Reflecting on the Joel Osteen sermon

"What's interesting is the dirt that was meant to bury him, saved his life." - Joel Osteen

All through my life, I've had dirt scooped up and tossed on me by friends, acquaintances and family.

I'd been deemed "hopeless", "unwanted", "a black sheep" by those who mattered most at some point or the other.

I've got one of the more dramatic biographies amongst the girls I know and oft' times in the past, there had been many crossroads where I coud've veered off the cliff and into the point-of-no-return, but God has kept me.

Like that mule, I shook off every barbed criticism that hurt, every assumption that I would never amount to anything in life, every bitchy comment made by the gals in class, every hurt btw Mum and I... and i stepped up on every layer of dirt that was meant to bury me alive.

I am quite stubborn in a way - but stubborness has 2 sides, a good side and a bad side. I'd like to think what I had was a strange tenacity and a really thick hide.

I remember when I said I did not want to marry my kid's biological Dad because I was aware that it would not work out - religious differences, possible in-law issues, his anger management problem and immaturity... and my Mum berated me saying, "You like that who will want you? You think have a kid very easy to find someone else to marry you is it?"

And I remember my very bold declaration, and I did believe it then and praise God that I did! -" Yes and I believe there are many guys who will want me."

Hahahahaha. I really exasperated my mother. I love her insanely but we have such an anti-Gilmore Girls relationship. We're more like Dorothy and her mum in Golden Girls except my Mum has less humour than Dorothy's mum in the way she says things.

When I started dating Ian, I did not dare let my folks know at first coz I thought it was inappropriate that I started dating just some months after my break-up. The thing is I had already stopped loving my ex a long time ago and had just been forcing myself to try to make it work, but finally realised that it was tiring clapping alone. It did not mean it was easy to just walk away, I was crushed and i was scared too, but I just plodded on stubbornly as I'd always done in my life - through my being retained in Sec 3, my broken past relationships, my Grandma's death, my solitude in UK, etc.

I was really moved when, on my 23rd birthday, my Mum came to look for me in the store room where I was taking out some stuff and said to me, "Mummy is happy you've found someone to love you." I am tearing as i write this and I teared then as well.

Mum is not a vocal person, she mulls things over deep in her heart and worries about them internally. So when Dad told her excitedly that someone had given me flowers and brought me out apparently - I had meant to sneak back home with my presents into my room, but Dad was up watching soccer in the living room- my Mum must have felt such relief that someone could deem her daughter worthy to be loved despite my flaws and the fact that I was an unwed mother.

You know I secretly think my Mum wonders about how I get into all these scrapes and come out of them stronger and more blessed each time. I don't know what she thinks of it, but I think that she does wonder about it all in her spare time.

And I think she sees the way Christ is shining in the lives of the Wee Bears - Ian, Kae and I. I hope that this will give her the assurance that Jesus is very real. She is Catholic but I know, like so many of us in the past, she has doubts about her salvation and redemption. She does not have that walk with Him yet and I hope she will.

I got out of that deep well of angst and depression that every teenager goes through at some point in their lives, some earlier and some later than others. Some don't get out of it even way into adulthood. Well, I shook off and stepped up - and I just want to reassure anyone who is in a very tough trial right now that it always looks worser when you are in it, and that the trial will pass if you will just praise and be raised out of that situation.

Keep having an uplook in life and don't let anyone tell you that this is the end, you're finished. The only thing finished about you who are in Christ is this - your sins, the curses from the past, the generational curses, every illness, every lack in your life, etc. Those are the only things that Jesus declared finished in your life.

For everything else we can look forward to a better day in Christ Jesus because God doesn't lie and He's promised that the path of the righteous grows brighter and brighter unto the perfect day!

Don't give up. You are in the midst of becoming a sparkling diamond. Like Joel said in his sermon - the only difference btw a piece of black coal and a precious diamond is the amount of pressure it's been through. Don't see the pressure as crushing you but as moulding you into a really beautiful, strong soul.

May the grace of our LORD Jesus Christ be with you always,
Geri