有时候写完一首歌，你真的不知道它的功效和影响力。。。一首“牵我的手”让很多华文教会都认识了我，也牵着我的手到很多地方，甚至海外服事。。。这是我没预料到的， 也不是我当初写这首歌的原因。。。但神做工就是超乎我们所求所想。。。
Sometimes after writing a song, you would not know its effect and impact… Just through this one song ” Hold My Hand “, many Chinese churches got to know me and it has held my hand and brought me to many places and even overseas to minister… That was beyond my expectation, and was not the reason why I wrote this song too… However, the way God works is always beyond our imagination…
特别把我牵到印尼。。。Especially brought me to Indonesia…
新加坡。。。 Singapore…
当然马来西亚各地，还有别的国家。。。 Of course all over Malaysia, and other countries…
很多人被“牵我的手”感动，也有很多人用这首歌传福音给未信主者、老人家等等，在布道会我也常用这首歌结尾做呼召。。。因此，很多人都会问我在什么情况下写了这首歌。。。
Many people have been touched by ” Hold My Hand “, and many have used this song to reach out to non-believers, the elderly and so on, and I often use this song for the altar call after my sharing too…As a result, many have asked me under what circumstances I wrote this song…
其实我之所以会写福建/闽南语诗歌也有一段故事，那会写在另一篇，还有我根本为什么会写歌有一天也会跟你们分享。。。今天这一篇就专注在我为什么会写“牵我的手”。。。
话说当时我已写了十多首福建诗歌，而且每一首教会都常常唱了，我已没有新的福建诗歌好教会众唱；所以有一次主日我就在台上跟大家说，我已江郎才尽，没有福建诗歌了，如果大家还想要有新的福建敬拜赞美诗歌，那就要为我祷告，求主膏抹我，赐我新歌了。。。
我想应该有人祷告吧？
几天后的某一个晚上，半夜十一点左右，我坐在床上还不打算睡觉，就拿起吉他，很简单的对上帝说：主啊，我们教会有很多老人家，很多人面对死亡难免都有一点恐惧，你可不可以给我一首歌，唱了特别叫垂死的病人不会害怕，知道耶稣会牵着他们的手，引领他们到天国，而因此会很平安？
只是一个很简单、很短的祷告，我就拿起吉他来弹，没想到灵感就涌现，连词带曲一起来，差不多十五分钟的时间就把歌写完了！我现在正看着当初写这首歌的草稿书（我都有收起来），日期写着1996年2月5日，晚上11:20pm。。。
有时候写完一首歌也不太清楚好听不好听，人会不会喜欢；但很多时候我自己灵修时就很喜欢唱这些自创的新歌，因为是发自自己内心跟神说话。。。
所以我也不太清楚大家对“牵我的手”会有什么反应，我只知道经祷告过后这么顺畅流露出来，一定是神所赐，我就决定下来的主日教唱这首歌。。。
主日那天是我带领敬拜，我是打算讲道之前才教“牵我的手”。。。那天带领敬拜感觉很平常，没什么特别事情发生，我心里就想今天大概神就只用他的道感动人吧？
敬拜完毕，做了一些报告，要开始讲道之前，我拿起我的吉他，告诉大家说上帝给了我一首新歌，现在教大家唱。。。
结果是一唱不可收拾！我非常讶异台下的反应！只见大家哭成一团，唱几遍过后有些抱在一起哭，然后弟兄姐妹也开始走动，互相拥抱、相爱、和好等等。。。
让我印象最深刻的是一位三十岁的弟兄，因从小父母把他送给没孩子的亲戚作孩子，他对这件事耿耿于怀，虽然生母和他都有交往，也还很疼他，也一起在教会，但他无法释怀，始终无法开口叫生母一句“妈妈”。可是就在那天，我看到台下的情景而不停的唱“牵我的手”时，他就走过去生母那里，抱着母亲叫他“妈妈”，那是他生平第一次，两人抱着哭成一团，上帝以一首简单的歌医治了他们内心多年的创伤。。。还有很多其他的人。。。
老实说，那时我在台上有点不知所措，不知该停还是继续，心里想再唱下去，我就没时间讲道了。。。这突来的事件对我很新鲜，感谢主我没有停，因为那是圣灵的运行和工作；安息日的主在安息日医治、安慰、释放很多人。。。那天我一个人在台上拿着吉他自弹自唱“牵我的手”足足有差不多一个小时！过后我没讲什么道，只给他们一些劝勉，因为神已经做了他那天要做的，我是谁，岂敢因着人的制度大胆去阻挡上帝要做的事情？。。。经过了那么多年，这件事历历在我眼前，无法忘怀；那天我实实在在经历到什么叫圣灵运行，是人无法复制也不可模仿的。。。
几个月过后我要到吉隆坡灌录新专辑，当初都是只唱华语诗歌，可是这一次我的会友却求我把“牵我的手”收录在我专辑里。。。我很抗拒因为我知道我们古晋的华语早已被同化，很不标准，我怕被人笑话，就跟他们说别开玩笑。。。可是大家还是“苦苦哀求”说就为了他们录这一首吧，还说“外面”的人若不喜欢大可越过这首听下一首啊。。。说不过他们，我就硬着头皮用我不标准的福建话把“牵我的手”收录在我的第五张华语专辑“不要只风闻有你”里头。。。
万万没想到我却是因着这首歌一炮而红，关于林义忠，很多人就只注意到或只知道这首歌！真的是神的意念高过我们的意念。。。
“牵我的手”就是这样而传出去的，也因着“牵我的手”，我的第六张专辑变成福建语专辑“会笑的嘴”，我也莫名其妙成为一个福建歌手和布道会讲员，也被称为“老人家”的牧师等等。。。神做事情真是出乎我预料之外。。。
我自己本身听了很多有关“牵我的手”的见证，结果不只是面对死亡的病人或老人家被这首歌鼓励、感动，很多基督徒也纷纷跟我分享说面对挫折或困难时，这首歌也很鼓励他们。。。因为见证太多了没有办法一一的在这里分享。。。但若果这首歌对你们也有鼓励和帮助，或者你们也知道一些关于这首歌的见证，不妨在这里留言分享，彼此鼓励。。。
至于“牵我的手”怎么仿佛较我其他的歌更有恩膏，当然除了它是神所赐的歌之外，我自己也有思想过，相信还有一些其他因素，若有机会就在另一篇跟你们分享吧， 这一篇已经够长了。。。
Actually, there is also a story behind how I started writing Hokkien songs, I will share about that in another article, and in fact, how did I even start or know how to write songs is also another story I will share with you some day… As for today, let us just concentrate on the story of ” Hold My Hand “…
By that time I had already written ten or so Hokkien Gospel songs, and our church had already been singing all those regularly, I did not have any more new Hokkien song to teach them; so on one Sunday I told the congregation that I had run out of “stock” completely for Hokkien songs, so if they long for new ones, then they must pray for God to anoint me to give me new songs…
I believe some must have prayed…
Few nights later, round about 11pm, I was sitting on my bed not ready to sleep yet, I took my guitar and said very simply to God : Lord, we have many elderly people in our church, most people will be a little fearful or uncertain facing death, can you give me a song to sing to especially people who are dying that they will no longer feel afraid after hearing the song, knowing well that Jesus will hold their hand all the way to heaven, and so they will have peace in their hearts?
Just a very simple and short prayer, I took my guitar and started to play, unexpectedly inspiration just flowed and lyrics and melody came together, within about 15 minutes or so I completed writing the song! Right now I’m looking at the “rough” copy of this song when I first wrote it ( I keep all my “rough” ), the date I wrote this song was February 5th, 1996, 11:20pm…
Sometimes after writing a certain song, you would not know how people would respond to it, whether they would like it; but many times I would use my own compositions to sing to the Lord during my own quiet time because they are really words from my own heart speaking to the Lord…
So I was not very sure how people would respond to ” Hold My Hand “, all I knew was it must be from God as it came to me so smoothly and easily especially after I had just prayed, so I decided to teach this song that following Sunday…
I was the worship-leader that Sunday, I planned to sing ” Hold My Hand ” just before I preached… I felt the worship was kind of ordinary that day, nothing special happened, so I thought in my heart perhaps God would just speak through the sermon that day…
After the worship, I made some weekly announcements, and just before I started preaching, I took up my guitar and told the congregation I was going to teach them a new song God had given me…
The result was I could not stop once I started singing the song! I was amazed at the response! People were crying and hugging each other after I had sung the song a few times, and they started to move around to hug others, to show their love for each other, to reconcile etc…
One of my deepest impressions was a man of about 30 year-old then who was given away for adoption to relatives when small and who had always been feeling rejected by his biological parents, he was really impacted by the song. Though his biological mother came to the same church and still loved him dearly, he could not bring himself to call her “mum” because of the hurt; however that day as I kept singing the song ” Hold My Hand “, he was so moved that he walked towards his mother to hug her and called her “mum” for the first time in his life, and both hugged each other tightly and cried, after so many hurting years, God healed both their hearts through this simple song…and many others too…
Honestly I was at a loss on stage, I did not know whether to stop or carry on singing, thinking if I continued to sing, I would not have time to preach anymore… All this was very new to me, thank God I did not stop because that was the moving and work of the Holy Spirit; the Lord of the Sabbath healed, comforted and delivered many people that “Sabbath” day… That day I was standing on the stage playing and singing ” Hold My Hand ” all alone for almost an hour! After that, I did not really preach any sermon but to give some words of encouragement, because God had already done what He wanted to do that day, who was I to hinder God’s work with my human system?… After many years, this incident is still so clear in my mind, an unforgettable experience; that day I truly witnessed the moving of the Holy Spirit, something we cannot and should not duplicate or imitate…
Few months later I was going to KL to record my new album, at that time I only sang Mandarin songs, but this time my church members requested for me to include ” Hold My Hand ” in my album… I was rather resistant because I felt our Kuching Hokkien had been severely “localised” and not the pure or standardised Hokkien anymore, I did not want people to criticise and make fun of my Hokkien, so I asked them not to joke with me… However they did not give up and kept “begging” for me to just record this song for their sake, and they said if “outside” people did not like this song, they could always skip it to go to the next song… In the end I gave in and “took the risk” to record ” Hold My Hand ” with my “not-so-pure” Hokkien in my fifth Mandarin album, ” Not Just To Hear Of You “…
Beyond my wildest imagination, I became “famous” because of this one song, with regard GT Lim, many people only notice and know this song! God’s thoughts are really higher than our thoughts…
That’s how ” Hold My Hand ” started to spread, and also because of this song, my sixth album became the Hokkien album ” A Smiling Face “, and I suddenly became known as a Hokkien singer and preacher, and even called ” pastor for the elderly ” etc… God’s ways are really beyond our imagination…
I myself have heard many testimonies about ” Hold My Hand “, in the end it is not just people who are dying or the elderly who are encouraged and touched by this song, many Christians have also shared with me that this song has encouraged them through hours of darkness and difficulties… There are so many of them and I cannot share every of these testimonies with you here… but if you yourselves have been encouraged and helped by this song, or you have heard of any testimony regarding it, do share with us here to encourage each other…
As to why ” Hold My Hand ” comparatively seems to have more anointing than my other songs, of course apart from the fact that it is a song given by God, as I have thought about it too, I believe there are also other factors, if I have a chance, I will share some more with you in another article, this article is already long enough…
