My ex-husband cheated on me and walked out on the family just one month after our daughter, Joel, was born.

It came as a second blow to me as I had just found out that Joel had Williams syndrome, a rare genetic condition that caused her to have three holes in her heart and brain abnormalities.

Overnight, I was left alone to support and take care of a child with special needs who required endless medical attention and therapies. Being from Indonesia, I had no family, no friends, no resources.

I brought my mother in from Indonesia so that she could take care of Joel while I worked several jobs in the day and went to school in the evenings to improve my job prospects.

I would take over the care of Joel when I got home at 11pm, waking up every two hours to feed her milk. She had poor digestion that required her to take small and frequent meals.

During those early years, I survived on just two hours of sleep each night.

Rejected by the world

Apart from taking care of a sickly child, contending with financial challenges and dealing with the betrayal of being abandoned by my ex-husband, I also had to watch my daughter face rejection from many people in society.

I must say that I don’t blame them, neither am I saying that they are bad people. Perhaps they just didn’t understand.

Still, it was a painful experience.

Once, Joel and I were in a lift with another mother and her child. The child was frightened when she saw Joel and blurted out innocently: “Mummy, why is this baby so ugly?”

In pre-school, Joel was never allowed to participate in class performances because she couldn’t follow instructions well and would “ruin” the performance. Instead, she would always be with me in the audience, wearing the same outfit that her classmates were wearing onstage.

Friends and neighbours who had children the same age as Joel would also stop their kids from playing with her. They were afraid that her “funny” behaviour would influence their children.

Left alone 

It was tough in church too. Even though there were compassionate children who would try to include Joel, it was only a matter of time before they left her on her own.

Again, I don’t blame them. Kids just want to have fun. Joel could not be engaged and included in their games, so I understand why they eventually stayed away from her.

I know they didn’t intentionally try to hurt her. They were just from different worlds.

To protect her from experiencing more pain, I took her out of the children’s service and put her in the adult service with me. There were well-meaning people who invited her to camps and other activities, but their invitations caused me more stress.

I knew that if she went with them, she would be included for, at most, a day or two. But in the end, the result would be more abandonment, more rejection, more sadness.

It may seem harsh but I had to firmly tell her: “Joel, you don’t have to go.”

It also felt like her disabilities were everything that people in church could see.

Every time they looked at her, they would give me 101 suggestions: “Why don’t you do this? Do that? Give this medication? Give this vitamin? Go and see this psychiatrist? Go and see this therapist?”

We couldn’t even have any meaningful conversations.

It was very tiring because I had tried all these solutions. Either they didn’t work, or they were beyond my financial capabilities. There were also certain things we could not do due to her unique situation.

I found myself getting very tired of explaining. It reached a point where I didn’t bother to explain anymore. I just smiled.

Precious in God’s sight

For the first six years of Joel’s life, I struggled to accept her condition.

Even though God had already miraculously closed up the three holes in her heart, I wanted Him to heal her brain too. I thought: What good is it if her heart is healed but her brain is not?

I insisted that God should heal her. It didn’t help that I subscribed to some wrong theology that gave me false hope and caused more destruction in my life.

I was taught to “declare in Jesus’ name” that Joel would be healed. In a single day, I could declare it 100 times, 200 times, even 1,000 times in my most desperate moments. But she was not healed and I fell into depression.

I was taught to have faith that she would be healed. When she did not receive healing, I blamed myself for not having enough faith.

Yet, I persisted.

When she was seven years old, I put her in a mainstream school because I wanted to show that I had faith that she would be healed. I received lots of calls from the teachers and from the school persuading me to take her out, but I refused.

It led Joel to fall into depression because of the rejection that she faced in that school. She started slapping herself and pulling her own hair.

It came to a point where I fell into a severe depression too. I was so crippled that I could not go to work, even though I knew I was the only source of income for my family.

For 10 days, I cried non-stop. For 10 days, Joel kept beating herself up. It was the worst time of my life.

But that was when I heard the voice of God.

He asked me: “Do you think that Joel is a mistake?”

“Of course!” I answered.

He asked me: “Do you think that Joel is a burden?”

“Yes!” I replied.

But God told me: “What if I told you that she’s not a mistake? What if I told you that she’s not a burden, but a blessing?

“I am God. I created her and I don’t make mistakes. She’s created for a special purpose, for a special reason, so that humankind can learn true Christlikeness and compassion.

“She’s different, but she’s not a mistake. She’s precious in My sight.”

Accepting my portion

That encounter radically changed my perspective.

I immediately went to Joel and apologised to her. I told her that I was not going to insist that she has to be what I want her to be. From that day onwards, I was going to allow her to be who God created her to be.

At first I was afraid that if I stopped praying for Joel’s healing, I would be depriving her of the chance to receive it from God. But I realised that this was a great deception.

We cannot twist the hand of God to give us what we want. I had to learn to accept my portion. I had to learn to let go. I had to learn to let God be God.

If God decides to heal Joel, hallelujah. But if God decides not to heal her, it’s still hallelujah.

Slowly, I learnt to change my prayer. Instead of saying, “God, you must heal Joel”, I learnt to say, “Be it unto her according to Your will. Be it unto me according to Your will. Whatever You decide, I will accept my portion.”

Pastor Judith with Joel and her husband, Pastor Jason Ong, who accepted and raised Joel as his own.

After I started to look at Joel the way Jesus sees her, instead of how the world sees her, I was truly able to cooperate with God to help fulfil the plan that He has for her life. 

I decided to take Joel out of the mainstream school and put her in a special education school. I saw that she got better and came out of her depression. She also excelled at school.

Daily sufficient grace

There were still many challenges and difficulties that Joel and I had to tackle together. But God said to me from 2 Corinthians 12:9 that His grace is sufficient for us.

Sufficient to do what? In the Amplified Classic Version, it says to enable us to bear our trials manfully, or courageously.

God would help us to go through these challenges, but I had to rely on His grace daily.

For us parents of special children, thinking about the future is scary. Thinking about next week, next month, next year can really cripple us. So I decided not to look at tomorrow. I took things one day at a time, trusting that God’s grace would be sufficient for me to do my best in that day.

Very soon one day became one week. And one week became one month. And one month became one year, and then 10 years.

Pastor Judith, Pastor Jason and Joel outside their restaurant, Olive Vine, which employs persons with special needs.

Joel will be turning 29 years old this September. She still has special needs but she’s happy.

She’s fulfilled. She has been working at a restaurant I set up, Olive Vine, for the past 12 years. She’s useful to society. She’s courteous. She’s a blessing to others.

She’s a blessing to me.

All along I had thought that I was here to take care of Joel, to sacrifice for her. But after walking through this whole journey, I realised that God put Joel in my life so that I can be who God wants me to be. If not for Joel, I would not have been so dependent on God. I would not have held on to God so intensely.

She is the reason why I have a rock-solid conviction that God does not make mistakes. Because of Joel, I have tasted the goodness of God. When suffering abounds, the grace of God also abounds. Through my struggles with Joel, I saw the beauty of God. 

If I could make a choice all over again, I would still choose Joel over any other “normal” kid.

Called by name

As much as people with special needs may be the rejects of the world, God has a good plan for their lives.

When Joel was born, a nurse asked me what I wanted to name her. I wasn’t a Christian then, neither had I read the Bible, but these four letters J-O-E-L popped up in my mind.

The nurse told me that it is a boy’s name and suggested that I changed the name to Joey or Joanne, or perhaps even alter the spelling to Joelle. 

But those four letters were clear to me, so I insisted: “No, name her Joel.”

At my lowest point after she was born, I wanted to take both our lives. But just as I was about to do so, God spoke to me.

He said: “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten … You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame.”

It was God’s promise to me that He has a plan for Joel and for me. Looking back now, I can see it. God indeed restored us.

I only found out later that what God said to me was from Joel 2:25-26.

When I realised this, He said to me: “I knew Joel even before she was formed in your womb, and I have called her by her name.”

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