Children do take time to give your mum a good hug today, thank and appreciate her. For this would mean more to her than flowers or gifts. I’m not able to do that anymore as my dear mum went home to be with the Lord last year. Instead of the usual article on mother’s day, I would like to take this opportunity to share about my late mother’s journey of faith.
This is a personal testimony of God’s goodness and grace to an ordinary woman, a homemaker and mother who spent and invested all her life in the people around her. My mother grew up in Perak Malaysia. She was orphaned at a very young age. Together with her 3 siblings, they had to fend for themselves early in life. They had to stop school and work to survive. My mother began to work as a domestic helper for a kind neighbour whose family later moved to Singapore. The kind neighbor brought my mother with them to Singapore and this began a new chapter in her life.
My mum continued to work for this family in Singapore. When she was much older she sought employment in a factory. Then she got married, gave birth and raised 8 children and subsequently grandchildren. She was happily married to my dad for almost 60 years before she went home to be with the Lord in May last year.
Through much of her life she had practically no exposure to Christianity. She first learned about God through me as I was the first person in the family of ten to become a believer. The Bible tells us that after Andrew met Jesus he immediately search for his brother Simon and said to him, “we have found the Messiah”. Excited about my own salvation I was eager to share the good news with my family. The Lord gave me a deep burden to pray for my family’s salvation which I did every single day for the next 15 years. In my early Christian life I spent too much time in church and my mum had expressed her disappointment that she had lost a daughter to the church since I became a believer. As I did not want to stumble my mother I began to cut down on my church activities and began to spend more time at home helping her with household chores. My mum began to soften her stand against Christianity and we had very good discussions about the faith subsequently. Sometimes the discussions became very intense. I had also started to share the good news with my grandmother, dad and siblings and invited them to church. Over an almost 15 year period of faithful sowing and praying, the Lord heard my cries and gave me the privilege to pray the sinners prayer with my siblings and my parents. There was great rejoicing as I witnessed every of my family member being ushered into God’s kingdom. My mum got baptized followed by my dad several years later.
My mum’s faith grew as she read and studied God’s Word and attended church. In 2010 my mum suffered a very serious stroke which had left her immobilized and she could not speak. The doctor had asked the family to be prepared for the worse. He had advised us that even if she did survive she would be a living vegetable. However through God’s great mercy and grace, my mum recovered and fully regained all her functions within a short period of time. My mum later testified to the family when she regained her speech that during the trauma she saw Jesus walking to her and assuring her that He would heal her and that she will get well progressively. My mum lived another 3 years of quality life before going home to her eternal rest last year.
My mum lived a full life – an abundant life that only God can give. She loved the Lord and often spend time reading the Bible and praying for the family. She is dearly loved by her husband, children and grandchildren who ‘arise and call her blessed’ (Proverbs 31: 28). She is fondly remembered and missed and we look forward to seeing in her our Father’s house someday!!
Sister Teo Soke Fung
