2016.

This year, will be your best year ever.

But will it be, really?

At the start of a new year, we want to believe that. In our best intentions, we tell others too. We all want to know, that the promises of this year will not disappoint us like the last.

But what if it does? What if things don’t happen the way we imagine, or (gasp) prayed for?

Prayer. It’s the single most potent, yet most belittled, misunderstood power today, often  wielded awkwardly in desperate times.

We approach it gingerly, fearing disappointment. When our expectations fail us, our faith falters. Unanswered prayer, can fossilize hearts. It’s as if God has failed us.

As 2015 came to close and 2016 arrived, I pondered over a series of events, all in the last 2 months. As I reflected upon them, tears welled up in my eyes.

For years I had wanted to learn oil-painting. I knew each tube of a single color of paint could cost $30. An expensive hobby, I stuck with the affordable option of watercolors for all my books. For a long time, I had also wished I had a cake mixer for my weekly baking.

But with all our constant moving, everything we had was transient. They were too cumbersome.

Two years ago, I would never forget the look of disappointment, first on my face, then my husband’s when he presented a beautiful wooden painter’s easel to me, which he had painstakingly chosen for me for Christmas. Knowing we were set to move to Africa shortly, tears welled up in my eyes. Regretfully, I passed it on to a friend, unused.

One recent morning, however, I found a large shoebox on my office table. A stranger-turned-friend, an established artist, had left me a complete set of oil paints. There was no note, only a brief text message later, “I am sure you will love this.”

How did she know? Uncannily enough, a week later, the friend with my easel passed it back to me, informing me she had no use for it. Thus began my journey in oil painting.

A long forgotten dream, an “unimportant” prayer, took not a year, but 10 years to come to pass.

Every end-year season, I would also reflect upon my published books. Repeatedly, many had encouraged me to put my books on Amazon, reprint them internationally, do something “big” with them. I explored possibilities, but door did not open.

Year after year, I would pray. How could our books be a blessing, not just in Singapore, but overseas, for the well-to-do and the underprivileged too?

In my quietest, most private moments with God, I asked, the same prayer I had asked since my first book was published 10 years ago. Even if He did not answer, I felt something moving- it was inexplicable. As tears streamed down, I knew that something was different.

Prayer doesn’t just change God’s heart, or our circumstances. It changes us.

After 10 years, I realized I had changed. God had been preparing me, us, and now our hearts had been enlarged. We had been crushed, humbled. I no longer founded my identity on numbers, books, projects, but Him.

One fine afternoon, a professor I had not seen for years bumped into me. Randomly, he told me, “You have to reprint Rainbow. There are people hurting out there who need to hear the message in Rainbow.” Shocked, I hurried on.

A weekend later, another professor urged me to consider book reprints. That would be nice, I thought, but each title needed no less than a five-figure sum to make the print worthwhile. It was too large a sum for me to cough up. Barely another week had passed when a large national organization approached me to be a main speaker for a mental health public forum next year. It gave me goosebumps.

The following week, someone asked me for lunch, over which she took out a chequebook and said, “I need you to have this. You need to reprint your books which have been a blessing to others.”

Neither of these individuals had prior communication with one another. Besides Cliff, I didn’t broadcast my prayers on social media or share my needs with anyone. Cliff always told me, “If you trust God, you will never need to solicit.”

During the following weekend, over dinner with my parents, a gentleman across the table got up, came over to us and said, “I saw you on Channel NewsAsia, keep up the great work.” He asked us to meet for coffee a few days later, during which he asked me to bring him a copy of all my books. At the end, he said to me, “I like your books. Do what you think best.”

He committed to a sum which was the exact balance of what was needed.

But the story did not end there.

God brought the blurry into clarity when, at the end of the month, someone insisted they connect me to an international publisher. None of them knew what I had been praying for. I never approached anyone to brainstorm a solution for me. At the meeting, the publisher, who also does a great deal of charitable work in developing countries, informed me he would like to support all 4 books, translate them and have them reach other parts of the world through meaningful platforms.

I was too shocked to cry.

All this happened in two months. The oils, the cheques, the books.

Then just last week, a friend I had not heard from in the longest time, contacted me out of the blue to say his wife wanted to pass a brand new cake mixer to me, “Use it until you guys leave again”. How did they know? If I had never blogged about it, talked about it to anyone, not even Cliff, how did they know?

Those who heard this incredulous series of events closing my 2015 have thought it has been nothing short of miraculous. My prayers must have been something!

What they don’t know, is that these didn’t really happen within 60 days. They took ten years- ten long, prayerful years of waiting, wondering, doubting, praying and waiting before God moved in an exceptional and exciting way.

So if you are waiting on an unanswered prayer, never cease praying. Never doubt God. Our prayers never go unheard, and they are never wasted.

Though what is in front of us may seem unchanged, the ongoing change is happening invisibly in our hearts. Ten years had to pass before God could break, mould, and shape me to prepare me for this work, now.

Know that when we pray, we acknowledge His power and invite His presence into our lives. It is this leap of faith in God’s unending goodness and provision that releases such miraculous power, and spills over into the lives of others.

He cares for our needs, big or small, grand or intimate. When we obey Him in abandonment, He will not be our debtor.

So remember, if 2016 doesn’t turn out the way you had prayed for, remember this, His story for you has not ended.

The secret is- His timeline is always perfect.

 

“The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him”

–Psalm 25:14