You Saved the Best for Last

For the past few days I have had to keep my emotions in check.

I didn’t expect the passing of Mr Lee Kuan Yew would have affected me so much. I tried to analyze, but it is all futile. I have lived long enough to know that when it is time to feel I should just feel, don’t try to understand.

Singapore holds a very special place in my heart. I had the privilege to live much of my life in Singapore, it is a wonderful country. I studied and worked there for close to fifteen years, and made some lifelong friends. Today I know many of them are mourning a great loss.

I saw the queues of people to pay their last respect to their great leader. I called a friend, no I whatsupped her, a cool-headed PhD and she couldn’t contain her emotions. I would have envied her and her fellow countrymen, that they could have a leader they so adore, if not for the fact that I myself had been privileged to live under the influence of the great man for a long time.

A great loss indeed. On his stage, he was peerless. But I am sure that Singapore will move on to greater heights, even without their founding prime minister. Let’s not forget that Mr Lee’s legacy started with a loss. It was so to him, so much so he cried on television.

Kicked out of the Federation, with a million mouths to feed, on an island state practically with no resources. And those who kicked him out must have thought: good riddance of a troublesome people.

But God is a father to the orphans the needy the oppressed. He will make sure that they have the last laugh.

I read in John 2, the morning of the passing of Mr Lee but not yet hearing the news, a verse that captivated me:

Everybody I know begins with their finest wines and after the guests have had their fill brings in the cheap stuff. But you’ve saved the best till now! (John 2:10, MSG)

Look at the country Mr Lee built. Success is an understatement.

I don’t want to argue about Mr Lee’s religious inclination, but it couldn’t be clearer to me: he is God’s gift to Singapore, the Moses of his generation.

As in 1965, so in 2015, the Redeemer can turn a loss to gain.

The end of a chapter for Singapore? Maybe, but their Joshua is already here.