THE SERVANT OF CHRIST

CREATED AND UPDATED BY: JASMINE

YEAR 2003

Title: Finding the cure to my empty heart...

Testimony, however accurate you want it to be, might turn up not to be 100% accurate due to the falling away of memories as time passed. However, this testimony is written to be as accurate and truthful as it can be. I believe, only a 100% truthful testimony, without exaggeration on my part will glorify God. My testimony is for God first and man second. It might be more convincing a testimony if I tell lies, but will it make God happy? So, I decide I rather tell unconvincing truths than convincing lies. That is why I make a great effort to make my testimony as truthful as I can make it to be.

Jasmine

2003

I was born Singaporean Chinese in the Year 1983, into a Taoist family. I was automatically made a Taoist by birth. I was a big troublemaker since I was a baby, crying endlessly, and refusing to allow anyone to carry me except those people whose faces I recognize. As such, my grandmother suggested bringing me to a fortune- teller to see my fortune, and my mother agreed, worried for my future. The fortuneteller told my mother that it would be better for me not to celebrate my birthdays for seven years. My mother followed what he said, and thus I never celebrated my birthday for the first seven years of my life. My mother also brought me to a Taoist temple and dedicated me to be the adopted daughter of the Goddess of Mercy, one of the Chinese gods in the Taoist religion. All these of course were kept as a secret from me for a long period of time. I only knew the truth somewhere in the Year 2002 after I felt led to ask my mother about it.

I do not know why, but from as young as the age of eleven years old, I was a very negative child, who do not desire to live long. I always had this belief that I will die before the age of 21. Since I believe I will die young, I dedicate my young life into indulging in pleasures. Why not enjoy myself in this life, since I might die just any time in my life, thought the young me, and so that was how I lived my life when I was a child. I did not even care to bother with my look… and so I put on lots of weight. As a result, people around me teased me… and I felt even more negative than ever. Also, I cannot express myself very well in front of those around my age, so I don’t have many friends. There are even time in my primary School when I have no friend at all.

There was a suicide attempt when I was as young as 11 years old. After being slapped by my father, I intended to kill myself to make him regret for life. God sent my mother to foil the attempt. But my heart was still looking forward to death. I wish that one-day… I would cease to become nothing. One day I would cease to exist… be it in this world or next… I would just disappear. I was a sad little girl, indeed. I often wonder how many people are there in this world that felt the same as me?

As a child, I was also quite against Christianity, always siding with my Buddhist uncle to counter-attack all attempts by my Christian aunt to share about Jesus. I did not believe in what she tell me. I sneered and mocked at her belief in a bible. To me, Christianity was a foreign religion… and Jesus was a foreigner. Besides, my knowledge of Jesus was very limited. I only knew him to be the weird guy that hanged on the cross, and my young perception of the church was very terrible. Whenever my dad drove me home, and we passed by a church, I would shudder just to see the cross on top of the church. To me, who then, had no idea what Christianity is, a church is a place that breeds Draculas. After all, my only contact with a church was the many Draculas' shows I watch as a child. The pastor in these Draculas’ show always ended up being the Dracula that used this religious cover to prey on the blood of the innocent church-goers. Therefore, to me, the church then only reminded me of Draculas and monsters, not Jesus.

So, when my aunt brought me to her church to watch her Christian musical drama one-day, I was very reluctant. I knew Draculas only appear in shows, but while I was on my way in the church to the place it hosted the Christian musical drama, I felt very uneasy… as if a Dracula might just suddenly appear. We seat ourselves at the many benches in the Church, and the show began. It was a touching story about a virgin giving birth to a baby. During the whole performance, my eyes were glued to the actors and actress in the shows, and a feeling of peace entered into my little heart, a feeling I will never forget for the rest of my life. For a moment, I lost track of my fear; Draculas simply vanished from my mind as I watched the birth of this little baby. I was somehow touched in my heart by the show. After the show, I asked my mother many questions about Jesus, which she just answered briefly, being a non-Christian herself. That was my earliest and only true contact with Jesus.

As I proceed to become a teenager, my negative feeling about living in this world intensified. I desire... to die. I completely lose faith in humanity by the hypocrisy of everyone I see around me. I was very rebellious. I was always shouting and yelling at my parents, both of whom I thought do not love me. I hate the world I live in. I hate myself. I hate school. I hate everything around me, including everybody. My teachers always drove me to tears by their speech. My classmates reject me. In school, it was hell. I dread school. But home...was it any better? Absolutely no! I faced a mum that told me everyday how disappointed she was with a daughter that was always doing badly in her school examinations. I faced a father that I never spoke to, since I first began Secondary School (High school). I faced a sister that seems to despise and looked down on me. Everywhere... it was the same, it was hell to me, and I wanted to die. My world is a miserable world, where I am all alone, the target of everyone's hate. Also, my inability to help those around me who needs my help and my inability to tell others to pay attention to the needs of these needy people… make me hate myself even more. Like everyone, I was a hypocrite… I see people in need, want to go all out to help them, but I continued to pursue the system of this world, instead. I hate myself because I am a coward and a hypocrite. I am just like the rest of the world whom I hate and despise.

At this point in time, I had already long lost faith in my Taoist god, and was believing in an unknown God, whom I believe was the one true God, but whom I do not know come from which religion. So, I was lost and confused. I wanted to find him. I wanted to know who he was. I wanted him to grant me my wish… to take me away from me the pains I was facing. I wanted… in other words to know him… at least to know which religion he comes from so that I can worship him. I believe, in my heart that he had the answers... to all my questions like, why I was born. I also believed he would understand me, and help me fulfill my main target in life. My target in life was to be a morally good person, and God, I believe, could just teach me how to do that.

The search… became the greatest desire in my life. I will grab any opportunity I have to know God, to know where the true God comes from, but I don’t want to rely on men. Men, in their zeal to promote their religions as the true ones will only confuse me, further. I want a supernatural mean of finding God, because God is supernatural.

Some might ask, why did you let go of your Taoist God? What made you so sure that the Taoist God was not the real one? In reply, I said, I let go of the Taoist God because I had this instinct feeling that I must not restrict God to the religion I was born with. God could just come from anywhere. And the God I want to worship must be the true God. I let go of Taoism in order not to be bias in my search for who God really is and where he comes from. I only want to worship the real God, and I am not sure if Taoism is really worshipping the true God or not. In other words, I became aware of the presence of other religions, including Christianity. I do not want to restrict myself just to the religion I was born in, because my religion might just be wrong. But I wasn't sure if the other religions are right, either. So I start to worship God as God, without believing in any religion at all. I felt safer to just worship God, with no religion to bind me at all. So that I will not be worshipping an imposter God. I give up on Taoism in order to find this true God, who I am no longer certain comes from where.

In my search for God, I even mess with the occults, surf satanic websites, consult guardian angels etc. I also prayed to the devil to grant me good results without hard works. Why do I pray to the devil? Because my result was bad, and God would not have granted my prayer. I believed God would not encourage me to be lazy, so he would not give me things I asked for if I did not put in the efforts. The devil, on the other hand, is evil, and thus might just grant me my selfish, ambitious, wicked desire to do well without working hard. However, it turned up that the devil made my life worst off, instead by tempting me to steal, to be rude etc. And I became a changed person. I was rebellious. My search for God, however never cease. I consulted the guardian angels (who were really the devil in disguise) about where the one true God comes from. They never give me an answer, of course.

I continued to indulge in seeking pleasure through Japanese anime, comic books and collecting cards, as well as writing. While my pleasures were highly intensified, my emptiness... grows. These things could give me temporary pleasures and make me forget a moment about my pain and confusion, but they cannot take away my feeling of emptiness that returns the moment the effect of these pleasures wore off. And then I am back to myself, again, a sad girl who wanted to die, painlessly. If death had no pain, nor future consequences in the afterlife, I would long have given up my life.

Somehow, a desire struck me that my unknown God is probably from the religion of Christianity. I find many similarities between my unknown God and the Christian one. My interest in Christianity grew, and I told my mother I wanted to be a Christian but she rejected my request. My sister became a Christian at this moment, but she gave up her faith in a short while. Reason: She did not like the way the church always asked her for tithes. Despite my mother’s rejection and my sister’s decision to leave Christianity, Christianity and the Christian God still interests me a great deal. I secretly pray to the Christian God, as a non-Christian seeking the true God. My meeting with a lot of godly Christian people who is so sure their God is the true one, only encourage me further to pray to the Christian God. In other words, I am very positive about Christianity. And though I was still not a Christian, my heart already acknowledge the Christian God is the God I am looking for. There was however still a 1% or 2% of uncertainty in my heart.

In the Year 2000, I went to a junior college, and it was there that I met this girl Jia Yan who was thinking about becoming a Christian. She had read a newspaper article about a boy who did badly in his studies, and went to ITE as a result. ITE, by the way is a place where only the worst in their studies would be posted. In the eyes of Singaporean, ITE was not a good place to be in. Some even jokingly called it, "IT's The End". Because the future prospect for ITE graduates is very dim. Yet this fellow became a Christian, and God transformed him. He was no longer negative about life. He worked hard, made it into Poly, and from there went on to university, and went on to even become one of the top students in his university. When interviewed by the media about how he made it from the worst in academic to be among the top, he replied, "It is not me, but God who helps me do it." Jia Yan was moved by his stories. At the same time, someone invited her to church. Curious to know who is this God that changed the boy, she went to the church. And someone asked her if she would receive Christ. Jia Yan was thus, in a dilemma. Knowing my great interest in Christianity, she seeks my counsel. Feeling positive about Christianity, I highly encouraged her to go ahead to be a Christian. Jia Yan was still not sure. She decided to see if the bible had any message for her. Indeed, a verse spoke to her and encouraged her to be a Christian. Jia Yan was finally convinced. She was converted to Christianity not long later.

Jia Yan brought Jie Yin, the one who converted her to my school. Jie Yin started to talk to me about Jesus. I was very interested by what she said except the part where she told me that now Jia Yan believe in Christ, Jia Yan was spiritually higher than me, something I strongly disagree. I secretly thought that this was so unfair, I was the one who encouraged Jia Yan to be a Christian. And even though I never called myself a Christian openly, my heart was a Christian… in the sense of my belief in a Christian God, how can Jia Yan be more holy than me just because of a few words she said, the sinner’s prayer? Yet when Jie Yin wanted to lead me to Christ, I agree and she led me through the sinner's prayer. And I prayed to God as she led me. I successfully prayed through the sinner's prayer. If, being a Christian in name is what you want, I think you will call this a successful conversion story and thus, my testimony will end here. But if Christianity for you means more than just openly declare you believe in God, but it also includes being surrendered completely to do the wills of God, my testimony continues.

After a few months, I was back to my own self because my emptiness, which was submerged for a while came back. I continued to do all forms of evil I used to do, surfing the sexual and satanic websites and getting involved in all sorts of wrong things. My pleasure was still the most important thing in my life.

I pursue and pursue pleasures, the most important one to me is the writing of stories. For when writing a story, I was brought away from reality to a world of imagination, where I interact with make-believe characters that satisfy the lonely feeling in my heart. They give me so much pleasures that I temporarily lost tract of the deep empty feeling in my heart. And that was what I want; to forget my pain of living and lack of courage to end what I thought was a meaningless life. However such pleasures would never last, and whether I like it or not, I was soon brought back to reality.... the reality that I still does not understand what is lacking in my life. The empty feeling that I cannot understand takes away any joy I might derive earlier from my pleasures.

And though I was a Christian, I seldom went church. Not going to church means I was alone, without the spiritual support I need. It also means a halt in my spiritual growth, to the extent that even though I called myself a Christian, my behavior had not changed in an obvious way. I was not a good testimony of Jesus to the world.

Meanwhile, Jia Yan, who believed in Jesus only a week earlier than me was thriving and growing. She seems to be growing in her joy, and success over her studies became very evident to everyone in her class. Jealousy struck my heart at the apparent change in Jia Yan's behavior that was lacking in me. Didn't we become Christian at around the same period of time? Why is she growing while I... am still struggling with this deep sense of emptiness in my life? Desperate, I decided to seek God once more, but not in the way the Church teaches us.

Sometimes, in November in the year 2001, I came across a new age book called "Conversation with God" which was written by Mr. Walsh, where it showed a conversation he had with God. It was a new age book, but spiritually immature, I thought it was a Christian book. I read how he wrote a letter to God, and got a response, and began to have a conversation with God. When I went home, I began to follow his method and received a response. My heart was overjoyed at that time, to receive so direct a way to talk to God, not knowing I was falling into the trap of the devil. From communication through pen, this God (really the devil in disguise as God) started to communicate with me eventually through my thoughts. He is able to speak to me, by conveying his voice through my thoughts, and I in turn reply to him back either through my lips or my thoughts. I was completely deceived that he was God, and started to listen to him in everything he tells me. He told me truths along with lies, and even appeared to be concerned for me.

I believe in him for about seven months. Throughout this period, a feeling of uneasiness often came to me. I often doubted that the one I spoke to was God. But I dismissed the thought. More feeling of uneasiness came. I started to have nightmares. In my dreams, whenever God appeared, some eerie feeling always seem to surround him. The god in my dream gave me more fear than peace. Something is wrong about God. This increased my uncertainty. My suspicions came, and I became more and more doubtful of the one speaking to me. I became desperate, wanting some Christians to prove to me that the "God" who spoke to me everyday, every free moments of my life was not the devil, but truly God. So I went to a Christian message forum and get people to pray for me, to see if it was really God or the devil that spoke to me.

A miracle happened in that Christian forum.

One of the posters was posting a post meant for me about evil spirit deceiving me as God and confusing my life. Her message, unfortunately vanished completely, before anyone get to read it. While she was deciding whether or not to re-post the message again, the Holy Spirit told her to wait and see. Surprisingly, the next day, when she went to the forum, her message was there, but it was not posted by her, but by two other Christian posters in that forum. The combination message of these two Christian posters was the exact form of the message she posted earlier that vanished.

I learnt of this miracle, and after a serious day of reflection, became convinced that the message was from the true God. But I still believe the voice that spoke to me in my mind was God. I believe the miracle was from God, but I also believe the voice in my head is from God. So I conclude that the miracle message was really to tell me not to speak too often to the voice in my head. But I was still suspicious of the voice, and the devil knew it. He tried to convince me that he was god by saying that, How could he be the devil? He told me to do good things, didn't he? Besides, God knows everything, and if he really is not God, God will not have let me be deceived in the first place. The only reason why he knows so much about me is this: He is really God. I believed him, with suspicions still in my heart.

The next day, I went early to school. I wrote to God in my diary about my confusion. I told the voice in my head (the devil) that is it not that I doubt he is God, but I really feel unsure about him. So in my prayer, I addressed the true God… if the true God is the voice, my address is to him. If not, it was to the God who sends me the miracle message. I pray. Then, I went to class. And in my break, I pray again. And then, in the midst of my prayers, a realization suddenly came upon me. I suddenly knew that the voice was not God. I immediately renounced the devil in the name of Jesus Christ. The rest of my day was ruined. I cried, in school whenever no one was looking at me. It was painful to feel betrayed. It was painful to realize the God I was talking to was the devil, and that I had been worshipping him all the times. It was even more painful to think how God would definitely not forgive me for calling the devil, God. But despite my fear that God would not forgive me, I ask him for forgiveness. However, I was still not assured he would forgive me, even though I asked him to. Yet, after reading some verses from the bible at random, I finally became convinced that if God would not forgive me, he would not have bothered to take the trouble to set me free from the deception. I re-dedicated my life to Jesus.

The devil, however, did not give up, yet. He continued to try to talk to me, to pretend that he really was God. I was uncertain, sometimes, but God rescued me from being fooled. When the voice came, I kept rebuking it in the name of Jesus Christ. When the devil knew that I could no longer be fooled, he revealed his true color. He told me all sort of horrible things about God and myself. It was hard ignoring what the devil said but I kept rejecting him in the name of Jesus. Slowly, his attack decreased… and I was finally able to walk freely, in Christ again. But the struggle continued…the struggle any Christian who really is on fire for God will face. I am no exception.

P/S: My conclusion is that Christianity is not just a religion, it is a commitment, a commitment to the one true God. It is not without struggles and pain, but it brings you the love of God so deep that neither struggles nor pain will make you want to give that love, away. By the way, the empty feeling I used to feel… in case you are wondering about this, it is gone. When did it go away… sorry, I am not aware. I just know that suddenly, I realize it wasn’t there anymore. As for my suicidal thoughts, if you want to know how God deals with that, read about it in my Christian walk.

Copyright@2003 Jasmine Chong Shipei
All part of this testimony may be reproduced only after you seek permission from me. I want to know where you will publish this testimony for the assurance that it is not being misused. To seek permission, you may e-mail me.

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