Contributed by Darren Lim • Apr 1, 2025
It is 8am on the second day of Hari Raya. At the time of this writing, I have yet to turn in the complete piece of Engage that will be used by CGs to reverently ruminate over the Word as we grow deeper in our relationship with God.
It was just impossible to write with clarity after what has been a tiring 3D2N holiday and the journey back from Port Dickson taking longer than anticipated. Point to point journey on paper was by all accounts merely 1 to 1.5 hours. However, my family and I took 5 to 6 hours instead due to a little misadventure.
Our eldest son, codenamed L, was there for the weekend Trailblazer camp. It was the first time our son was away from home without us and naturally, we wanted to be close by in case any need arose. We literally stayed a stone’s throw away from the campsite, adjacent to a good stretch of beach, walking distance from our hotel. Throughout the planning and actual trip, I was in a dilemma on whether we were overthinking it and whether there was a lack of trust (on our part) of the volunteers and most of all, in our son’s ability to take care of himself.
We decided to pick L up directly from the campsite instead of when they were back at DUMC. I guess it was a case of running ahead of God again. When you do the planning math, it makes sense. Picking L up directly meant that we could leave earlier, have a scrumptious lunch, take a leisurely drive home and still be home before other parents picked up their kids from DUMC. But God had a different plan in store for us.
L recalled just before we arrived at our lunch destination that he left his journal and stationeries under his dorm pillows. He confirmed that was the case after a thorough search of his bag. No sweat, since we had the car, we could return to the campsite. The only catch was that our lunch destination was literally at the edge of PD town. Retracing meant adding an extra 30 min. It didn’t help that I took the wrong route by turning off earlier and ended up adding a total of an hour before we could turn from the direction of KL and back to PD! At this point, I was feeling really silly with myself and berated myself for piling errors upon errors. Anyhow, we managed to get back to the campsite and L was able to retrieve his belongings, all thanks to the ever accommodating caretakers. In fact, the supervisor told us that we needn’t have to turn back as he wouldn’t have minded bringing it down on his planned trip later the same day. What can I say, having the benefit of hindsight always meant that we could have made better decisions. It was my wife that pointed out that perhaps, in our “disobedience” (fears and worries about our son), God turned that into a strong lesson that He knows best. Even in such a situation, He is always in control. We can say that it was divine providence that we had a car and could retrieve what was highly valuable belongings for L.
Who knows (God certainly does), that perhaps the whole incident happened so that it may be a living testimony of God’s goodness, love, mercy and grace. In the act of turning to God and running to God, we learn through baby steps to run with God. That when He says “(let) go”, we must say “Yes, Lord”.