God set Lynn Kelly free

to live for him in China!

Lynn first shared her story of what the Lord had done

with the fellowship she belongs to in China.

I would like to share with you how God has changed my life in a miraculous way in the last few years. Andrew and I have been in China for nearly nine years, but until three years ago I spent less time China and more time in England, and there was a reason for this, as you will understand when I have finished sharing with you. But first I need to give a little background information.

I never knew who my father was and when I was about eighteen months old my Mother abandoned me. I was put into an orphanage and eventually fostered by a young couple. I lived with them for some years, but they were not always very kind to me and when they had their own children they made my life very difficult. I became a very unhappy child, my education and health suffered, I was made to feel unwanted, unloved and rejected. Eventually they asked social services to take me away, and I was sent to another foster home at the age of seven years.

The family I went to were Christians and two years after living with them I was formally adopted by them. For the first time in my life I learnt of love, and found security. As I grew up I was unaware of the damage done in my early years of life. I was taken to church and Sunday school each week and at the age of fifteen years gave my life to the Lord. I met Andrew when I was nineteen, we married a couple of years later, we started our own family and were settled and I was secure - or so I thought.

I hadn’t realised the impact of those early years on my personality and emotions, the problems were partly hidden and cushioned by my lifestyle and the environment I lived in, having a comfort zone of husband, family, friends and church around me. However, the problems were there, I just thought they were part of my personality; it was just ‘me’ after all, I had to accept it. To give you some idea of these problems I’ll try to explain. I found meeting new people very difficult and tried to avoid it if possible, it was very hard to trust people and their motives for doing or saying things, I was always full of doubts. I hated to do anything that meant speaking in public as I felt too shy and vulnerable and always felt my opinion was of no value. I was afraid people would laugh at me and dislike me. I was so afraid of failing that I wouldn’t even try to do anything new. Basically I felt totally insecure, with no self-confidence and I believed I was not as good as other people. I certainly couldn't learn anything or be any use to anybody, so my life was full of fears!

Even though I was a Christian, I did not realise these were things God could help me with. I did not realise there was a spiritual reason at the root of my problems. However, they were there, buried deep inside and ticking away like a time bomb.

For more than twenty years I lived like this, then in 1996, I came to China - and the time bomb went off!

Suddenly my whole world seemed to fall apart. Suddenly I felt so afraid again, I couldn’t speak the language, the housing was so different from home, my family and friends were so far away, my children were in another country at school. I tried to get use to life here, but couldn’t as I was always so full of fear. I started to feel the pain I had as a child of feeling so lost and afraid, of having no security of those I knew around me. I kept feeling that my children must be feeling the pain that I felt of being separated from their mother as I had, it all spiralled out of control and I just wanted it to all stop, I felt as if I was in a dark tunnel and there was no escape. It came to a point where I felt I could never come back to China.

So I decided just that, I was never coming back to China. But instead of feeling at peace I was in turmoil. It was then that God spoke to me through a book I was reading, the book was called ‘Bondage Breaker’ by Neil Anderson, as I read and God spoke to me, I realised that I needed to recognise the problems from my past that needed to be dealt with and healed before I could move forward into being the person that God wanted me to be.

God reached down into the depths of my heart. Over the following months I was able to bring to Him the hurts and pain and most of all the fear that held me so fast from the past,. I was able to accept that I need not be afraid as God was in control of my life. Hadn’t he looked after me all those years and brought me to this point,? He had never rejected me as others had. He loves me for who I am with all my weaknesses and fears. My security is in Him and Him alone. He would always be with me whether I was in Britain with my family or here in China.

Slowly God worked on these areas in my life and one day challenged me, ‘I want you to go back to China’. So I came back to Guangzhou for a few weeks in the autumn of 2002.  My time here was difficult and I know the devil tried to knock me off course, but God gave me a verse at the end of those two weeks,  Isaiah 43:18-19 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past, See, I am doing a new thing.” I knew then with out a doubt this is where God wants me to be, serving Him here with Andrew.

I came back to China the following February and am now living a settled and happy life here. God has enabled me to work alongside Andrew and become part of what He is doing here in China. I am leading a life that is worthwhile and satisfying, and I know that I am where God wants me to be. God has even given me the opportunity to make up in my education those years I lost, by enabling me to take a Bachelor’s Degree with the Open University, which I am able to do through distance learning.

So please if there is anyone who feels as I did - lost, full of fears and hating living in China (or wherever) - be encouraged. If you put your trust in God fully, He can and will help you to work through your difficulties and live and serve Him just as He has me.