“Get ready for Ebola.”
When I heard that, I’d just completed a grueling 7-day disease outbreak simulation in India, filled with intense 17-hour work days designed to push us mentally to breaking point.
I looked at the text, battle-weary.
In his quiet, unflinching way, Cliff said, “Just say yes.”
What?
My other boss vehemently disagreed. “There are a lot of other people who aren’t young mums who can be deployed. Why do you have expose yourself to another high-risk deployment? What if something happens to you?”
Just less than a year ago, when I was deployed to Eswatini, Africa, I missed my birthday, my daughter’s 5th birthday, her first day of school, Chinese New Year. While weekdays were pumped with adrenaline, the loneliness on weekends punched me in the gut. It felt unbearable to say yes all over again.
Besides, wouldn’t I need to be present in Singapore for the calligraphy exhibition?
“Just say yes,” Cliff said again. “If God opens those doors to serve, we must be ready to walk through them.”
So I did. I said yes. I waited with bated breath at every email my boss sent me, pursuing the evolution of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda.
And then one day, the news announced- the outbreak was over.
I learnt that day- that in our lives, we can trust God. He doesn’t require us to know the future. What He does ask of us- is a series of unabashed, radical yeses to trust in His ways. He closed those doors for deployment this time, but opened gates of unreserved favor for the calligraphy exhibition to be first at Clarke Quay, then Novena and from 6-19 March at Orchard Central as our last site- all fully sponsored.
Friend, if you’re wondering whether to say yes to an opportunity to serve, know this- these doors don’t open forever. God presents to us what He knows His grace will cover.
Just say yes. 💛
This photo reminds me to say yes not half-heartedly, but with that hard unfazed look of grit. May our lives be an unending banner of pure, unadulterated yeses, always. 🌈