Shan Li wanted to die when the Japanese soldier that invaded Singapore raped her, but the Lord had other plans for her. He protected her from ever committing suicide so that she might come to know Him one day. That day occurred when a friend invited her to church. Shan Li agreed to go to the church with her friend and that was when the Lord first began a relationship with Shan Li.
Shan Li began to grow in her walk and love for the Lord. She participated actively in her church, and when the wars in Singapore ended, she started her own fruit business. Just when things were going on well with her, a nightmare occurred.
Shan Li discovered that she was pregnant. Pregnant with the child of her enemy, the Japanese soldier. Of the soldier who raped her and killed her parents and older brother. Shan Li had nothing but hated for her enemy, and that hatred extended to the child she discovered she bore.
"Lord, how can I ever bring up a child that is sowed into me in hatred?" She wept, helplessly before the Lord. She wanted to abort the child, but her love for the Lord conflicted with her own will to abort the child. Her desire to abort the child and her love for the Lord began a wrestle, that escalated into an all out match. In the end, her love for the Lord defeated her hatred for the child and her enemy and she gave birth to the child. The child was girl.
She named the baby Grace, after the grace the Lord had shown her, and of which, she had in turn, shown to the child. Shan Li wanted to remind the baby that she was born in grace. It was hard for Shan Li to be a single mother, raising a child she struggled not to hate but to love. With the help of the Lord, the child grew into her adulthood under Shan Li's care.
This was all possible because the Lord was gracious to Shan Li and her daughter. Although it was difficult, Shan Li had come to forgive the soldier who was cruel to her and and her family and Grace also learned to forgive her father who brought her into the world without her mother's wishes.
Jesus beamed as He looked at His handmaiden, Shan Li. She was one true handmaiden of the Lord.
