Pain and how it shifts you

Gwendolyn Clare Thong
Nov 5 · 3 min read

I’m very much in pain right now.

Over the weekend that passed and today, I encountered a few people who were telling me about their sufferings. One of them treated me meanly and that shook me because I tend to be regarded well and treated well by my peers, seniors and students. It has been awhile since I’ve interacted with the Chinese middle class in Singapore.

Back in the school that I worked at as a history teacher and at LKYSPP, there was always a different culture: christian-dominated, Malay-friendly or cosmopolitan.

Coming back to Chinese culture actually pains me because of how restrictive and conservative it is. Needless to say, I am pained and it has shook me awake.

I am back home, my stomach hurts from eating too much but my mind is way too alert to go back to sleep.

I feel like I’ve finally understood what God has been trying to tell me all along. I’ve taken the bait of the devil and tried to walk a path that was not meant for me. I’ve on multiple occasions tried to rationalise and cope with it. I’ve fought to stay on with it. I’ve been manipulated to feel unworthy. What is wrong with me?

The path that I’ve been struggling to get off from is one that I must get off from if I were to fulfill God’s will for my life as well as to avoid the death that is associated with staying on it.

Sometimes, when we are so sheltered and safe, that’s when we let our guards down and we are tempted by the king of lies. It’s almost as if someone was waving a poison apple at me and I was eating it bit by bit, looking at it and then going back to God for healing each time. It is time to put an end to this nonsense and just say “no thank you. I’d rather vomit than to go back to that poison apple.”

1 Peter 5:8 New International Version (NIV)

8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour.

After seeing the horrendousness of godlessness in the world this few days, I realise that the Lord is truly the only solution. How could I even consider betraying him?

I couldn’t sleep. Even the thought of continuing to sin make me want to vomit. I woke up and went straight to the bible:

I called out to the Lord and said “Lord. What have I done? I have taken the bait of the devil and made myself forget your goodness. Everything that I have comes from you and indeed everything that has been redeemed has been redeemed through you and yet I have disobeyed you. I am too unworthy to come back into your presence.”

The Lord has been merciful towards me.

What I wanna share with you today:

PAIN — why is this important?

Guys and gals.

Listen. If what you are doing is wrong and it doesn’t come with pain, you will keep doing it and then one day, you will die and you won’t even see it coming.

That’s the function of pain really.

It is there as a warning for your physically, emotionally and spiritually that you are doing something wrong.

For me, I really suffer whenever I disobey God.

I don’t even know what I did what I did. (which I cannot share here — it is not even that big a deal but I betrayed the Lord by not standing up for Him when I could.)

I’m a betrayer and God has been dealing with me today.

That’s horrible and I cannot continue to do it.

I feel disgusted by myself and I just want to stop.

So, from tomorrow onwards, after I wake up, I am not going back to my vomit. I am abandoning everything that I know is wrong and never revisiting it again.

Lord. Help me.

Amen.

Gwendolyn Clare Thong

Written by

graduate student, trying to do the right thing, struggling at times

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