Well, end of the month is coming, allowance counting time. So in the organization that i am doing ministry work in, i have to get christian donors to help raise my allowance, which includes my food and stuff, mission trip costs. etc. This is THE hardest thing, i had to cope with so far in my entire life. for many reasons. Very often, I feel extremely alone in this journey i am on. Although the people i serve with, the project servants, also have to raise funds, I don’t think they see money the same way I do, or used it as I had. Given my rich family, and my ability to make profit via buying and selling clothes years back, I used to spend a lot. But because of that, it once became an obsession to keep buying new clothes and placing a lot of emphasis on that. I am used to simply having beautiful things, things that are unnecessary but just pretty. I bought food that was expensive and had good presentation, I spent on knick knacks and movies and everything. I never had to watch my money. But now when I prioritize my time, I don’t seem to have time for that anymore. I have less money along my crucial studying years and I spent everything by the end of 2014.
Now, with the allowance assigned to me by SFYC a month, I no longer live luxuriously. The old me, and sometimes, I admit, I feel like I lost a huge part of me, and who I was. It is not entirely liberating, because those things gave me comfort. Who doesn’t want a life of good clothing, food, experiences, everything? Everyone constantly wants an upgrade. I have to constantly live with seeing if I have enough money. Being mindful of where I spend it. once an addiction. Sure, my parents and my sister live in a luxurious big house.
But outside the boundaries of my room, everyone there seems to be spending differently. nowadays, behind closed doors is the most tragic conflict I have with myself. Sometimes I wish my family didn’t have so much money that I might not have had the tendency to be spoilt, or I don’t have to see all the appealing things I have to give up. (But I believe that one day this family treasury is a storehouse of God’s blessings for others, especially when my parents receive Christ and release the funds to the needy.) I think working in full time ministry receiving little pay has been quite an experience. I struggle with taking away all the extra unnecessary expenses, which I was quite used to. I am always keeping an eye out the things I need to save up for. A week back, I remember trying to figure out on my own how to match all these expenses to the savings leftover from my food and transport allowances, which is barely nothing as the organization gives only just enough. I remember being on my knees countless times just crying out to Daddy God how all things would work out. I remember outpouring my struggle of my old self and my new self, all that he wants me to do and how it is beyond measure of what I could imagine. To deny myself. It meant to me, to deny all earthly desires regarding myself and to do the will of God. I remember coming home almost everyday coming before my humble piggy bank and just feeling so hopeless. In fact I still do sometimes. But God is still faithful even when we are faithless. I could not logically explain how I worked out the impossibilities of getting the money for church camp so far. Praise the Lord. But faith is in things unseen and not in what is seen. On my room floor, I remember the moments of imagining pouring a flask of alabaster oilment on Jesus’ feet because that was how I felt. I imagine I was the poor widow releasing her 2 copper coins. Because in those moments all these were real to me. The people who saw my family will never think I’d have this struggle , nor will they ever see. Because my family is well-off. But what they do not understand is that, my parents are non-believers. I want to avoid any chance of them saying “oh, I provide all these funds for you to do churchy things “ and use it as an excuse to determine my freedom on whether I can do things for God in the future or go to church or things like that. And I do it to prove to them that God will provide for this and for my future in social work/ mission work, and to witness for myself too. I also do not want them to think the organization is “squeezing me dry” or using me as “free labour” because someone commented that before. This is where I genuinely want to be and that is not how I see it. It was a tough journey. I think it got only worse when I got barely any financial support from those I gave my mission goal/ statement to. No one really contributed. The people I thought would, didn’t. Not even a dollar. That really crushed me, nobody from my church did! And I didn’t have the heart to share with anyone in my cell how I felt because I didn’t want them to feel obligated or pressured. With no one to provide for me I could not see any way, how the funds would even come from? How would Daddy God provide especially for my mission trip in august, and hillsong GC accommodation etc? Can make my allowance and some excess fall like manna from heaven? To make matters worse, before getting over the fact that my friends didn’t/ couldn’t help, I had to get over the hurdle of being thick skinned and ask for funds. My mentor in SYFC had to encourage me twice with the verse from 1 Timothy 5:18. I recognized I was doing the gospel work and kept reminding myself not to be ashamed. Overall, when there were no donations, it is so painful, in my opinion, to see that they don’t believe in the gospel work. Its painful to see that maybe they don’t believe that I can do it. Its painful to see that they don’t realize that it is God who will be at work, the spirit speaking through me and not myself. Its painful that sometimes I think, maybe they don’t understand the worth of their salvation.
i think Jesus just hugged me.
