Growing up my idea of God was all about love. I understood little about God and His gospel. I thought that what ultimately matters is God’s love for us. The turning point was when a friend from my university offered to read the bible with me. He showed me from the bible that God sets apart a holy people for himself by choosing some people for salvation and perseveres them until the end. Passages like Ephesians 1, Romans 8 and 9 have shown me an idea of God that was very foreign to me. Before I came to CERC, I would quote the bible or read it only to feel comfort, I would not look for the author’s intention. There are a lot of things that I realized about myself after coming to CERC, I think God has slowly exposed me in a few ways: My desire to be understood is really strong, to the point where it can affect my love for God and his church.Not being able to get along well or having disagreements with God’s people results in emotional pain and hurt that is hard to bear. It does affect me quite a bit as a people person. I always have to remind myself that in the end, what matters is about God and His church, not just focusing on me or my emotional pain, but what matters is His church being built up and that all glory goes to Him. And if that means for me to suffer so that God's church can be built up, then so be it. I realized that I am really bad at suffering well. I struggled to appreciate God maturing us through suffering. Reflecting on the book of James with my GG and the church offering to help with my replacement duties helped. I find myself just trying to persevere through the suffering rather than rejoicing in it. The gospel culture that this church has is pretty amazing – how we encourage discussions during sermons and make sure to have post sermon discussions after gathering. CERC takes evangelism and Christ’s command of making all disciples of all nations seriously. CERC is not a perfect church and there are many areas of improvement. I personally think people in this church needs to improve in pastoral care. However, despite it not being a perfect church, ultimately what matters is that they are faithful to God’s Word, everything else takes secondary from there.What CERC has –the various ministries, the gospel culture, the commitment to God and his ministry is rare. I would like to be part of this church which blesses Christians beyond our own walls and use my gifts to serve in this church to the best of my abilities, even though I will struggle alot.