He Holds My Hand

by Si Nan

In November 1994 I came to T City, a small city in southern U.S.A. There I came to know the true God.

My husband had arrived in America five months before me. Soon he began to talk about religion in his letters to me. Once he copied out for me the verses about love from I Corinthians chapter 13. Those verses were beautiful, but I didn't know they were from the Bible. When I came to America, I was very surprised to discover that he had been baptized and become a Christian. I asked him, "Do you really believe all this?" He replied with certainty, "Yes, I do." I found it hard to comprehend. Our entire generation has been brought up on the concept of self-accomplishment and we grew up believing that there was no savior, that it was we ourselves who were completely responsible for our happiness in life. How could he have completely surrendered himself in as little as two months? This was quite beyond my understanding.

The whole atmosphere of T City was strongly religious. The hearts of these southern folk were as warm and bright as their southern sun! Right after my arrival I found out that two nearby American churches were offering free English classes along with hymns and Bible studies. It was near Christmas and the teachers invited us to their homes for games, refreshments, singing and gift sharing.

T City was a college city, but its business center was quite a distance from where students lived. Because new students normally couldn't afford a car, the men in the church had a driving roster for taking us on the 20-minute trip to the shopping center. We were also frequently invited to dinner, during which the subject of religion was often sensitively raised. One of the Christian ladies from Hong Kong was a pastor, and she ran a series of seminars about how to know ourselves, how to know others and how to know God. She often came to visit me, chatting about everday things before she touched on the subject of the Gospel. "After all, I am a pastor!" she explained.

In those days as I lived among Christians I became very aware of this special Christian love and so I became curious about Christianity as well as being deeply impressed. What made me truly believe in God, however, was what He actually did in my own life.

When I first came to America, it was with plans to continue my education here. My husband kept saying in his letters that he hoped I could come and study rather than work because he wanted me to feel fulfilled here. Everyone knows that studying in America involves some tough issues: language proficiency, financial assistance, getting a job. I am thankful that over the past three years I have really experienced the grace of the true and living God in these three areas.

I had taken the TEOFL test in China, but it was not until I came to America that I realized I had to take the GRE as well to be considered for graduate school enrolment. If I applied for graduate school for the next fall, I would have to send all supporting documents to the graduate school three months before the semester started, including my GRE scores. Two test dates were available, one in December and the other in the following April. I didn't have enough time to make the December test date and the April test date would be too late for the application. But then I heard that computerized GRE tests were offered every month and that gave me some hope. I made plans to take the test at the end of February. Then I was told that the test on that date had been cancelled. Only the one in early February was available and even that one was rescheduled to take place a few days earlier. I only had a little over a month to prepare for the test. With virtually no materials to study at home other than a dictionary, I went to the library every day, but really with no idea how I could manage to prepare for the test within such a short period of time nor what kind of questions I would be likely run into. I felt under tremendous pressure. To make matters worse, on the day before I took the test I was outside playing Frisbee with my husband when I accidentally stepped on a piece of wood and tripped. My foot was so swollen that I could hardly walk. When I got back home, I tried all the medications I could lay my hands on but none of them was effective. All night my foot hurt so badly that I couldn't get to sleep. The next morning I hopped into the testing center in extreme pain.

After four hours of concentrating in front of the computer screen my eyes were aching. But when my test scores finally appeared on the screen I could hardly believe what I was seeing . Even if I had had another 3 months of preparation for the test I couldn't have scored as well ! Outside the testing center my husband shared my surprise and joy. As we sat in the front yard watching the sun set beyond the mountains, I began to sense, for the first time in my life, this mighty Creator's touch on my life.

Having obtained good GRE scores, I soon ran up against the next challenge - financial aid. It was not surprising that my name was not among those who were first in line for assistance because the Electric Engineering Department, the one I applied for, was one of the favorite majors among applicants. I tried to find part-time work, but God didn't open that door. All summer I worked on my computer programming besides paying occasional visits to the head of the department, collecting new information and making myself known. The last time I went there, I told him that I had some working experience in integrated circuitry and I was also very interested in this subject. Then a few days later, a lady professor called me and asked if I had any interest in her research subject. She said she could give me a research assistant grant.

Her research subject was about cleaning up disks in the field of integrated circuit but I hesitated. The research grant was certainly tempting but the field didn't seem promising. I had been working with another computer engineering professor in the field of image compression, which seemed to offer better career potential. So I asked the lady professor if I could do the research for her but pick image compression as the subject for my thesis. She refused because she didn't want me getting burnt out from working in two different fields at the same time.

In the end I took the grant though not without some anxiety about my future career. That was two years ago. Today, I have a very good job. Not only do I thank the Lord for this, but I have also realised that God's wisdom is far better than ours and God's arrangements for our future are the best ones of all.

My thesis advisor was actually a very friendly lady. She gave me complete freedom in selecting courses and very little pressure in my research work. Although one year had gone by and our research grant had expired, I continued to receive the teaching assistant grant. At that time I was pregnant and I figured I couldn't perform any more research work because in the lab I was constantly exposed to poisonous chemicals which could be hazardous to the baby. I told the department head I'd like to work as a teaching assistant correcting students' homework assignmens instead of running research labs. He agreed. So except for class time, I spent most of my time resting at home while correcting students papers. Final exams came just when my pregnancy had entered its final stage. While I was sitting in the classroom taking exams, my husband quietly waited outside the classroom prepared to drive me to the hospital at any moment. Nevertheless, under God's protection I passed all the exams without incident. Early this year our child was born. By then I had successfully completed all the required courses, except for the thesis. So I had plenty of time to do that while I was home caring for our baby. Everyone congratulated us on our good timing in it all. But how would they understand that ordinary people like us could never control timing as well as God had!

With the arrival of our baby, we were no longer as free to do what we wanted; stability became our first priority. My husband's advisor retired and my husband had to go to another school to continue his graduate study. At that time our hope had been that we could graduate at the same time and then move into a new situation together. I also hoped he could find a job close to his new school. At the beginning of the year these were simply dreams, but by year's end they had all become reality.

Three years have passed since I came to America. When we first came, we were empty-handed and didn't know where we were heading. Today our family life is filled with God's grace. Whenever we look back at our past footprints, we sing these words in our hearts: "I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand."

The author came from Hangzhou. Now she works in Los Angeles.