A close encounter with God [1]

My name is Chen Jit Wee and I am Christian. I further my study oversea in Perth Australia for my undergraduate program for a year. In the beginning of the year, I have a quite exciting time because everything is a new experience to me. With that the first year semester pass swiftly and gradual moving into the second semester. Everything changes once the second semester start, life get more hectic for this is my final semester. Workload increases, pressure increase, thing that seem to welcome me in Perth start to repel me and overall circumstance start to choke on me. Everything does not seem to be what used to be. I begin to feel pressure, tension, homesick seep into my mind and I feel down. With that in mind I realize I need to find something to cheer myself up and pick myself from the sorrow pit. Then I remember something. At home I am quite good with gardening, everything I plant grow. Sometime people say I have green finger and I am proud of it. So with that mind, I brought a small plant from the supermarket to try my skill. Outside my hostel room window there is a small patch of land with some landscaping on it. Quickly without any people notice I quickly planted the plant on the ground. Thinking that the plant will grow and it will produce similar result like back home. It surely can enrich my self confidence which I do not have at the moment. Unfortunately the plant dies very fast actually in record time. My mood grew darker and a hit to my self confidence. Though I am weaken in mind and spirit but I do not feel like giving up. So I try again without knowing that Australia ground is mainly making out of desert land. So if in the event that a person wants to plant anything on the land you need to treat it first. One of the way is to put a layer of dark grovel on top of the sandy ground and the plant will feed on the dark grovel and then only the plant will live. If you plant directly into the ground most plant die. On the second day after my first plant die I go out to buy myself another plant. And planted it the same way the day before but this plant did not die but grew beautifully and live. Because the plant live and my self confidence recover, my mood better and I start to pull myself back together. Back to my study, though I did not get splendid result but not too badly either. The plant accompanies me through the bad time that I have. It give me a new perceptive on myself and the environment I am in. I never think that the plant is death. After some time when everything is back to normal I walk out and look for the small plant but I cannot find it no matter where I look. That little plant had die long time ago. The plant was never there very long. Then the question come to my mind what did I see all this time. My own imagination or like the title “An encounter with God”.