When God Turned my Messy Life into a Message

My life was a mess. I grew up in a broken home, witnessed my parents fight all the time with snarling words thrown at each other, was exposed to drugs and infidelity by one of my parents, and almost experienced an abuse by a close relative at a very young age.

I slowly learnt to hide all this mess inside. Slowly, I learnt to put all these things aside, until I would not think about these horrible things anymore. That was how I used to think for a long time, that it was just easier to hide, in spite of all the teachings of my father about Bible stories and Scriptures.

One of the things that my father taught me though was to put my trust in Jesus. I have had many encounters with God growing up, that despite what happened to me, in my family, God has always been there for me. I knew and felt that God still protected me. Hence, I was not completely broken, so to speak.

I knew that God was the One who provided for our needs. There were many instances where my father and us (his five children) would gather around for a mini-Bible study, for example, on one instance when we prayed for a miracle that God would instantly fill up an empty can of powdered milk, so we laid our hands over this empty can and prayed over it. As little children, we believed that Jesus was able to feed 5000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, and that they miraculously multiplied because God made it happen. So we trusted God that he would fill up that empty can. We opened the lid, and it was still empty. But it did not disappoint us. We still trusted that God will provide. A few hours later, a couple of members from our church came with rice, sugar and powdered milk!!!

When I was a teenager, I accepted Jesus Christ into my life for the first time. In spite of this, I had a lot of insecurities, fear, pride and anger that were so deeply rooted in me, and I hid it all. I thought I could balance my dark, ugly life with seemingly bright, clean life. I was a dedicated, diligent student from primary to high school. I was always trying to make sure I had the approval of my father, my relatives, my teachers and my friends, because I thought, though I trust God, one thing I was unsure of was whether I was worthy in His eyes or not.

I did have a genuine relationship with God, but there were areas of my life that I thought He couldn’t handle. So instead of giving them to Him, I walked around with a burden of guilt and masked the negative aspect of my life with good report cards – I thought it was the only thing that mattered because it would give me a good future.

So throughout the years, from teenage years to adulthood, I kept on coming back to God, thinking that by doing that, God would not be TOO far away from me. The relationship would be easier to fix. Thankfully, my father did establish a strong foundation of faith and knowledge of the Lord in us. No matter how many times I falter, I knew deep down inside, God will accept me back into His arms.

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Last year I had the privilege of stepping into Discipleship Training. Through this training, I learnt to share my struggles with my mentors and classmates who prayed hard for me and I saw God delivered me in a mighty way. I learnt that His grace could handle all of me. For the first time in all of my Christian years, I learnt and genuinely understood that at the cross, where Jesus died for my sins, everything that was wrong with me was put on Jesus, and Jesus’ perfection was put on us. I didn’t earn God’s love with all my performances and actions - God loved me even before I had a chance to try and earn it.

The Discipleship training has helped me grow in confidence and courage to be able to share the same freedom with others. I know that the truth of God’s love replaces all the lies in my mind, and now I can really say that I am free in Christ. And each day God continues to shape my heart as I experience and understand more deeply His approval and unchanging love for me in Christ.