Having received a few feedback regarding certain entries in our competition, we feel we need to clarify a few things:
- This competition is based on each writer’s individual experience and provided they can testify to them being genuine, we consider all testimonies valid and eligible for running. We hold to the guideline that each writer is entitled to their own opinions about their experiences, and in their expression of said opinions.
- Currently, this is still part of an ongoing competition. As such, the articles listed on this page are still under the prerogative of each writer and Asian Beacon will not meddle in any way with any content by any writer. If we ever publish any articles under the name of Asian Beacon, we will clearly state our stand on our statement of beliefs.
- This competition is judged purely on the writer’s testimonies and not on the finer points of theology. While the competition is still ongoing, in all cases, and in line with our respect for each writer’s individual testimonies, we adopt a ‘spirit rather than the letter of the law’ approach to each writer’s testimony.
- The Asian Beacon team will endeavour to its utmost to be fair to all participants, without any discrimination, prejudice, or favoritism to any single participant.
- In all cases, the Asian Beacon team will hold true to the conditions we have outlined in our Terms and Conditions for the competition. You may find these terms on https://asianbeacon.org/writing-competition/
Asian Beacon would like to reiterate here that we are all members of Bible-believing churches and we hold to the evangelical creed. We thank those of you who have raised your concerns and hope this will help answer your questions.
Beauty Out of Brokenness
by Elaine YM Lee
I had a perfect life. A loving husband, 4 beautiful children, a big house, a luxury car, and frequent holidays. It was a good marriage and a happy family and I had many people reminding me how blessed I was. Life could not get any better I thought. Sadly, I was proven wrong on the appointed day of revelation. It was on my birthday when a church member walked up to me during my birthday dinner to tell me that she had been having an affair with my husband for the past 3 years. It was the darkest and most painful day of my entire life. I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest and crushed into a million pieces. For the longest time, I believed that I could never recover from the wounds inflicted by his betrayal. It was too much to bear but then we have a faithful, loving God who never leaves us even for a spilt second and He is our healer and restorer. The Sovereign God that sits on the throne is the Holy One that can cultivate Beauty out of Brokenness.
The days, weeks, and months that followed were intensely difficult. I felt like I was neither in the world of the living nor dead. I walked around in a daze and everything felt surreal. There were days that I found myself in a pit of despair so deep that I could not even see the surface. Often, I felt the hurt like the sky that spread over everything. My mind was filled with a million questions that needed answers my husband was unwilling to give truthfully. As I tried to gain my footing on the shifting sands under my feet and crawl my way back to sanity for both mine and the children’s sakes, I realised that it was a losing battle. I could not seem to move forward and seem destined to stay broken forever.
I had reached the end of the road in my own battle, but in doing so, I arrived at the beginning of the road back to God.
Before the shipwreck, my relationship with God was shallow and lukewarm. My slow and steady decline in my personal relationship with God had started as my comfort level grew and my love and pursuit for the things of the world increased. I did not consider myself backslidden in my faith as I still went through the motions of
what was expected of a devoted Christian. I attended church and cell groups faithfully and even the various occasional Christian conferences. My track record for my daily devotion was spot on but my prayers were hurried and repetitive and the bible reading carried out without any real depth of understanding. Devotions were just something that I felt obligated to fulfil as part of my requirement as a Christian. My heart towards Him was lukewarm and very often I could not wait to bolt out of the door when I had spent what I considered an acceptable amount of time in devotion.
At first, I felt that my prayers were just bouncing off the walls and hitting the ceiling. I felt nothing. It was as if there was a huge chasm between God and me. Undeterred, I continued to pursue Him relentlessly as I believed that God was my only hope to get out of the hole of darkness. After a few weeks of seeking Him, I felt impressed to do something I had failed in my Christian walk. Fasting In all my years as a Christian, I was never able to withstand the hunger pangs that accompanied fasting and gave in to the temptation of breaking fast before it was due time. Based on my poor track record, I decided over time that fasting was just “not my thing” Was fasting challenging? Very much so. However, the emotional and mental pain was far greater than the physical pain of hunger and I wanted a breakthrough so desperately that I saw fasting as a gambit move that would pay off eventually. Shortly after fasting regularly, my relationship with God begun to take a new form. My quiet times with Him were no longer born out of obligation and my prayers no longer mechanical as I got real with God.
God was with me every single moment of my painful ordeal, never leaving my side, and always showing up in different ways. When my husband moved out of our home to resume the affair, my hurt intensified and I had a long list of fears including loneliness. I told God how abandoned and alone I felt and He impressed upon me Isaiah 54:6 “The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit, a wife who married young, only to be rejected, says your God.” The verse comforted me as I knew then that God understood my pain of rejection and that I felt like an old rug being discarded. Because of the faithfulness of God, I was never lonely. He sent many people to me in unexpected ways that became my pillars of support and many new relationships were formed. I also enjoyed my times of
solitude where I pursued my old passion for reading and getting reacquainted with God through reading His Word and pouring out my heart to Him.
There was one particular day that I felt exceptionally hurt and rejected. As I got down on my knees crying before God, telling Him that the journey was just too difficult and long to endure, that I felt as if I could go insane with the pain, He told me “The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of the deer, He enables me to tread on the heights.” Habakkuk 3:19. I knew then that He was going to sustain and carry me right till the end of my grieving process. Another time as I was clearing up my room, I came across our old wedding invitation cards and was overwhelmed with the grief over the loss of broken dreams. The future that I had envisioned was all gone now. As I sat on the cold hard floor consumed in grief, God gently whispered to me “Your story has not ended”.
The tears that we shed in private are not known by the world but they are always His to see. God wanted me to know that He sees it all. One day He used 2 different people to send me the same link to a song called “The God Who Sees”. The lyrics of the song resonated deep in my spirit bringing me inner healing. I was reminded that God loves me deeply and was watching over me because He is EL ROI. Shortly after finding out about the affair, I felt led to go back to studying for a bachelor’s degree. I was fearful that I could not keep up with my studies as I had been a homemaker for over 20 years. I asked Him for His grace to do the impossible. Once more God proved His faithfulness to me by helping me cope so well that my CGPA today is 3.69 and I even got on the Dean’s list in my first semester
I wasted many years of my life living a life away from God. I put my wholehearted trust and confidence in mankind. Trust and confidence that rightfully only belonged to a Sovereign God. I had replaced Him with substitutes that came in many different forms. My husband, children, friends, and the pleasures of the world became my God and for the longest time, it worked for me. Eventually though, when the rubber hits the road, it is only the authentic that can withstand the storms that come our way. I learned this simple but profound truth through the most difficult season of my life that I simply cannot do life alone without God. Though adultery is
probably the worst kind of betrayal that any spouse could endure, it played a pivotal role in drawing me back to God. The greatest heartache of my life set me on a new trajectory where “small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” Matthew 7:14.
Many years ago, I sat down on a bench overlooking Penang. I had attended a youth camp on Penang Hill. I was just 16 years old. It was on a bench and in a moment of solitude that I told God “no matter what comes my way, no matter what the challenges might be, please do not allow me to fall away from You.
Never let me walk away from You” God heard the heartfelt prayer of a 16-year-old sitting on a bench in Penang Hill that night and in His faithfulness answered that prayer because today, The Prodigal Daughter has returned home to the Father.
