Faith Story by Alison Chew
My name is Alison. My husband Allen and I are blessed with 3 children, Abi 11, Asher 8 and Ariel 3
I am a full time Stay-Home-Parent, while Allen works full time. We are grateful that Allen gets to work during this challenging season, but that also means I’ll be alone more with the children. Not being able to go out for leisure activities with the children because of the lockdown made things hard.
During the first lockdown, it was pretty tough for me. Everyday seems the same; every day is long, and every day seems lonely (even though I was never really alone), and the work seemed to go on for 24/7.
So needless to say, with the fear of the pandemic, the stress of new responsibilities of home-schooling, making sure the children exercise, on top of house chores, feeding them, worrying about their future, their academic.. I was complaining and worrying a lot.
Then God revealed this to me: 1 John 4:4 “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
God is showing me not to focus on the stats, the numbers of cases; not the virus, not on the fear of the children’s future, but keep my eyes on Him, and to focus on what God can do for me, not what the world can do to me! It was a total breath of fresh air.
So now, I am counting my blessings of being able to spend more time doing activities that we otherwise couldn’t do during physical schooling days. And our 3yr old has the luxury of having his brother and sister to play with and to teach him all day long!
One of the things we have started during this pandemic is Our Daily Family Devotion – inspired by our dear sister Sharon and brother Jacky. For the past seven months we have been able to spend time as family, praying, reading God’s word, and discussing various topics every night.
Currently we are going through the 40-day dawn prayer devotion booklet for kids. It has been really good, with great discussion topics and prayer points. We get to take turns to pray for the schools, our government, and the orang Asli. It also helped the children to be aware of all the social political issues our country, and the difficulties people are going through.
Praying together not only help build a solid foundation in God, but also help us to bind together as a family unit.