Today is the third time I testify for the grace of God shown to me and my family.
Three years ago, my 16 year old son started receiving counseling help from Living Grace because of his severe emotional and behavioral problems. He did not go to school, stayed home most of the time, indulged in computer games and internet. He stayed up at night, but slept in day time. As a single mom, my heart was broken. I did not know exactly why my son was so defiant and lack of motivation. He just looked sick and emotionally disturbed.
Today, I want to let you know that God has helped me to walk through such valley of death. Besides having the staff of Living Grace counseled me, a group of parents in the Good Neighbor Parent Support Group supported me, I also received great help from my church. With all these help, my son was sent to a Christian Boarding School in another State, and he finished high school study there 3 month ago, he has just returned to California, is now attending a local college Just like how Jesus performed a miracle to turn water into wine, my son was transformed. Praise the Lord!
Today is my second time to testify for God’s love for me and my granddaughter.
My granddaughter is already 22 years old. She has always been a difficult child ever since she was young. Since early age, she was assigned to special education classes. From elementary to high school, she made very little progress in learning. School had referred us to get special service, but no help available. As her high school graduation approaching and yet she still did not have any independent living skills, I was very worried and anxious.
Two years ago, my church pastor referred me to Living Grace. The counselors’ kindness and understanding eased my worries. They assisted me to contact several agencies to find help and services for my granddaughter. After many months of hard work, my granddaughter was approved to receive financial support from government, and she is now waiting for the State Rehabilitation Department to arrange for vocational training. At the same time, I am also learning how to teach her some basic independent living skills. I truly thank God for the help and care from Living Grace.
I never went to a church. I thought I never will. But God did lead me to a church, and I was saved by His grace, and I later received counseling from Living Grace.
As an ordinary man, I thought I had all the blessings of life – a good career, a wife, children, and good health. But, two years ago, in all a sudden, I got into a major conflict with my wife, which led to my emotional breakdown. When I was so distressed, I thought about going to a church, to ask help from a pastor. So I took my wife to see a pastor, and he was so nice to listen to our problems, and helped us to believe in the healing power of Jesus. Although I did not know enough, but my heart was opened, and I received Jesus to be my personal savior. Yet my wife was not ready to believe. However, that was the turnaround moment of our marriage.
My wife and I were also referred to Living Grace for marital counseling. With the help of our counselor, we learned to take personal responsibility, to exercise forgiveness, and be better at communication and care for each other. The counselor also helped me to find answers for many questions I still have about the existence of God, and the reasons for suffering. Although there is still a long way to go in my spiritual growth, I have overcome this major crisis in life, and I am still learning how to better improve relationship with my wife. I also keep praying about her salvation.
I was blessed in a very special way, something I never expected!
I am a new immigrant mother. I have to take cares my three children by myself. Praise God that I am not alone, because I get strength from my faith, and I find help from my church. But the emotional problems of my 16 years old daughter caused me a lot of worries.
My daughter used to have a lot of problems in school, and her school grades were not good. She is quiet, isolated, restless, and hard to focus. She appears to be preoccupied, complains of annoying voices in her mind, and feels that her classmates tease her from time to time. Few years ago, she also reported seeing some strange shadows in her room, and yet she was not afraid, she even started to read a lot of ghost stories. She also complains of sleep disturbances, with occasional nightmares. Recently, she felt very emotionally disturbed, and told a school counselor that she wanted to die. At that moment, I was very worried. But with the help of a church leader, I went with my daughter to seek help from Living Grace.
After the assessment, the counselor explained to me that my daughter was experiencing depression and some psychotic disorders, but they were treatable with medication and counseling. So my daughter was immediately referred to see a psychiatrist, and got admitted to a government funded clinic for on-going counseling follow up. Praise the Lord, my daughter gets a lot better now, and she is more involved in church activities than before.
I am a member of the Pearl Group, a sister support group led by staffs of Living Grace. I am thankful for the blessings we experience in the group interaction process.
This group is special because it is for women only. We meet once a month. We share our life experiences, our victories, and our struggles. We learn from each other, and pray for each other. We sense a special bonding among the members. Recently we have members dealing with major decisions in marriage, and also struggling with health problems and losses. We listen to each other, we encourage each other. We laugh, and we cry together. Amazingly, we experience God’s presence and healing in very special way.
I feel very privileged to be a member of this support group. I pray that many sisters will be able to join us, and experience such special blessings too!
I am a brother in the Lord. I have received Christ for almost 10 years. But since my teen age, I was constantly disturbed by the mood disorders of manic and depression. I don’t know why this happen to me, but I know I am tired, I am very tired!
For the people that do not know me enough, even for many of my church friends, they cannot tell that I have such an illness. Like many regular guys, I graduated with a computer science degree, and I had worked in some hi-tech companies as engineer. But in the past 10 years, due to the illness, I had suffered unusual and disturbing mood swings, making me unable to concentrate on my job, and showed some crazy behaviors that caused a lot of relationship conflicts. Eventually, I could not hold on to my job anymore. Due to lack of income, I could only moved back to stay with my elderly parents. Because of all these craziness, I finally accepted the fact that I have an illness. It was painful. It was a lonely journey. I had even thought about giving up on myself.
During my course of medication treatment, I still need counseling to help me to deal with many emotional and relationship issues. Thank God that I got help from Living Grace. I receive not only regular counseling care, but also spiritual care. Although the mental illness I have is something very difficult to talk about, and it is hard to get people to understand and accept me, I am determined not to give up this fight. Yes, I am tired. But the hope in the Lord, and the help from Living Grace, give me strength to move on. I am not going to give up!
My husband I came to the U.S. 26 years ago from Indonesia. We have a son, and used to have a good family. When my son was 12 years old, my husband and I had a big marital problem, and we later got divorced. I then went back to Indonesia with my son, and tried to start a new live there.
Might be due to changes in environment, and I did not give enough supervision, my son started to show various be3havioral problems, including drug abuse. I then tried my best to help him to change, and he later showed willingness to change, and stopped using drugs. In order to help him stay away from the bad influence of his friends, I decided to move back to Los Angeles. My son was able to finish high school here, and entered college. But he later got to know some friends who were drug users, so he went back to use drugs again. This time, he was so addicted that I sometimes need to give him acupuncture treatment to alleviate his physical sufferings. In order to save my son, I gave up my job, I went to church, and pray for him everyday. However, my son’s problems still gripped him strongly.
By God’s grace, I was introduced to Brother Rubin Chen, the leader of Good Neighbor Parent support Group. Rubin and his wife came to visit me and pray with me. They also talked to my son, and introduced him to a drug rehabilitation program in San Jose. Knowing that I pray for him everyday and I care so much for him, my son finally agreed to enter the program.
After a year, my son made a lot of good progress. In June 2006, he was baptized in a church in San Jose. By November this year, he will complete his treatment. Although the struggle is not totally over yet, but the promise of God is real. My son was once lost in hopelessness, but now he is saved.
There were a lot of families immigrated to the US from China every year, just like me and my family.
Due to cultural shock with all kinds of adjustment problems, the emotions and pressures my teenaged kids have been going through and how we, the parents, helped them to seek for their identity and self acceptance, I felt exhausted and I cried, a lot. My son has had fights with his father because he wouldn’t like to go to school. All these made my family not happy and go into a very hard time.
Luckily, I was referred to the Living Grace Counseling Center by my church’s minister and received help from the counselors. My husband, my kids, and I have learned to use love language, to apply God’s unconditional love to accept each other, and to humble ourselves and learn how to deal with the behavioral and emotional problems my kids may have during this period.
God has given me a phrase, "those who sow in tears will reap in delight". (Isaiah 61:3, 10) "The oil of gladness instead of mourning; and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair; I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness. " I praise and thank God for what I have gone through!
I observed the newly immigrant families surrounding me and most of them were actually going through the hard times like my family did. I deeply understand their emotions, pressures, frustration, depression, sadness and disappointment. And I can see how they were hurting deeply by the love for their children, the love that would not be accepted nor appreciated. I truly hope they would find help from Living Grace, and also learn how to depend on God’s mercy to walk out from the valley of the shadow of death step by step.
I used to have a great family with my husband and 2 children. Three years ago, my husband was addicted to gambling and we were in great debt. On top of that, he had an extra- marital affair. We fought all day which caused my children to have mental disturbance and even emotional problems.
At that time, I was really upset; my friends suggested me to leave this family since I was still young and could start a new family. However, I wouldn’t want my family to be broken and I wouldn’t want my children to be raised in a single-parent family. Therefore, I sought for help and I was referred to Living Grace.
I was in deep despair and I felt a lot of pressure; I was afraid that I would break down psychologically and even harm myself. I really hope the Christ that Living Grace lifted could help us.
After two years of counseling, my husband and I have learned to discuss and solve the problems calmly. He was willing to cooperate and our relationship got improved. We have better understanding, communication, and respect for each other now. Most importantly, our counselor invited a pastor from a church to share the Gospel with us and ever since then my family started to go to church, know God, rely on Him and grow spiritually.
I praise God for His grace and the light of His words which led my family out from the dark to the light and let us learn about forgiveness, acceptance, supportive, and encouragement. In my opinion, divorce is not a smart choice since it could produce more frustration and problems. For those who are not satisfying in your marriage, I hope you can cherish and hold on tight to your family. Go seek for help and you will find a better and more blessed way out, just like me and my husband.
I was highly educated and I had a successful career after graduated; I was very satisfied with my life. 7 years ago, my boss fired me for no reason which cost me to fall into depression and loss my faith towards my friends and even myself. For 6 years long, I wouldn’t want to interact with the world, so I just stayed home all day long. I could trust no one and I always thought someone was watching me and was going to hurt me. However, I didn’t think something was going wrong; therefore I didn’t seek for any help.
I was thankful that my parents still cared for me so much. They were Christians and they prayed for me every day. My mother even helped me to search for all the treatments that could heal me. At the beginning of last year, my mother coincidently saw a TV show which was introducing the counseling work of Living Grace. She thought, "I found it! Living Grace could help my son."
At the first place, I was unwilling to see the counselor; it was just my parents who went to see him, to discuss about my problems and to learn how to cheer me up. After a while, the counselor called me and showed his care; he even made home visit to chat with me and provide help. As a result, I trusted him gradually and I agreed to receive counseling in Living Grace. I understood that my mind and emotional disturbance could be healed and I could live a normal and independent life through medication and occupational counseling.
Today, I had changed from not willing to see anybody to willing to step out of my house to meet people; from not admitting I have illness to willing to take medicine; from lack of confidence to redevelop my faith and having hope for the future. I wanted to thank my parents because of their perseverance. I also wanted to thank the counselor in Living Grace since I got healed and recovered from my illness.
