A Senior Reflects on Formative Years of Christian Community
By Alice Huang, Yale ’22
Being a member of Christian Union Lux has thoroughly shaped my time at Yale. The community of CU was so vital in keeping my life centered on Christ, even in as busy and distracting of an environment as college. I can honestly say that despite growing up in a Christian household, I experienced the most dramatic growth in my relationship to God in the last four years—growth which I attribute to the loving ministry fellows, my dedicated peers in CU, and the thought-provoking curriculum.
Christian Union has connected me with wise mentors and role models who have supported me through my college experience, not only spiritually but also academically, mentally, and emotionally. My closest friends are people I have met through CU Lux. I found a family and a home away from home. I will forever hold the memories I have made and the relationships I have developed with people in Christian Union close to my heart.
From my time with CU Lux, I have realized that faith is something we must constantly cultivate and dedicate time to nurturing. It can be so easy to become distracted by work, classes, extracurriculars, or even friends and become complacent in your faith. Even while holding leadership positions within CU Lux, I would occasionally find myself drifting farther from God, not as consistently seeking Him, or spending time with my Bible. I would feel the most disheartened, the most lethargic, and lacking in joy as the weariness of being a student became overwhelming.
In these times, the CU Lux community always drew me back and encouraged me to continue to walk with God in every area of my life, reminding me that the life that I am living is ultimately for God and that all he desires is for us to draw closer to Him. These reminders of my relationship to God and my attempts to seek Him never failed to lift my spirit, allowing me to tackle my responsibilities with energy and exercise a spirit of thankfulness at all the blessings God has provided.
I have also realized the importance of outreach. Being a Christian is certainly a personal journey in which you develop your relationship with God, but there is a significant social component as well. I have recently begun thinking of it as a sort of light radiating outwards. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently wrote, "Light cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one." We work to make ourselves clearer reflections of God's image so that others can see this light and be drawn closer to God. CU Lux's efforts to build community and reach out to other students on campus have really shown me the joy of sharing the gospel and God's love with others.
CU Lux’s emphasis on leadership training has also been particularly valuable to me. I did not anticipate assuming any leadership positions when I initially joined CU, but I am incredibly grateful that Ministry Fellow Chitra Kovoor encouraged me to accept these roles. Assuming these roles gave me the push I needed to honestly evaluate where I stood in relation to God and reflect on whether my personal faith habits made me a good mentor to those on my teams.
Being a leader also requires a great deal of intentionality and dedication in standing up for what you believe in and what you are working for, which especially, in the context of being a leader in a Christian ministry, can be difficult to do at times on a campus as diverse in opinions and beliefs as Yale. In working with my peers to plan various CU events, I have been encouraged to do God’s work actively and intentionally wherever I go.
Alice Huang, a Biomedical engineering major at Yale, has served in various leadership roles with Christian Union Lux.
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