GOD IS SO GOOD!

Hi everyone!  I want to share about the goodness of God in my life. I am  in my 60s and am happily semi-retired. 
 
Since I was young, God is good to bless me with good academic results, good enough for me to secure a scholarship to study in a local University. Without which it would have been very challenging for my late mum who had to work double jobs to single-handedly raise up 6 children.  
 
God is good to me to bless me with a wonderful wife.  She is my childhood sweet heart and bore me 4 great children, 3 of whom are doing well in their careers and happily married also (I hope!). The youngest, the rose among the thorn is in university.  God is good to me to bless me with a very fulfilling career in the army which spanned almost 31years. I quickly rose up the ranks in the very competitive army work environment, sometimes overtaking others whom I considered more qualified than me. 
 
But I discovered that the best part of God's goodness is not found in the many blessings that I have in life but is during the times when I was most devastated, crushed, broken and empty.  Like when I almost broke up the beautiful family that God has blessed me with because I was so full of myself. I was authoritative, always insisting on doing things my way, to what I think and what I say.  It became almost impossible for others to have a constructive conversation with me because I was not listening.    
 
Or when I was utterly crushed after my 2nd career in the healthcare ended abruptly because I was burned out.  For 6 intense months I was leading teams to conduct nasal swabs on workers in their dormitories to ensure they were covid free so that they could go out to carry out essential services for the economy.  That was in the early 2020 when Covid was still relatively unknown and we were in a national lock down.  While most people were bemoaning their lack of movement outside, my teams and I were fanning out across the island on an almost daily basis (weekends, public holidays) to conduct swabbing operations. ART kits were not so easily available then to the general public yet. It was physically and mentally draining.  6 months into it and after a series of unpleasant developments in my office, I finally decided enough is enough and I threw in the towel.  Without realising it, I soon sank into a period of depression when I suffered an identity crisis from being a ‘somebody’ to a ‘nobody’.  
 
It was during these moments of brokenness, emptiness, despair, and even anger, that I discovered the best of the goodness of God. For during these moments when He speaks, my heart is stilled, when He touches me, my wounds and hurts are healed, when He embraces me, I know nothing in the world can touch me. And I know that my identity is secured in Him because He gave His only begotten Son, to die on the cross in my place.  
 
Therefore, the goodness of God is not found when I was basking in the limelight of worldly success, soaking in the applause and admiration of men, for that only inflates my ego and last but for a while. But the goodness of God is found when I am on my knees to catch a glimpse of the silhouette of a man crying out in anguish prayers in a dark garden. And when I stand to gaze in humble adoration of a man, who knew no sin, yet was beaten and crushed beyond recognition, hanging on a cross, and to hear His plea in His dying breath, 'Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing....'  This is truly the Goodness of God. 
 
So, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ and friends who have yet to know Jesus, I wish you too to experience the Goodness of God.  God bless you, thank you.