Tuesday Testimonial:I can do all things through Christ
BY ADORA CLEOFE
I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13.
My personality, as people have told me in the past was bubbly, outgoing, happy and funny. But deep inside I was never happy, people did not know that for years loneliness was my best friend. As the old saying goes, “with friends like these, who needs enemies”.
I was in a prayer group with whom I also went out occasionally for social gatherings. Some of them liked me, but most of them without my knowledge described me as “conceited”, another said that I always had to be right, argumentative, loud and feisty.
Little did people know that my loneliness was actually a fear of being alone and that I was filled with regrets for all the bad things that I had done in the past. Loneliness is not necessarily a condition experienced solely by “loners”, but can be experienced by anyone.
I started losing sleep and most of the time I didn’t sleep at all. My condition became worse when a lot of trials and heartbreaks happened in my life, the biggest blow was when my relationship with my only child became estranged and he ceased my privileges to be with my granddaughter. I was then diagnosed with bipolar and mild schizophrenia.
I isolated myself from the world and started taking a variety of medications. My work place started to notice the changes and eventually I needed to take some time off from work for my own good.
I started blaming God and set my mind up to believe that “God did not love me, he hated me”. Then I asked myself “What hope was there for me?”… I even thought about ending my life several times, but the realisation of not being able to see, kiss and hug my granddaughter ever again stopped me from doing this.
My husband never gave up on me, he decided to talk to one of the organisers of the Family Cenacle Group, a married couple Tess & Roland Halili and close friend of ours. He asked them to help me, help us and help my family.
They reintroduced me to the Unconditional love of God, this helped me heal and get back on track. I also met Bro. Joe who taught me how to practice the process of Divine Indwelling and participating in a Walkthrough group every Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Through this experience I can attest that I was being led by Christ Himself to a new life in Him. I came to know again, He Who Is The Creator of the Universe, and He Who Saves Through the Power of His Life, Death, and Resurrection.
The great news is.. I have not used sleeping tablets or medications for my illness for months now! I found rest, hope, peace, love, and joy that I have never experienced in my entire life.
Although, I still have a lot of growing and maturing to do. I believe that I am still growing in Christ; he continues to sanctify my life and leads me on the path of being made “conformable to Jesus Christ”… readying me for my heavenly home.
Thank you for sharing your very meaningful and colourful journey with God sis Adora, yours would inspire many souls thirsting and longing for the one true lasting relationship!
God reveals Himself to us in each and every way, each and every minute of our lives. When we are happy and filled with joy, God bless us the glimpse of His own feeling of happiness and joy. When we accepted to follow Jesus’ path, our Almighty Father was filled with so much joy. However, in following Jesus, we received the gift of salvation and hence, rewarded not only with love, peace, justice, everything that is good but also Jesus’ cross and death. It is easy to feel God’s presence when we are happy. However, we also suffer to the point of ‘death’. Sufferings like depression, anxiety and hopelessness are just glimpse of terrifying death. As we experience challenges in our family, that is just a glimpse of God’s pain as He see His children choosing the wrong path. As parents we share God’s pain, Jesus’ pain as many of His children choose or blinded to walk in the dark path. Our sufferings and ‘death’ are Jesus’ call for us to share his pain and agony in the garden of Getsemani. God call us to pray for our children and all of His children. As parents, we received the gift of understanding God’s unconditional love and mercy to each of His children. “God loves all people in hell as much as He loves all people in heaven’ – Father Larry. God uses our personal sufferings as a call for prayers for the salvation of His many children…
Wonderful sharing, Sis. Adora. In a world filled with darkness, doubts, confusion, we need to share our journey in finding PEACE. It is like “finding focus” and “finding our identity” again according to the design that God created us into and away from which focus or design we have gone so far away wrongly convinced that we are OK. Well, it takes a lot of pinching sometimes to make someone realize how naive we are from the REALITY of what we are and how God created us, until in the end we realize that it is all so simple after all. Jesus said, “My yoke is easy; My burden is light.” The problem is without our knowing it we make our life so hard to the point of complication. We better go back to our focus and identity – “It is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me.” (St. Paul)
Thank you Tita Adora for sharing your story with us. Our Faith is a precious gift from God and it is during our trying times that we realise how much we need to rely on God and increase our Faith to overcome our trials, sorrows and or sufferings. One thing is certain, in every situation that we are faced with, there is always a bright light at the end of the tunnel and everything will come to pass because God has promised that He will never abandon us.. all we have to do is to remain faithful in Him & His words.