There is no brokenness that God cannot redeem – Sarah Lim

Sarah Lim came from a background of financial hardship. Her father passed away when she was 7. Her mother worked long hours as a domestic cleaner and odd-job worker. When her grandmother suffered a stroke, Sarah, at age 9 was forced to quit school to care for her and the house for her family.

At 11, she started waitressing at a kopitiam and subsequently picked up smoking and drinking because of the influence of her working environment.

By the time she was 15, she was in a gang. She worked in a company selling electrical appliances and doing gas delivery but she was also involved in duplicating real life X-rated recordings for a syndicate.

 

 

As business flourished, she became the manageress of a café, pub and disco. The gang she was in was involved in drugs, prostitution and ah long (illegal money-lending) activities. They also operated an illegal gambling den. In addition, she was a female ‘pimp’ for students, housewives and office workers who wanted to earn extra income.

One of her brothers died when she was 17. At around that time too, the police were on their trail. One of the gang members took the rap and was incarcerated while the rest fled to Singapore where they indulged in race horse gambling. She was there for 16 years working by day at an electronic factory. In 1997, at her younger brother’s request, she agreed to be transferred back to Melaka to work for its branch there for the sake of their aging mother.

Three years after she returned, she became the manageress of a pub cum disco and café. After work, she was there until the wee hours of the morning surviving on a couple of hours of sleep. She also finally got married – to a lawyer but the marriage only survived 3 years.  After that, she became the mistress of a ‘Datuk’ from KL for the next three years.

 

 

However, tragedy struck.  She met an accident on December 25, 2006 which caused her spine to be broken and she became half paralysed. She was in severe agony and had two screws and two rods inserted into the bones of her spine. This caused her to be unable to bend at her waist.

To add fuel to the fire, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, two months later. Mentally and emotionally, she was defeated and was referred to a psychiatrist the following month. Her eldest aunt went everywhere to pray for her and look for a cure. In September 2007, a ‘Cheng Hoon Teng’ monk advised her to go full-time as a nun in the temple, as the evil forces against her were too strong.  Her aunt bought her nun’s clothes to prepare her stay in the ‘Cheng Hoon Teng’ temple located at Jalan To’kong, Melaka within 10 days.

Four days later, as the tap in her kitchen was leaking, she went to a friend’s shop to get it fixed. Her friend, Karen, was a Christian attending Calvary Life Assembly Chinese (CLAC), Melaka. She asked Sarah why she had lost so much of weight, to which Sarah poured out all her problems and told her that she preferred to die.

 

 

That afternoon, Karen visited her, bringing along Pastor Gina Teoh of CLAC. Every word that Pastor Gina spoke about Christ was rebutted by Sarah. Fortunately, Karen had fasted that day and told Sarah that Jesus was the one she was looking for and also invited her to the Lantern Festival held in CLAC the next day.

The next day, Sarah kept thinking about Jesus. In the evening, her hands and whole body started shivering. She realised Jesus was calling her. She quickly changed her clothes and without telling her mum, drove to church. She took her walking frame and once she stepped into the car park, she started crying. Her life during the last eight months from the time of the accident, moved before her like a movie.

She sat down in the church feeling very empty and started to talk to Jesus. “I beg you to help me. I’m not afraid to die but I need to repay my mum for all her sacrifices. If you heal me, I will worship you and walk to the end of the world to tell about you.” She then accepted Jesus. It was September 21, 2007. That night she dreamt that Jesus hugged her and stroked her hair. She felt comforted and accepted, with peace and warmth flooding her heart. 

 

 

Five days later, a preacher from Africa named Dr. Bisi came to CLAC to conduct a healing conference. While preaching, he stopped twice to inform the congregation that the Holy Spirit had prompted him that there was someone with a backbone problem that needed healing. At his second call, Sarah started to cry and walked up to the pulpit.

Dr. Bisi asked what the doctor had said about she couldn’t do to, to which Sarah revealed that she couldn’t bend her waist at all. However Dr. Bisi encouraged her to believe that Jesus would lift up her burden and heal her disease. Then he lay his hands on her and said, “In the Name of Jesus, I command you to bend.” At the first bend, Sarah thought her spine would break and she would be paralyzed as the doctor had said would happen. However, she managed to bend over 3 times. Dr. Bisi removed her walking frame and asked her to walk and not look back. She was completely healed!

 

 

That night, she was also completed delivered of her smoking and drinking habits after prayer. She said to God, “I humble myself to you and let me live to pay my mother, her last respects. Also don’t let the surgery knife touch me. I want to love you alone.” 

On 25^th December 2007, she decided to take her water baptism. Two weeks later, she was supposed to go for surgery for her cancer. Amazingly, when the check-up was done, no cancerous cells were found! Jehovah Rapha, our healer, had come through for her again.

 

 

However, although, we are new creatures in Christ, we must make Him Lord of our lives. Being fiercely independent, especially from a young age, proved to be a stumbling block for Sarah. She found herself unable to fully trust God. There were mounting financial problems now, as she no longer worked at the pub. She had also not saved any money and she was forced to downgrade her expensive lifestyle.

Sarah was also not getting into God’s Word. Her lack of education hindered her from reading and keeping God’s words in her heart. Her foundations in the faith were weak. For about six months after she received Christ, she went through much turmoil and stress. Her medical bill was more than RM 4,000 every month and her younger brother went to an ah long to borrow RM 20,000 for her.

 

 

The next day, her sister-in-law called her and asked her not to bother her husband. Her mum also scolded her and told Sarah that she would have to go out and beg. The stress was too much. And on that night, Sarah decided to end her misery. That way, she thought her financial woes would be solved and her family could move on with their lives.

She swallowed over 100 sleeping pills and brought a cylinder of gas into her room at midnight. Six hours later, her mum found out and called for help. She was hospitalized and treated for 3 days. Pastor Gina was upset and told her that Christians should not do such things. She stayed with Sarah for more than two weeks and prayed continually for her. This touched Sarah’s heart, as Pastor Gina was not her flesh and blood. She also learned to forgive her sister-in-law and accept deliverance from bitterness. Since that day forward, she started studying the Bible more deeply, and prayed Psalm 23:1-6 daily substituting her name for the first person pronouns.

 

Finally she surrendered herself totally to Jesus. “You must make me strong. You must help me. You must totally take over. I make you my King.” This was in February 2008, about six months after she had received Christ.

Today, Sarah Lim is involved in the Visitation Ministry of her church. She does follow-up, counselling, prayer and deliverance. She is also sharing her testimony in Singapore, Indonesia and various parts of West and East Malaysia.

 

 

To download the Chinese version of this testimony, please click here.

 

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