Faith Story by Juliana Lu Ansis
As many of you would know, in 2020 my daughter was diagnosed with severe psoriasis but she was subsequently healed. So once swimming was allowed after much of the covid ban eased, I immediately enrolled her for swimming training under the Penampang swimming club. This began a period of a lot of sweat and tears.
In March this year, during the Kota Kinabalu Novice swimming competition, in her very first competition, Evie managed to get a podium finish for the 50m backstroke. While that looked like a strong start, and we all thought this journey would be amazing, alas, it wasn’t.
Her next competition, the Sabah Invitational Age Group (SAG), was only 2 months away so the tough training started immediately. However 2 weeks into training, her Coach caught something amiss when she swam. Further checks revealed that she has an onset of “swimmer’s shoulder”, a nightmare for all swimmers. He told me to get it checked to see if anything could be done about it. Swimmers shoulder, if serious, would need surgery, and if that happened, you could pretty much say goodbye to competitive swimming. My heart ached for Evie. She just cried and cried. Imagine – you have just got a medal, and then next thing you know the future for her in this sport suddenly turned bleak!
As a mother and a believer of Christ, I told her “Don’t worry! God will heal you! He healed you from this “no-cure” skin disease, He can heal you from anything!”
I brought her to see Justin Chen, a physiotherapist from Synergist Physiotherapist at Taman Fortuna. He detected the “faulty” “locked” muscle” and recommended some exercises to “trigger” it. We were so thankful to God that the Coach spotted it early and that it was not major – It was something we could go home and work at fixing it.
Meanwhile, a verse dropped into my heart which I gave to Evie – “I can do all things through God who strengthens me” Philippians 4:13. I wrote it on her headboard of her bed so that it would be the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing as she goes to bed. “Memorise it”, I told her. “When you are feeling down and helpless, remember this verse.”
Honestly, as a mother, this was not an easy time. I’m a realist. Swimming training requires a lot of effort and support not only for the swimmer, but from the parent as well. Training days are Tuesday till Saturday, and eventually this will be extended to Sundays. Much money is spent on swimsuits and equipment. The majority of us have only one swimsuit, but for trainees like Evie, they have 5 training swimsuits and 2 competition swimsuits. One training suit costs more than RM200, and a competition suit is more than RM500! This, on top of the driving and spending time waiting at the pool, is so much work. I wanted to discontinue her swimming so many times! I would tell her “If you don’t perform, stop swimming”. But each time I said this, Evie would end up heartbroken and a lot of crying.
Each time too, the Holy Spirit would drop in me, “Where is the glory if you just quit here? You want to teach my daughter that she must believe, that she can do all things, you have God. But with these kind of thoughts, how are you going to glorify God?” I struggled so hard in the two months before the SAG competition. During this period, I know I heard myself more than I heard God.
One day when I was feeling rather emotional from being overwhelmed with so many things happening – work, swimming, stress, tiredness – I asked to speak to Aunty E. Actually I was kind of wanting a time out, to go back to part-time because I was tired both physically and emotionally. But somehow when I met her, I couldn’t bring myself to say those words. So we ended with prayer. Then while we were praying, God showed me a vision. He showed me Evie going up the podium. I was stunned. I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t tell anyone about it. In fact I took days to process it. In the end, I told God, “OK, I’m going to trust You in this. Not sure where this is heading, but will just follow.”
SAG came, and the issue was still there. There was a little improvement, probably 20%, in her strokes. Then God dropped someone into my heart – a long-time friend Chery. I had last seen her 15 years ago. She is also a colleague of my husband, Greg. Chery does cross-fit, and is a good swimmer too. I asked Greg to seek her help. Truth be told, I did not know how she could help, but because she appeared in my heart, so I decided to look for her. Chery got Evie a personal coach, told him the issues which he understood well, and Evie started his training immediately.
SAG was in June, followed by the state-level Majlis Sekolah Sekolah Sukan (MSSS) in July. At first, I didn’t want to enrol Evie in this competition because I was worried about her shoulder. But one of the mothers in the swimming club kept on encouraging me sign her up so that Evie could get a certificate and earn merits. The registration date has come and gone, but somehow she pulled strings and got Evie a spot to compete. Before the MSSS, while at home, Evie did 4 sessions of workouts for her shoulder. These were not strengthening sessions – just minor exercises and movements to “trigger” the muscle.
For a change, I didn’t accompany Evie for the MSSS competition. However, people kept taking videos of her and sending them to me. They said her achievements were crazy!
Any sportsman, especially swimmers, will know every second’s improvement is an achievement. Well, Evie not only improved, but her personal best time improved by so much I thought there is something wrong with my eyes. For the 100m freestyle she reduced her time by 10 seconds. For the 200m freestyle she cut the time down by an amazing 17 seconds! If that was not enough, her time was even faster than a few of the older children in the elite group! These days, at training, her time is still improving!
After the competition, I asked Evie a question, “How were you so confident?”
Her reply to me was that her confidence comes from God.
I really had to come before the Lord and repent. I was doubting God, and was impatient with the process.
At the same time, I was glad; at this young age Evie didn’t doubt God at all despite all had she went through.
There is this saying, “child-like faith”. Although it’s not from the Bible, I understood it from there. Children’s minds are so pure – they have not yet lived long enough like us adults to experience all sorts of things and hardships so, their faith is untainted.
Today let us come before the Lord. Let us put aside all our expertise, our “logical” thinking. Let us believe that God can do what He says He can do. What is more, He can do more than what we asked for.