God's Words To Comfort The Hurting - Sis Stephanie Chong

 

In Fall 2016, everything good in my life seemed to fall apart. My husband filed for divorce and abandoned our home. We had two young children, who were left confused and hurt, and I was crippled by bitterness and all-consuming pain. I was later diagnosed with a malignant growth in my right thigh muscle. I was surrounded by brokenness in every aspect of my life. Alone, I couldn’t salvage any hope in my life. Believe me, I had tried.

During this time, I would frequent Sarawak General Hospital with my sister, Ann. One day, Ann brought Louise, an Auxiliary, to visit me. Eventually, she gave me a bilingual Chinese/English Testament. I read the Scripture and found the Word comforting. It was in October when I accepted Christ into my life.

Later that year, I had two operations to remove the tumor in my thigh. As a new believer, I had many questions for God. Why were these things happening in my life? Did He care about my situation? What did I do wrong to deserve these things?

I spoke with Louise and Ann, and they encouraged me to keep my faith in God and pray without ceasing. I didn’t know much about prayer and saw it as a Christian obligation, much like reading the Bible. I had no idea there was so much power in it.

I began spending time at night in the Word of God, after putting my children to bed. As days became weeks, I sensed things starting to change because I was shifting my focus to God. I found peace in my heart that was beyond explanation.

With every hospitalization, God’s Word became my best companion—it worked better than medicine. I was in communication and relationship with the Lord when I opened Scripture. The Word comforted my heart and gave me assurance of His presence. Not only did He heal me, but God continues to make me new each and every day.

Rev Timothy Lam saved through One Gideon Testament

 I come from a family of four, where my parents were free thinkers. Although they both were educated in English medium schools, they were not particularly religious. Their parents were practising Taoist, rooted in Chinese religion and customs.

With this as a backdrop, my childhood and early teens was in a non Christian environment except for the seedbed of Christian school system, from my church-based kindergarten until I completed my secondary school education in a mission school. Without a personal knowledge and relationship with God, I spent a lot of time with television and cinema, amusement parks and hanging around with my gangs. I hero-worshipped actors and even aspired to have a career in movie making. Soon, I was not doing well in my studies and became a rebellious child. 

While I was in secondary school, I received my first New Testament distributed by the Gideons. As I started to read about Jesus and learnt more about His exploits, I was so attracted to Him and eventually looked to Him as my new 'hero'. I embarked on a journey to know Him more. As I did so, I grew to love and accept Him as my personal Saviour. I remember using the prayer at the back of my Gideon pocket New Testament; more than once, to acknowledge my need of Him, repent of my sins and pledge to follow Him. As the pocket sized New Testament was handy, it was easy for me to learn to memorise Scripture portions. This helped me to grasp the Word of God. 

As I look back, I am grateful to God for revealing Himself to me as I read the New Testament given through the Gideons. It was a good start for me as when I eventually had my entire Bible some time later, Scripture reading was not strange to me.

A few months later, I attended an evangelistic meeting in a local church. Towards the end of the meeting, I responded to the invitation to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. That evening, my thoughts were flooded with how wonderful Jesus is to me, and only He could wash my sins away and make me a new person. I welcomed Him into my life and asked Him to be my Lord and God. 

Soon after that, I attended church regularly and took part in bible study classes as well as home groups. As I was using my Gideon New Testament regularly for some time, I was more familiar with the Word of God making me keen to study more in depth. Eventually I was baptised and continued to grow in the Lord, gradually I also started to serve in church ministries like teaching Sunday School, leading in songs of praise and worship, youth fellowship.   At a youth camp one year, I responded to the call of serving God in full time Christian work although I did not immediately do so. I was trained in computer studies and pursued a career in the IT industry. God blessed me with good work prospects and I could share His Word and love with those in my workplace. I also learnt to put biblical perspectives at work. 

Finally, I took the step to pursue theological education. Upon graduation, I went on to serve as a full-time pastor with a denominational Church. Then, I obeyed the Lord to serve as a itinerant preacher to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, bringing me to different parts of Malaysia and the nations around Asia and the Pacific.