For a while, I have been mulling over whether to continue blogging about new home. As I have good friends who are currently going through financial challenges in their lives, and blogging about my breakthroughs might make them feel worse about their current state, so I did consider that I should be more sensitive about their situation.
Then I was reminded why I planned to blog about this in the first place.
The new home is a blessing from God and I am full of praise and thankfulness for all He has done in my life.
If you have followed my journey since 2011, you might have chanced upon posts about our first home, and how we move on from this home.
What I didn’t add then was the circumstances surrounding why we had to sell our home.
My hb chalked himself a huge debt through his business and we were in a very bad shape financially, so selling the home was the only way we could think of to pay off most of the debt.
We could not afford to buy a home anymore after that so we rented, but less than a year later, we had to move again from the rental home, as renting a house prove to be something we could not even afford monthly. So we moved into a room in hb’s Auntie’s house.
Again what I didn’t add was that debt was still there, and due to some very unwise choices, the debt hole become bigger. The hole was big enough not to ever own a home for a rest of our lives, if God didn’t bring us through this. I never dared to even think or even ask God to give us a new home, I just lived my life a day at a time.
Subsequently hb and I had to live separately (that was the most poignant time in our marriage), and since 2013, hb has been working out of Singapore.
In 2015, things improved financially and we could afford to rent a home, which we are still residing in today.
Being able to rent a home has been no short of a miracle breakthrough, but God went further and gave us a bigger miracle to have finally owe a home which we can call our own.
Looking back, hb and I can both identify to the story of Abraham in the bible. Except that being stubborn asses as we were, we would probably not be willing to give up our ‘Isaac’ (our home). But we had didn’t have a choice as we had to deal with the consequence of the bad choices we made.
After letting go of our first home, there were more tests and difficulties that came along (which are too complicated to list them down here, but I will share if you are ever keen to hear my testimony personally) which brought us to the lowest point in our life.
Eventually it became worse than just losing the home. But it was at this point that we decided that in our own strength, we can never save ourselves and we needed a miracle from God to bring us a breakthrough.
This new home is more than an answer to our prayers, hb’s specifically was, to have our finances restored. Upon retrospect, it has been more of a resurrection rather than just restoration. As for me, my prayer was “God please take care of my family. I will do what you tell me to.” So I have been very determined since then, to be able to understand the will of God and learn to hear Him speak to me for every situation in my life.
So in a way, our situation then it was a ’no choice’ surrender to God, vs the story of Abraham who was willing to give up Isaac as a show of obedience and surrender to God. But I learnt surrender, obedience (my trips to Jakarta to share a testimony over a two year period, God made it very clear to me that I will lose my inheritance if I did not take the obedient step to go 😱), repentance, and the fear of God through this journey.
Even then, God made everything work out for good. That’s how wonderful the God I serve. And true to His word in the Bible, as He has blessed my family abundantly, having all that we need. (2 Corinthians 9:8)
So when you see this ‘silly’ woman share bible verses and faith messages on my Facebook status, know that I am walking out and truly experiencing this life with God. These verses and words are like fire, fire in my heart and in my bones (Jeremiah 20:9), I cannot hold it back, simply because He is so good and He is a true and living God.
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I would have never expected that one day I will be able to create a nesting place that hb and I both envisioned.
It has been exciting seeing the transformation of our new home step-by-step. Even with this stripping down to bare walls and floors, with only ugliness and mess, I am still reminded of God’s goodness for my family.
This is a milestone for my family, as it is only because of Him, that I am able to share this process and the joy of building up this dream home for my family.
Bibi and Tess in their costumes from Tokyo
