In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ I share. For many years, my mother has loved and still loves hymn 485, which is “I Know Who Holds Tomorrow.” I think that this is a hymn that hits home for my family since we constantly feel God’s grace, guidance, and power in our lives every single day. There are often times in my life where I want to do something one way, but God directs my steps in another direction. In these cases, I usually don’t see God’s guidance until a little while after everything has happened, but when I do realize, I am reminded that God is the one who holds tomorrow.
The experience I would like to share is about my university application process and program selection. Around the end of 2016 and towards the beginning of 2017, I was working on my applications for university, and there was this one program called Health Sciences (BHSc) that I really wanted to get into. It was a nation renowned program that had a lot of benefits for students like me, who are looking to walk on the medicine path. When I was applying, I applied for 3 programs: Kinesiology, Life Sciences, and Health Sciences at McMaster University. At first, I was very set on going to the Kinesiology program here if I didn’t get into the BHSc program, and the Life Sciences program was my last choice out of the 5 programs that I applied to at all the different universities. As the year went by, I started receiving my acceptance emails and letters, all except for my top choice. By the time the acceptances for BHSc came out, it was already evident that I didn’t get accepted into the program, even though I tried very hard on my application. I was pretty discouraged at this time since in my mind I thought I had a pretty good chance of getting in.
After receiving all my acceptance and rejection, the next step was to choose which university and program to attend. Originally, I planned on doing Kinesiology, since I applied to 3 different kinesiology programs across 3 different schools. For the school, I ended up choosing to go to McMaster University, and so the last choice that I would have to make is whether I would do Life Sciences or Kinesiology. One would think that since I applied to so many kinesiology programs, that this decision would’ve been easy. However, I suddenly started to think about attending the school for Life Sciences instead of Kinesiology. For the next few weeks, I poured all my spare time into deciding which program to choose. I asked my parents for advice on what they think, but all they said was to pray about it and ask God to give me the wisdom to choose which program would be best for me, so that’s what I did. In my mind, I thought that both programs had their own pros and cons, and I would both lose and gain something no matter which program I chose. A few weeks later, mere days before the decision deadline, I decided to choose what was originally my last choice: Life Sciences. Even after I accepted the offer, I was worried that I might have chosen the wrong program and that kinesiology was a better fit for me. However, I think God really gave me a peace after praying more about it, so I knew that I made the correct choice.
Once I started school, I enjoyed my program quite a lot. The material that we covered was familiar, and I liked the format of most of my classes, and made some good friends first year. One day, I was having lunch with my friend who was in the same program, and he mentioned that he wanted to switch over to BHSc as a second-year transfer. Until that point, I didn’t know that this was possible, but I also didn’t jump at the opportunity to switch into the program that I so desperately wanted to be in a year ago. He urged also to apply to switch over, but I was hesitant. I think it was because I am one who is afraid of rejection, and since I’ve already gotten rejected once before, I didn’t want to put myself in the position to be rejected again. Being in the Life Sciences program, I had all the required courses that I needed to make the switch. As I thought about it more, I realized that I would not be able to apply to be a transfer student if I had chosen to enter the kinesiology program. Therefore, I thought about this possibility more after that lunch, and I mentioned this opportunity to my friends and to my parents, and they all advised that I apply. So, after their encouragements, I decided on a whim that I would apply anyways, since I had a few choices for specializations after the first year.
When I wrote my application, I don’t think I put as much time or effort as I did into my application when I first did it. I didn’t want to put my heart into this program only to be rejected again. When it was the day that specializations were to be announced, my heart was pounding. I had told myself that I didn’t want to get my hopes up and that I would probably be put in my second-choice specialization. As I opened the browser, my eyes read my specialization placement which said: “Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours).” It took me a while to realize what was going on because my brain was set on seeing the words: “Bachelor of Life Sciences (Honours),” and when what I saw and what I was thinking didn’t match up, I was taken aback. When I finally realized that I had been accepted, I was so happy and so thankful, because thinking back on my application, it wasn’t very well written since I spent less than a week on it.
When the new year started, and as I started my second year in a new program, I immediately regretted choosing to switch over. The classes were not the types of classes that I was used to, the assignments were not the standard assignments that I used to write, and I had to meet a new set of people. However, when the end of the year came about, I started reflecting on my time in this new program, and I found out that I’ve grown a lot as a person and as a student. I’ve become more patient with other people, especially in group settings. I’ve also improved and have gotten more comfortable with public speaking, since I had to practise presenting for my classes. I’ve also become better with my time management, since I had to balance so many responsibilities from school, church, work, and volunteering.
During this whole process, I felt as if I had no idea what I was doing in life. I was going through year by year, changing programs every year, without a set direction in life. However, looking back on it, I realize that God was guiding me the whole way. If I had gotten into BHSc in my first year, I wouldn’t have experienced the benefits of the Life Sciences program that the regular BHSc students didn’t experience. Being a transfer also has its own perks. If I had chosen to do kinesiology instead of Life Sciences, then I wouldn’t have been able to transfer over to my current program. If I hadn’t talked to my friend, I wouldn’t have known about this opportunity. I believe that God was guiding me throughout this whole journey, opening doors and closing doors when necessary. He knows what is the best for me, and He holds my future in His hands. I know who holds tomorrow, and He holds onto my tomorrow.
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