kriyayogamalaysia

A true story of Surrendering to God

By Desmond Yeoh SC

At a restaurant which I often visit, a part time waitress who appears to be in her mid-fifties often caught my attention. She was always cheerful and happily talking to all the customers when she was not too busy serving the customers. I suggested to my wife that the restaurant owner must be very generous to her, for her to put in so much effort to please the customers. One day, when there weren’t many other customers to serve, she approached our table and our small talk eventually led to her telling us about her life. I will refer to her as Lily in this article.

Lily is a single mum with a son and daughter. Her son recently married his girlfriend with full knowledge that she is suffering from fourth stage breast cancer which has metastasised to her lungs, bones and other organs. We will refer to her as Sandy. The doctors gave Sandy a maximum of 2 years to live. We asked Lily how she felt about her son’s decision. She responded that God sent her this daughter in law and she thinks of her as a gift from God. Her son was very rebellious when he was younger but Sandy managed to change him into a better person.  At the point of writing, approximately I8 months had passed, but Sandy still appears healthy although the cancer has not gone into remission.

Lily is currently holding down three jobs and helping out her son and Sandy financially. Sandy is not working with the hope that she can better fight her cancer if she was free from work stress.

Lily’s daughter Liz is currently in the US studying speech pathology, a field involved in the treatment of speech or communication disorders. Liz initially decided to study to become a nutritionist. One day, she attempted to check the full cost of the programme in her University’s system but the search results kept coming out with the cost for speech pathology.  A few days later, Liz mentioned to a lecturer in a medical school of her intention to be nutritionist. The lecturer advised her to consider speech pathology as the prospects are better. Liz was shocked because she did not even mention the incident with the University’s system to the lecturer in the first place.

During a session with her prayer group, a friend in the group told her that she had a vision of Liz working with children in the future. Liz then remembered giving swimming lessons to a 4-year old child with speech impediment. Liz was able communicate with the child and help the child to open up as well. The child later went back to her mother and told her that she wanted to make a card for Liz to thank her for helping her to talk better.

Liz saw all these coincidences as a sign from God that she should go into speech pathology. She was thinking about this when she was in a store.  Then and there, she closed her eyes and prayed to God that if He really wanted her to go into speech pathology, a child would walk into the store when she finishes her prayer. She opened her eyes and lo and behold, a little girl walked into the store.

She knew that God wanted her to go into speech pathology but the course is very expensive and she knew that her mother would not be able to afford the fees. Nevertheless, Liz confided with Lily about all the coincidences. Without hesitation, Lily told Liz that she would sell their home to finance her study.

The path was made clear for Lily after that. She managed to find a buyer for her house in a short period of 2 months and the buyer was willing to pay her a price which was above market value!

I was quietly listening to Lily as she told her story to my wife. I realised that she is so joyful because she has completely surrendered to God. She knows that her family is guided and protected by God and everything that happens to them is meant to help them. She is totally confident that in the end, everything will always work out fine.

I have always believed that I can learn from everyone and anyone and on that day, I had a beautiful reminder from Lily about the joy that comes from surrendering to the Divine.