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PINKY FADULLION (April 18, 2010)

Isaiah 54
This was written by Isaiah concerning the future glory of Israel. Yet the picture image of rebellious Israel likened to a wife abandoned and whom the Lord hid his face for a moment because of His surge of anger for her rebelliousness is the story of my life.

I was 19 years old when I got pregnant out of wedlock even though I was a professing Christian and follower of Christ. It was embarrassing to say the least and as if to save face I guess, we got married. The next two and a half years is probably the singular, most confusing time of my life where I was abandoned with a 2 year old toddler and a 5-month old baby. I was a "wife deserted and distressed in spirit – a wife who married young, only to be rejected." And because I had been a Christian and disobeyed God I felt I deserved what had happened and I knew the Lord was angry with me.

For a brief moment I abandoned you, in a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment (Verse 7)

At first I didn’t know how to react to rejection and the hurt. I rebelled and turned to quick fix relationships that somehow offered the acceptance I was denied.

But I loved my kids very much and I longed to give them a stable, loving, complete and God-centered home. I knew God and I longed for His forgiveness, His love, His guidance once again – in 1992, 4 years after, the Lord indeed called me back with deep compassion. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed says the Lord. And although the next years of bringing up my two boys as a single parent was anything but easy, the Lord would egg me on and comforted me through many and various situations and people. I held on to the promise that:

My Maker is my husband, the Lord Almighty is His name, the Holy one of Israel is my Redeemer, he is called the God of the earth and that both my sons will be taught by the Lord and my children’s peace will be great. In your righteousness I will be established ( Verse 5 , 13-14)

Finances were tight but God provided and we really never lacked anything with very supportive siblings and parents. God gave me enough sense to set aside career but rather to focus on work that allowed me a lot, a lot of time with my kids growing up so I could always run to my kids when they needed me. I remember two major times when I had to rush to my boys; once when to stop a fight with 2 against one, my older son punched a glass window and I was called to meet him at the emergency hospital room; and a second time was when my younger son hit a car and he was shaking with fear and anxiety; I was in a meeting and when I got my son’s call I just stood up immediately and said I need to rush to my son leaving the other person with mouth wide open in awe… Emotional, physical, spiritual, financial ups and downs… no I wasn’t spared from that but God was always there… Encouraging me, comforting me, egging me on.

My kids and I we had dreams but I was happy and content just to see them finish college and have good work ethics and an undivided devotion and love for God. We were living in a 2-room townhouse and I would have been content to just stay there and die there… It was when I turned 40, 3 years ago, that the Lord started to turn things around in a very big, big way – I felt like an Israelite coming out of wandering for 40 years in the desert.

My family and especially my parents whom I have disgraced decided to give me a grand surprise on my 40th birthday. It wasn’t the party that blessed my heart, it was the thought that they had forgiven me and celebrated me alive again – and I knew this ultimately came from God. This was a significant year where I had gift upon gift upon gift from God. This was the year that both my sons graduated from university, the year that my younger son got a scholarship for Masters education in the US, the year that my older son also moved to the US and my sons had the chance to bond and be independent without me the year that after 20 years of holding back on career the Lord provided an opportunity to finally start a career in Singapore the year that after labouring and crying out to God in prayer, He allowed my Mom to survive from what is otherwise a fatal condition of septicaemia.

The Lord continues to pour forth His blessing upon blessing upon blessing to me and my sons with opportunities that were unthinkable, unimaginable, impossible just 3 years before. I mean I was content to live out the rest of our lives in our 2-room flat which I had dreamed of inheriting from my parents… who would have thought that we would each be doing what we are doing today pursuing our individual goals?

My older son, Paolo, is in San Francisco pursuing law studies and is given the opportunity to do his summer program in Paris this year. My younger son, Felipe, is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia basking in what he enjoys doing most working in the field, doing formulas and templates to help alleviate poverty. And as if not enough, God has given me the opportunity to move and be assigned to our NY office.

It’s not the gift, it’s the joy of being reassured by God that I am His. He hears me and He answers my prayer.

Once a sinner headlong to hell and destruction now a victor headed to heaven – truly our God is compassionate and is a gracious Father in heaven. I deserved a difficult, painful life but He gave me a blessed one instead.

This is my last Sunday in Singapore and thought it was most appropriate to acknowledge God for all that I have, am and will be. May it never be that I forget that He is the giver and the best gift is still the gift of eternal life.

And as if to prepare me for my new assignment in New York and after all the blessings and favour God has showered on me and my children, I had this as my devotion last week and this I will take with me wherever I go: Deuteronomy 7

11-16 Make sure you don’t forget GOD, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget GOD, your God, the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery; the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions; the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock; the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.

17-18 If you start thinking to yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!"—well, think again. Remember that GOD, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today.

19-20 If you forget, forget GOD, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I’m on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it—destruction. You’ll go to your doom—the same as the nations GOD is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn’t obey the Voice of GOD, your God.

To God our Father be all the praise and honor and praise.

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