After sharing the testimony on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit upon
me with a few singers recently, I was encouraged by Jin Iy to share this good
news to encourage the rest of you as well. This is the complete version of my story
experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit.
I rededicated my life to God in 2005. Initially, I still thought I
wasn’t worthy to sing praises to Him because I’d been actively singing pop music (in
public and studio recording) since 1999. Frankly speaking, I didn’t have that
kind of spirit to sing gospel songs. I tried to but I couldn’t fix the spirit
within me. It wasn’t something I could create unless it came from Him.
God wanted to give me something new but He had to destroy the old
one in the first place. In 2008, tragedy happened - my vocal cord was broken. I
heard a “pop” sound from the larynx when I was actually just talking gently. My
heart sank because the awful pain made me worried. At first, I felt that it was
only one wound, after that, it became two. Without hesitation, I consulted ENT
specialist immediately. After all the checking, the doctor told me that it
could only be healed naturally. I asked him what he meant. He explained that only
if I could rest my voice (for a very long time), then it would heal itself. That
was totally impossible for me to do so. He added that there was no way to
cure it. “That means it will never be healed right?” I looked at the doctor with
tears in my eyes. “Don’t be sad, don't give up, sometimes miracle happens,” he comforted me but I was still very
down and felt handicapped – I couldn’t sing anymore.
It wasn’t easy for me to accept the truth. I stood among the
congregation on Sunday service, bursting into tears like being at the end of
the world. But when I recalled His love and faithfulness for me, how could I
not surrender everything unto Him? If God was still not what I desired most, I
asked God to forgive me. He gave me the gift and He had the authority to take it
back. If being vulnerable was the only way to allow my heart to feel the true
pleasure of worshipping Him, so I should let Him break me, which He already
did.
The thing I lost was incomparable to the surpassing greatness of
knowing Him. He stayed with me even He knew that I didn’t love Him enough. He
taught me the right posture to stand in awe of Him, continue to worship Him and
give thanks to Him, even I’d lost my precious singing voice, but I still had
the eyes, the ears, the nose, the hands, the legs and the beating heart.
Somehow, my love still grew for Him, He comforted me with His powerful Words;
it’d been lurking in the deepest crevices of my heart. Then I worshipped Him
by doing lip sync for the rest of my days and the melody from my heart.
Two years later (Jan 2010) which was after I'd decided to attend SIBKL
regularly. I asked God on a Sunday if I could only hit one
note, just one note. I tried and I did! The feeling was incredibly awesome!
Then on every Sunday later, I asked little by little, from hitting more notes to
sustaining the notes, from narrow range to wider range, from singing softly to
singing loudly. After six months of self-therapy, I could sing again! Though
the pain was still there. Same year in September, my cell group core members suddenly
asked if they could slot me in the duty roster for P&W. During my quiet time, I asked
God if He wanted to use my voice to serve Him, not only in the Cell but also in
the Church. I asked Him to heal my pain completely. Then I slept. The pain of
the deepest part of my larynx just disappeared the next day. It was
unbelievable! And then the other one He also healed me for answering another prayer. He sealed it within a second and I felt it. So I joined the
worship team. Slowly I realized that it was not enough for me to sing
without the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
I was baptized last August. The last session of the baptism class
was about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. God could give this freely, I wanted
it and I tried but I always gave up. After I joined worship team, during a session on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit conducted by Michael Toh for new singers, Sara
encouraged me not to give up after she prayed for me. Guess what, I still gave
up! During the same period of time, I dedicated my time and effort for the Christmas
skit practices. And I felt a need of breakthrough in my cell group. And I knew that I should be the one who had breakthrough first. Therefore, I started to attend
Tuesday night prayer meeting.
On YA vision night (11 Jan 2012), Pastor Daniel asked us to ask
ourselves about the one thing that we should have stopped doing, even we might
not understand but we would just trust Him and let go, so that God would
continue to do miracle things in our lives. These words appeared to me: stop
singing pop songs and demos. Yes, I still helped my friends sing their demos.
And I felt so hard to say ‘no’ to them, but I felt that God wanted me to completely
let that go. But I wasn’t firm enough to Amen to it until pastor prayed for me,
“You’re no longer timid, no heart of fear, rise up, step up with faith…”. I
sensed that the Lord was just right in front of me, face to face. He was so
close and I was stunned. God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. I
pondered for a while and quickly responded to Him, “Yes, I’m all Yours.”
Ridiculous thing happened. After a few days, my friends texted me
and rang me, describing that a few demos that I sang sold like being swept up
by the tornado which had never happened before, not even needed to be on hold.
They gave all the credits to me instead of giving back to themselves (the songwriters). They
even told me that one of the songs would be chosen for TV commercial in Taiwan
and in China, just because of my vocal beat the other one. Fish Leong, who
would be singing that song, asked my friend to pass a personal message to me and gave me a complement that I
really had a beautiful voice. Then my friends asked me to sing demos again.
They were very excited and I didn’t know how to break their hearts. Of course,
I didn’t want to break God’s neither. But those were friends who were very
sincere to me. I really needed help from God because I gave them an available
date, I didn’t manage to reject them. When the day was around the corner, I
fell sick severely. Sore throat, fever, flu, one package! That’s how I pushed
the appointment away. I think I’ll know what to say if they ask me again next
time.
In April this year, I told God I wanted a birthday gift from Him (on
June) – the spiritual gift of speaking in tongue. So I planned to have a 40-day
fast and prayer from May. However, it didn’t work! Too many celebrations were
going on. I only managed to fast for a few days, so I had to change the
strategy. I decided to go for Saturday morning prayer meeting besides the one on Tuesday night. The second time I went, Sara was standing right besides me. We prayed
together. When everyone was speaking in tongue, I kept saying “Hallelujah” as
Jin Iy always encouraged us to do that. Sara prayed for the baptism of the Holy
Spirit over me again and she asked me to press on. We’re like running on a
marathon, quite tired. After a while, she suddenly said, “Yes, you’re speaking
in tongue already!” Yes, I did feel that my “Hallelujah” was a little bit
different because of the loosen tongue.
The following Saturday morning, I started to be able to speak baby
tongues, some strength came out from my belly. The spirit inside me controlled
all the phonetics or words, more and more vocabularies coming out; it was
indeed a total new language to me. I praised Him joyfully with this new
language. I could sense Him deeply within me. The next day was GDOP (Global Day
of Prayer), I was brought by the usher to sit at the front row, and she said it
would be nearer to the fire. When I started singing praises to Him, a powerful
strength broken out from my belly, I heard my voice was doubled up and the
spirit did the entire vibrato for me from the diaphragm. I used to sing with
diaphragm but not with this kind of power. God was so amazing! He had truly granted me
with a new singing spirit!
After home, He gave me Isaiah 59, especially the last verse was a
promise from Him, “…My spirit, who is on you, and my words that I have put in
Your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your
children, or from the mouths of their descendants from this time on and
forever…”.
I had been given the brushes and colours, but painted at the wrong canvas. Now He has given me the new mediums and I’ve
heard Him say, “You can paint the sky now.” Isn’t our God awesome? Maybe it’s
because of the prayer meetings, maybe it’s because of stop singing demos, and
maybe it’s just because of everything works together, making sure that I’ll end
up exactly where and how I’m supposed to be. I believe that it is God’s desire
for every one of us to experience the power of the Holy Spirit. So, I just want
to encourage those who haven’t been baptized by the Holy Spirit, don’t give up
asking Him. Desire for it and pursue it because that will totally change our
spiritual life, entering a deeper personal relationship with God.
This is my story - the Blessed Assurance. I hope this Great Author
inspires you to be the worshippers that He desires. He’ll always be our muse; and
we shall always worship Him in spirit and in truth. May God bless you!
By Elssy
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