VirtuaLife

For a page that is about my life, I don't really talk about it directly. Oh, the events are based on things that have happened or are happening to me, but I have this incredible (and annoying, to some) tendency to make my thoughts rather… abstract.

So, let me post something nice and simple. Something you can relate to without much effort. I want to talk families. I want to talk about Mummy Lim.

Here’s the story. I come from a single-parent family, the divorce of which was particularly bitter. From this event I nurtured an attitude of scepticism towards people, towards relationships, and even towards myself. In some ways it was good as it forced me to rely on God for everything that I did. However, in many other ways it was also bad… for reasons that influence me till this very day. Because of this I have never felt close to my family. And that feeling has been central to many... issues. Namely my insensitivity and can't-be-bothered-ness towards mummy Lim and Dot. And at the time I was only nice to Daddy Lim because I was wary of his motives and tried to second-guess them. Outwardly it looked like I'd held everything together pretty successfully, but inside it felt much more like a psychological war-zone.

As I grew up and my faith matured, the conflict intensified. Attacks upon my character became more common. Those from external sources were understandable… I handled them the best way I could have in that time and with what wisdom and faith I had. But they were not the real gripe. It was the internal attacks that truly exposed me. Attacks from mum. Attacks from my sister. And emotional burden from dad. Tell me, how is a 12-16 year old boy prepped to handle stuff like that? The one preserving element of my faith was an encounter I had with God (when I was 11 or 12) that, time and time again, prevent me from denying Him. So I stood my ground, albeit shakily, desperately grasping onto whatever I had.

Sixteen years old. The rebellion years. I never took drugs (although I was offered). I never smoked, apart from one incident where I tried to in my backyard in the middle of summer and subsequently set a bush on fire (the start of my dramatic career, yay). At the time I served in the worship ministry in Christian Outreach Centre (COC) on Tuesday nights, some Saturdays, and all day Sunday. Mummy Lim was already at World Harvest Ministries. Dot was over at Garden City Church (and even Hope Brisbane, for a while). I was a Christian, but my walk was radically different from the matriarch of the family, mummy Lim. And once again, that was a huge source of disagreement and fallout. I can’t recount the specifics, but I do remember the emotions I harboured towards mummy Lim. Anger. Condescension. Contempt. Superiority. I used to entertain myself with a ‘what-if’ scenario… what if mummy Lim died? How would I feel? How would I react?

The answer was… inhuman. Suffice to say, as far as emotions went, I was pretty much emotionally dead. Indifferent and uncaring. In my puritan approach to Christianity, coupled with an immature understanding of God’s agape love, I had barricaded my mind and heart in a fortress so impregnable that no person could enter it.

To shorten a long testimony, the catalyst for change was my time at Overseas Christian Fellowship (OCF) that for two-and-a-half years was the mechanism by which God chose to mount His assault on my life. If you know of my God, you know that when He wants something, He gets it. So He got me… and my attention. It has hardly been a walk in the park since then, but things have changed. For the better. My relationships with the family were still rocky, but… well, at least they existed, now. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Evaluation time presented itself most unusually. It was last Friday, after life group and around midnight (group Connect was on the next day). I was about ready to go to bed and mummy Lim was in the sun-room doing her accounts. I happened to pop my head in the door and a conversation started. And continued. And continued. Until 4:30am. In that time, we aired grievances, differences in opinion, differentiation between action and intention, talked about bitterness and forgiveness… you name it and it was there. There were tears (and also toilet breaks!) but they weren’t sad – they were just expressions of emotions so real that we—mummy Lim and I—couldn’t let go of them.

A few nights ago, I gave myself the same ‘what-if’ scenario. To my immense relief and conviction the tears began to well in my eyes almost immediately. I’m so proud of mummy Lim. Of all the hardships she has overcome, of all the things she has done in steel-clad conviction for God. She is one of the things in my life that would hurt me most to lose. We still don’t see eye-to-eye, but we face in the same direction, now. A family? We’re learning to be one, again.

It took almost a decade, but refinement in God’s eyes is a lifelong journey. Father God? Let me count my blessings. Thank you for making me human again. Make me, mould me, use me and fill me… I give my life to the Potter’s hands (The Potter’s Hands, Hillsongs).