If you're a big fan of God's words and faith building seminars, you'd know what I'm talking about. Over forty thousand people from over 100 countries, representing almost every single Christian denomination, travel the world to attend this conference. Through the amazing atmosphere of worship and through the word of God spoken by world-known anointed preachers, flawed, sinful, ordinary people like you and me, encounter the almighty God.
This year however, the devil tried very hard to distract us in many ways. Ever since we landed in Sydney, right through to the last day of the conference, one incident after another just had to happen. What I'm about to share is something very personal to us, and I have thought long and hard about whether to share this or not, but I just feel in my heart that this happened for one reason: that His children may be strengthened and encouraged, and His name may be glorified. If you happen to be reading this blog entry, can I just warn you that it is quite long, but if you choose to continue, I pray that God will speak to you personally and encourage you in your journey of life.
We landed in Sydney on Saturday morning. As soon as we landed, I took Naomi to the bathroom and I notice that I was bleeding. What we have kept a secret from everyone except for our family, is that about three weeks prior to the trip I tested positive for pregnancy, and that morning I was about 9-10 weeks pregnant. When I found out about the pregnancy, V & I thought about cancelling the trip because last year in September, I had a miscarriage. Nobody knew why, but I had two interstate work trips during my first trimester just a few weeks before the miscarriage, so we thought we should cancel this trip. The thing is, we were both so excited about this conference, and we both believed that if this baby is meant to be, it will survive the one trip we've planned a whole year long. So we decided to go anyway.
At first I only noticed spotting, and according to pregnancy resources, it does not necessarily mean a miscarriage, so I just kept praying for God's protection on the baby and I surrendered everything into His hands. In my mind I could not stop thinking about it, and it was quite distracting at times. During the conference I had to rebuke all my negative thoughts and surrender everything to God, over and over again, just so I can concentrate.
In addition to that, on Tuesday night when the first night rally began, I received a very disturbing phone call from my mum who was looking after Naomi for us. To cut long story short and to respect some privacy, let's just say I had a family conflict. It was annoying, anger-stirring, and most of all, distracting. I just felt like the devil really used all sorts of things to distract me from hearing from God in the conference.
On the second day, we were very blessed to be hearing from Priscilla Shirer, Brian Houston, and John C Maxwell. Naomi spent the day at kids' church and I believed she was blessed too. There was a lot of build up for the night rally, and we were all excited to attend the second night rally and the devil knew it. As I was walking towards the venue, Naomi all of a sudden fell. She tripped over something and when she got up, she cried and held her left elbow. She seemed to be in a lot of pain, and she kept crying. She would not let anyone touched her elbow or her arm. She held it close to her chest the whole time and she would not move it due to the pain. We took her to the first aid people and they suggested that we took her to the Children's Hospital Emergency and so we did. We were blessed to have some volunteers drove us there. During the whole incident, V & I were just shaking our heads. We just could not believe that it's just been one incident after another. We just felt like devil tried really hard this year to distract us, and more than anything we were very very very angry.
After a long wait and a very difficult x-ray session (because she would not move her arm beyond 10 cm off her chest), the doctor finally figured out that there was no broken bone and Naomi's somehow pulled her elbow and it need to be manually repositioned. Apparently this is common for kids and can easily be done when they're younger. However, in this case, Naomi's 6 y.o and has a bit of strength to actually resist while the doctor was trying to reposition the elbow joint. Finally, after spending about 4 hours in the hospital and a bucketful of tears, we were able to go home. Although Naomi went home with a life-long hatred for doctors and the hospital, at least her elbow was fixed. As for us, we just had to put aside our disappointment and anger, because at the end of the day nothing matters more than our one and only little princess.
That night I was just exhausted and in tears, I really had have enough by then. My bleeding and my family saga continued in the background through the first two days. By then I just believed that something big and powerful was about to happen through the conference. That's why the devil tried so hard to distract us by using all sorts of things including our own family members. That night we prayed and prayed and prayed for the Holy Spirit to fight the battle for us. As a family, we choose not to be discouraged, but to continue to praise Him. We choose to believe....
… that everything happens for a reason.
… that God will fight the battle for us.
… that our lives will be used to display His amazing love.
Thursday, day three of the conference, went quite smoothly. We were blessed and encouraged by His words and His presence. We were filled with peace and joy, and totally enjoyed everything right through to the end of the night rally. Then we went home to our apartment.
As if the devil just could not stand looking at us being so blessed by His presence, on Thursday night he began another incident. At just before midnight, I started bleeding quite heavily. It was similar to the first miscarriage that I had in September last year. I knew then that I had to take myself to the hospital emergency. So my brother took us there.
At the rate that I was bleeding, I thought the doctor would see me right away and from last year's experience as soon as the doctor proceed with the minor procedure, I was out of the hospital within about 2-3 hours. However, as soon as I got to the hospital, my body decided to slow down the bleeding. Therefore I was not an urgent priority and had to wait in the queue to be seen by the doctor. We waited for hours and Naomi had to sleep on V while we sat in the waiting room. We waited and waited and the bleeding stayed at quite a stable, 'non-urgent' rate. So I decided to walk up and down the empty hospital corridor, praying for God to intervene. I prayed for God to speed up my bleeding, to just let the whole thing pour like a flood so we can get the whole thing over and done with and my hubby and little princess can go home and enjoy their sleep. After waiting for about two hours, I started bleeding quite heavily and was finally seen by a doctor. So she did what she had to do and everything was done within about one hour. It was nearly 5 am Friday morning, and she's made me an appointment to be seen by the specialist at 7.30 am in the morning so I sent V and Naomi home while I waited for my appointment.
Four hours later, I was sitting in the doctor's room and was told that a miscarriage had taken place but everything went well and my uterus seemed quite empty and normal. I was released home. Hearing that for the second time within a year gave me mixed emotions. I had lots of questions in my mind, I did not understand why or what had happened in relation to God and what He's doing in our lives. I was sad, upset, angry, confused, all at the same time. We've been praying for Naomi to have a sibling, Naomi's been praying for a lot longer than we have. We thought God carefully knitted this baby in my womb. We thought He wanted to bless us with another child. All these thoughts and questions ran through my head. I was confused.
At that time I knew that I had to make a choice.
I could choose to be bitter and disappointed with God, or I could choose to continue to believe that He is good despite of our current circumstances.
I could choose to go home and cry over something I could no longer change, or I could put it all behind and move on with this God given life.
I could choose to give up all this work for His kingdom, or I could continue believing that He has a greater plan for us.
Through it all, there was one thing that just seemed to overflow my heart and overtake my minds and my emotions. Right there and then, in that small doctor's office, without a doubt, I knew that although I don't understand it all, God still loves me. I just knew in my heart that our God, the God of Abraham, the father of Jesus Christ, is just too good and too loving to bring evil and harm to the lives of His children. He who name every star in the sky, He who whispered them all to their place, He who gave up His only son to pay for my sins, He knows everything. Everything happened within His sovereign knowledge, and a sense of His unending love just overflowed my heart in a way that I just cannot explain with words.
It was no longer a choice to make. I did not even had to choose my next attitude. It was like God had choosen my attitude for me. It was almost like I had no other choice, but to continue to thank Him, and to praise Him, and to believe that He is good. There was an overflow of grace and abundance of faith within me that I never even knew existed. No wander Paul said that if God allowed troubles and trials to come your way, He will give you the strength and the faith to handle it; and these trials and tribulation will do nothing but strengthen us in our faith and our spirit. So that afternoon I went home to rest, and by 5pm we were back in Sydney Entertainment Centre, full of joy, full of peace, ready to hear from Him, ready to encounter Him, …. and we did.
That night,Jantezen Franklin spoke about Jacob. After the death of his favourite son, Joseph, Jacob held on to Joseph's bloody coat and grief. He grief over Joseph for a long period of time that the bloody coat became the centre of his life. It controlled his thoughts and emotions, it changed the atmosphere of his household, and it brought dullness and sadness into their everyday lives. For a long period of time, Jacob was robbed of his joy, of his peace and of the other great things God might have possibly planned for his life. Simply because he chose to focus on the bloody coat, on Joseph's death, on the past tragedy of life.
Jentezen also spoke about Peter, who once said he loved Jesus three times, and swore to never disown him. Pushed to the corner, motivated by his own selfish desire to not be hated by the crowd, Peter went against his own words and disown Jesus three times before the rooster crowed, just as Jesus had said he would. From that day on, every time the rooster crowed, Peter was reminded of his act of betrayal to the one he swore to love. Every time the rooster crowed, Peter was reminded of how evil and bad he was as a friend and a disciple. Every time the rooster crowed, he felt condemned, guilty, and ashamed for what he has done.
Some of us has a bloody coat in our lives. Past tragedies that we do not understand. Past events which have brought hurt, pain, bitterness, anger and tears. While others have a rooster crowing into their heads of their past guilt sin and shame everyday of their lives, telling them that they're worthless or useless, or simply bringing past sins to condemn us, to fill our lives with guilt and shame, so that we cannot accept the fact that there is a God who loves us despite of our sinful nature. Some of us has a coat, or a rooster, or both, and they rob us of the joy of life, of peace, of abundant blessings and of great future that God had planned for us.
If that's you, it is time to let go..... It is time to move on.... It is time to put the past behind and believe that your life has been designed for a greater and much fulfilling purpose than just to grief, or to be angry, or to be disappointed, or to be sad. All it takes is faith as small as a mustard seed, a faith that believes that there is a God who loves you unconditionally. Despite of what you've done, who you are, your past and your background, and that He has given His one and only son, Jesus, to die for your sins so that He can love you and have a relationship with you. Believe that God has a great plan for you, each one of you. He has come so that we can have an 'abundant' life, and not just survive the motion of life in dullness, bitterness and disappointment. He wants us to experience His power, His generosity, His forgiveness, His grace and mercy, and to have a blessed, abundant life despite of our circumstances.
There and then, amongst thousands other conference delegates, I understood that everything that we went through helped brought the words of the Bible to life. As if Jentezen Franklin was talking to me and nobody else, I knew not just in my head, but also in my heart that what he was saying is true.
I am writing to testify that this is exactly what we're experiencing right now. Despite of our circumstances, despite of the devil's attempt to distract us from our love of God, despite of everything that tries to pull us in the other direction, we are overflowed with a sense of blessing, joy, peace, and faith in greater things to come. It's like without any struggle, without any doubt, without any hesitation, we know and we just continue to believe that this is just part one of a greater testimony, and this strength and faith that we have in our hearts come from Him.
With this I pray that you would give God a chance... to take the steering wheel of your life and take you to a more amazing journey of life. That you would give God a chance... to love you and to bless you not just materially, but also physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. That you would give God a chance... to make a difference in your life. That you would give God a chance to have a relationship with you and grant you a blessed eternal life in heaven. Amen.
1 Corinthians 10
13 No temptation[c] has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted[d] beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,[e] he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
Ma Irene I can read your blogs everyday!! I love it, its so encouraging. You really should turn your blogs into a devotional book, God is telling me to tell you this :) May God continue to bless you and your family.
ReplyDeleteDaph
xoxo