27 May 2025

The period of rest can often feel the most daunting.
Jesus tells us to rest in Him. To pray. To simply be.

To be still.

But how can you be still?
How can you rest, go about your day, smile in meetings, lift your voice on calls, comfort others, and celebrate everyone else getting the very things you’ve been dreaming of—when you yourself are crumbling?

I’m going through that right now.
To be honest, I’ve been walking through it for months.

Crying out to anyone who would listen.
Crying out to the Lord with the one question that echoes over and over:
“When will I begin to see Your goodness?”

Doubts plague me. Was it real? Was it all a hoax? Am I the most foolish person alive?
Is He even listening? Is He even real?

And yet—when I read the Bible and pray—my heart yearns deeply for Him.
If Jesus isn’t real, then why does my spirit long for Him like this?
What else could explain this hunger?

Because the alternative—a life without salvation, without redemption, without hope—seems unbearable.
No, it can’t be.

The College I Never Thought I’d Get

I remember finishing 12th grade. Good grades, high hopes. The chaos of college admissions was like a whirlwind. I desperately wanted to get into a good college—one that wouldn’t stifle me or ask me to hide my phone or braid my hair to fit in.

I had one dream:
SSN College of Engineering in Chennai.

I applied. I even wrote the entrance exam. But I never heard back.

Instead, I got admission into another university under Anna University—one I never wanted. And I was crushed.

All I could think was, “This isn’t fair. I worked hard. I fought hard. I don’t deserve this. Is this my reward just because I was born into a category not of my choosing?”

I started the term, brokenhearted.
I’d cry on my way back from college, every single day.

Now, I know how this sounds.
All this fuss over a college, Nisha?

But this wasn’t just about college. It was about feeling forgotten.
It was about seeing a lifelong dream slip through my fingers and feeling like God let it happen.

Then, something happened.

The Prophetic “S” and the Missed Application

My mother was my biggest pillar of support, constantly praying for me.
She said I’d get what my heart desired. I didn’t believe her.

One day, she was praying with a close friend—someone gentle, prophetic, and incredibly in tune with the Lord.

After praying, Amma came to me and said, “Let’s go to the SSN admission office. Aunty says your application hasn’t moved. She keeps seeing the letter ‘S’.”

I scoffed.
“Well, she’s not wrong. I am already in an ‘S’ university.”

Amma replied with words I’ll never forget:
“No, she sees two S’s superimposed. It’s SSN. But there’s a problem in the office.”

Scoffing? Rolling your eyes? Confused? Curious?

Well, I wouldn’t share this if it wasn’t true.

The next day, confused, skeptical, but holding onto a tiny flicker of curiosity, we went to SSN. At the SSN admission office, we explained our situation. After some digging, the administrator found that my application never even made it into the selection process. It had been rejected by the system before it was ever considered—because someone had mistyped my application number during manual entry.

Let that sink in.
One digit. One error.
A dream that died before it had a chance to breathe.

They promised to correct the error and reprocess it.

The Miracle

9 days at the other university.
Just nine.

One day, while returning home from college, I received a call from SSN.

A week or two later, I was standing outside the first-year block’s Biomedical Engineering classroom at SSN College of Engineering—nervous, in disbelief, heart pounding.

Two kind girls greeted me and ushered me in.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Back to Now

When the silence lingers and God feels distant, I try to remember this moment. This miracle.

There are still days I haven’t seen miracles in a while. Still days I feel forgotten. But now, I’ve learned to remember alongside the despair.

I’m still learning to stop fretting.
Still learning to wait with hope instead of fear.
Still learning that sometimes God’s silence is not His absence—it’s the space where roots grow deeper before they hold up the tree.

So today, I choose to rest.

To remember.
To believe that this is not the end of the road.
This is not the end of the story.

He is still writing it.

This season of silence is only for a little while more—until He sets into motion His will, mingled with the righteous desires we hold in our hearts.

I believe He made me remember this miracle today,
so I wouldn’t forget the kind of God I belong to.

And if you’re reading this… maybe He wanted you to remember too.

Nisha M
Walking on Water