My sleeping brain is often more active than my brain awake, I call it dreaming.
This morning, I dreamt about Ah Kong (my late grandpa).
On the 2nd of July 2008, Ah Kong finally met Jesus face to face. But the story of his life had not been fully told to me, until today, and probably in days and years to come.
I was just telling Uncle that I dreamt of Ah Kong as a prayer warrior this morning. Perhaps this was because Ah Kong seemed to spend more than half his awake hours reading the Bible or praying when he was still around.
Then Uncle told me about Dr. Wong, the doctor only Ah Kong visits, when we already have another family doctor (Dr. Liew, she’s an excellent doc). Dr. Wong passed away sometime middle of this year, but what was unknown to us, was that he received Christ into his life about one year back. According to Uncle, Dr. Wong has always been an anti-christian, closed and cynical about the gospel even though his family were all christians. But one year before his death, he finally converted.
The two to five years before Ah Kong passed on were challenging for my family, especially my parents and uncle. With Ah Kong coming down with cancer, Mama’s dementia worsening her memory and behaviour, and, the departure of the maid for 2 years, meaning more housework. Ah Kong recovered from cancer due to God’s healing and wisdom working through Uncle, but this is another story to be told another time.
Subsequently, Ah Kong frequently complained of cough, headache, sore throat, fever or just simply suspecting his blood pressure was too high. Almost twice or thrice in two weeks he pestered my dad or Uncle to drive him to see Dr. Wong for medication or check-up. Papa and Uncle was definitely irked each time this happened, but they still sent him nonetheless. We came to the conclusion that Ah Kong was overly health-conscious or paranoid of falling ill, which perhaps to a certain extent, was true.
However, what we didn’t know was that Ah Kong’s intention was to seize these clinic visits to spend time and share Christ with Dr. Wong. Of course there was the weekly (or monthly, not sure) Shalom deliveries that Ah Kong faithfully made for the past perhaps 10 or more years, and even after his demise, made sure Uncle continued sending them to Dr. Wong. We knew about them, but he did much more than that. He chose to make himself seem irritating and troublesome (or terriblesome as Mama often puts it) so that his actions were not seen by man, but God.
I always appreciated Ah Kong for his acts of kindness, the Seow way of showing love, doing the simple things for me to make life a tinsy bit more comfortable and convenient. I admired and respected Ah Kong for his love for the Word of God and prayer, the two things that I definitely need more of in my spiritual life. However, it is only today that I can feel the love of Christ radiating out of his life, even at such an old age (80-92) with so little left, till the end of his life. I’m inspired by this simple life of faith, hope and love. And how without all the frills and hype we often go through in church, the love of Christ, listening (the Word) and conversing (prayer) with Him should be the sole reason we love others, meet their needs and introduce them to their ultimate Provider and Saviour.
Thank you Ah Kong for showing me a bit more of our Lord Jesus today. =D
