining moment.  All along, I knew what I liked which is the arts but that was not what I was good at, and these ideals of me pursuing the arts was dismissed by my mother as the phrase I heard often,

“You can’t make a living out of this.”  

It really hurts me, because I do feel for an affinity for the arts. I am drawn to arts. I really love to do artsy things. Like a Korean drama, here comes the good parts. I scored really well in academics and I just discovered my talents during an encounter and some strengths during CCA. 

I got first in class for the first time in secondary two and I already knew God, so I knew first wasn’t everything. I still remember receiving the news in Perth and jumped for joy. I continued to work hard despite myself dropping positions (but I didn’t drop like crazy) because: (1) Other people deserved their positions for their hard work (2) First wasn’t everything to me (3) If I worked hard to maintain my position, no time for God. At the end of secondary four, I placed ninth and qualify for PFP. I started learning how to sing by listening to a jazz performance in school and suddenly I have that euphoria moment where I just knew,

”Jazz is awesome, I want to sing jazz.” 

Then I started singing, it was bad at first. People criticized me. But I wonder why I didn’t cared for their opinions. I am actually very sensitive to comments but I had low self esteem. Even though it does not stop me from singing, I don’t feel qualified to sing on a stage. So I sang, googled, attended classes, sang at choir, sang as a soloist(not a big fan), learned how to harmonize. I did so many things, sang so many songs to improve myself, copied singing styles, learning breathing techniques. I feel I am a decent singer, but not a great singer. My dream was to be a singer, but I looked at this world, sighed and said this to myself,

”I will sing for God instead. Because without Him, I couldn’t have learn how to sing.” 

God gave me opportunities to sing so I credit my singing experiences to God.  Back to my awesome results that qualify me for PFP, because this is a defining moment where I always say to God,

”If You are not here with me, I literally cannot function or move forward because You led me to this.”

The way I sound seems like God didn’t give me a chance at deciding my course. I don’t mean it that way. I understand that God gave us freewill. I acknowledge that. But try deciding what course you want to go in poly without any idea what you will become is so scary. The obvious thing is first, know what I am good at. My mother observed that I was someone who is better at doing some sort of specialist work as she noticed how much I can concentrate. It’s true. I realized at doing project work, I will spend hours researching stuff (if I’m like super into it). Yes, what she said was true. 

I was good at sciences so as an Asian mum, science is like YES PLEASE GO THERE AND MAKE LOTS OF MONEY!!! My mum suggested Chemical Engineering, but hold on a sec. As much as I am good at sciences, I’m not a boring person, okay? That course seems boring and tedious, I was like,

“Ew no way!”

Still was undecided about courses. I head to poly open houses to make  informed decisions. And that moment when I decided to walk towards the Perfumery and Cosmetic Science booth at T11C (omg i still rmb) changed me. Okay, I want to backtrack abit. I want to say that I didn’t have a good impression of the course and it appeared girly to me. 

“Ew so girly!” I squirmed as I scrolled through the SP page.  Aha, I bet God was laughing at my foolishness. Once I smelt the perfume by the senior and inquired about the course which is by the way is 70% chemistry and 30% fragrance and cosmetics applications, I was like okay this is the one for me. I don’t know how, what, why I feel that way. I just knew, yes I am going into this course. I thank God PFP gave me 5 choices to fill in or else I really don’t know what courses to put. So first choice, I put Chemical Engineering and second choice, Perfumery and Cosmetic Science and the following random courses you don’t have to know.

Wait a sec. Pauline didn’t you knew Perfumery and Cosmetic Science for the ONE for you?? That list of choices I put originally, I showed it to my mum first. She nodded and agreed with my choices. And I did the most riskiest and badass thing ever.

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I switched the positions. YES YOU DID NOT READ IT WRONG.

Perfumery and Cosmetic Science was my first choice and I got in by my first choice. Praise the Lord, I swear it was risky but yes hey I got into my course! Guess what? I really love what I learnt, and God have been dropping hints about my career related to my course.  Everything from poly onwards is just... really by God. It’s not me, and without Him, I really don’t know where I am going. Can I just say that God actually knowledge my artistic side and know what is best for me?! You can really trust God in what you are going to do in the future :)  Now I dream about being a perfumer, making scents and making beautiful smells!

Many more things I want to credit God, but I will stop here. I enjoyed how much God has given me in my life. I used to think I have nothing and quite useless but God gave me something, a hope and a future. I mean, I have this relationship with the God who knows everything about me, including my future. 

Love you very much, God. Thank you for knowing who I am.