"Everything that has passed, God has used to teach me."

J shared a bit of her testimony and what God has been teaching her recently when the dorm girls gathered for an evening together. 

I was encouraged by what she shared, and I hope you are too!

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I am the oldest child in my family.  When I was born, my parents supposedly were Christians.  But ever since I can remember, my parents haven't followed any religion.  I was born in a very poor family, so as I grew up, not many people wanted to be my friend.  Even some of our family members didn't want relations with us.  I wanted to study but my dad discouraged me saying, "You can't even walk on your own, how will you go to school on your own?"  

I finally got the opportunity to go to school, and it was a Christian school!  But I wasn't very smart.  I was a couple years behind because I started late.   Even though I was born in Thailand, I couldn't really speak Thai.  At home we would only speak Chinese and Akah.  Even though I was still a child and my parents weren't Christians, God was still with me. I might not have know that God was with me, but as I grew up and began to know God more, I could see what God had given me and how he was always with me.

After I graduated from 6th grade, my parents said that was enough studying.  In my heart, I wanted to continue.  Finally God opened up the opportunity to go to study in a bigger city in my province and live at a Christian dorm. 

One thing that has always been on my heart, is that I want to be able to go out of the country to evangelize.  But I don't have citizenship, so I can't leave the country. (This is a common struggle for people from the hilltribes who aren't recognized as citizens.  J is working towards getting her citizenship now.) It's okay though because God has given me opportunities to meet many foreigners and evangelize in my own country. 

Everything that has passed, God has used to teach me.  From not being permitted to study, to having the opportunity, and going on to university.  No one in my family thought that I could study university.  No one else from my village has studied as far as me.  Many people from my community have the old thinking that, "She is a girl.  She will study through 6th grade and then have kids."  That's all.  They think like that. Sometimes that's still a struggle with my family.  

Satan knows what areas can make us fall.  I have stumbled many times. Sometimes we think, "Just wait God, I'll do it myself." We think we can do it on our own.  I have had this thought many times in my heart and mind.  This has caused me to fall to the point that I can not get up on my own. Whenever we think that we don't need to rely on God, we are going to fall. We are going to really fall. In the times that I would begin to think that I was able to do it on my own, God would send a close Christian friend to remind me.  Then we could check our hearts and throw away the ugly thoughts. 

Truly, we have nothing if God doesn't give it to us.  If we don't have God in our life, we can not walk forward in our life. Only by God's power do we have the power to stay or go.  We have to submit ourselves to God and let God be the leader.  When we know we've done wrong, we must quickly ask for forgiveness, come back to God, and let God take first place in our lives again.  It's not that we will never fall again, but when we do, we get back up and follow God's path.  No matter what we do, we want to focus on God.  He is with us, and he is our foundation.

I want to encourage you that everything, from the time you were born to now, has been prepared by God.  If God hadn't led, we wouldn't be in this place now.  We aren't the ones who chose God, but God chose us first, so now we can chose him. Many people like to say they got themselves here on their own, but actually it's God who guided us here.  

As we pray and draw closer to God, we will know that God has given us everything.  Whether it's a good thing or bad.  I used to complain to God saying, "Why do I have to have a family like this?  Or why do I have to have problems like that?" But really, everything if we really think about it, is given from God.  

Two verses that I like to keep in my mind are: 
 
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.  (Philippines 3:12) 

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippines 4:13) 

I don't want us to have the mentality that, "I know this much of God and that's enough."  But we want to continue to seek God more and more.