By Esther Tan
I was a Buddhist for over 30 years practising what I thought was the religion’s teaching to obtain truth and wisdom by meditation, spreading love and compassion. In August 2009
I was devastated when my husband passed away ten months after being diagnosed of an incurable and inoperable cancer.
But a month before that Christian pastors came to our house to pray for us. Our family eventually accepted Jesus in name.
I only became a born again Christian when I stepped into a Christian church in Perth Australia when I experienced a feeling of completeness and I said to myself “I have found my spiritual home”. God’s divine power helped me through my intense grief, emotional and mental meltdown, feeling of emptiness, loss, fear and the myriad of challenges as a widow and single parent.
Just believing that Jesus is my Healer and Saviour has given me faith, love, blessing and ability to trust in God. My tears of pain and sorrow literally turned into tears of joy and spiritual fulfilment. Jesus transformed my life and began to give me a spiritual makeover.
Before and after
Before I knew Jesus, I viewed God as a distant, disconnected and disinterested Being, out there in some galaxy faraway and basically unreachable.
It was as if I turned on the light switch and the power just flowed through and the Divine Connection started to work miracles in my life. After searching so long for truth and wisdom, acknowledging God as the Creator was the last missing piece of my spiritual jigsaw puzzle. My walk with God began with 110% faith from the first moment until now. I never had any doubt that “this” is the “real thing”.
Rejection
When I was 12 years old, I found out that I was given away at birth and ever since then I felt rejection and low self worth. The feeling of “never good enough” was prevalent in my life no matter how well I did. But when I accepted Christ in my life, I felt I was a child of God and if God is Grace, Love and Beauty then surely I must be a reflection of those qualities.
I was literally “set free” from all my feelings of inadequacy.
For the first time in my life, I did not feel the need to please everyone in order to feel accepted.
Unforgiveness
When I was 53 years old, I found my biological family in Durian Tunggal, a small town 30 minutes drive from Malacca, Malaysia. Although I was overjoyed to finally meet my brother and 4 sisters, I felt deep anger, hate and frustration when I came to know that I was given away because a fortune teller had told my mother that her star sign clashed with mine and I would bring bad luck and might even cause death to her.
So besides struggling with rejection issues, I had to contend with unforgiveness as well. I remember opening the Bible for the first time and it was Psalm 27:10 which says
If only I had read this in the Bible, it would have saved me from the years of agony. With this revelation, suddenly and instantly all the unforgiveness, frustration, anger and hate vanished and I was totally set free.
Struggle
Before I became a christian, my life was one big self struggle, relying on luck and karma and constantly believing that God only helps those who help themselves. I had no understanding that God’s Grace and favour are unearned and undeserved.
After I surrendered my life to Jesus, I did not have to shoulder all the burden by myself.
God helped me when I simply “ask” for His help.
True wisdom
In my prechristian life, I sought wisdom and truth through idol worship, meditation, clairvoyance, crystal healing, lucky charms and new age religion to fill my spiritual need. But after I became a born again Christian, I knew that ultimate wisdom is from God and not from worldly and human wisdom.
I now have a prayer life where reading the Bible daily and understanding the Word of God has given me the revelation, answers and wisdom which I have been seeking all my life. Before, through my Buddhist meditation I developed a strong mind and clarity of thought.
After I accepted Jesus into my heart, I not only have a strong and clear mind, I have in fact a “right and sound mind” by meditating on his Holy Word. Before, I could not accept a belief until I researched and analysed in great detail to obtain the answer. In fact I tossed out anything which has no logic. But now, with 110% faith and trust in Jesus, all I have to do is to ask, pray, be still and patient and the answers will come quite effortlessly.
Cancer
In 1996 I was diagnosed with life threatening stage 3 breast cancer. After surviving surgery, hair loss and chemotherapy, I had to go for yearly mammograms. This has resulted in two weeks of anxiety every year, as one week before the appointment I would start to feel anxious and then there is the one week after the mammogram of waiting for the test results. After I surrendered my life to Jesus, all the negative thoughts, doubts, anxiety, fear have disappeared as God has transformed my mind to focus on His words that “by His stripes I have been healed”.
I am glad for God’s wonderful makeover in so many areas of my life.
I ask for God’s will to be done in my remaining days believing that God’s will is good, acceptable and perfect. I continue to ask for continual makeovers in body, mind and spirit. 
Related: Wedding bells for Jose and Esther
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