Tell Your Story

I have considered myself a Christian for as long as I can remember. I was raised in a Christian home and attended church every Sunday. During my youth, most summers were spent at church summer schools, revivals and retreats. At every revival I would “accept Christ as my personal savior” but I wouldn’t feel any different and my life wouldn’t really change. I didn’t feel any closer to God and I didn’t experience the Holy Spirit like some of my friends claimed to. “Why not me?,” I wondered. I questioned God’s existence. 

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Although what was requested was a testimony, this may sound more of an incoherent reflection directed from my honest, raw thoughts. In fact, I am not going to lie to you and say that God moves me greatly as He moves the ocean waves, nor say that I have placed my full efforts on doing the work of God and not on other selfish endeavors. I am not going to lie to you that God has a firm place in my heart and that my once hardened heart beats new. None of that is true. My heart has hardened and to be honest, it has hardened more than ever. I was inspired to write my own testimony by reading all the powerful, moving ones by my fellow brothers and sisters at Grace, yet I simply cannot relate right now. I know I am lost, but the worst part is, I can hardly feel it because of all that is going on right now.

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Back in the early 2000s, when I was a sophomore in high school, I spoke to a counselor for the first time about my family struggles. My parents were fighting night and day. My father had cheated on my mother. These were terrible times. I was panicked and nervous all the time that I couldn't focus in school. Even though it was the relationship of my parents that had been tainted and broken, I felt so abandoned and alone. I hated everyone.   

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I think I’ve always had problems with wanting to earn my faith through my works, or wanting to find my self-worth in the things that I’ve accomplished. Maybe it’s because I’m the oldest child of Korean American immigrants and have always felt the need to ‘pay back’ all that they’ve sacrificed for me, or to be as independent and self-sufficient as I possibly can so that my parents don’t have to worry about me. Or maybe it’s because I’ve always fallen into the thought that how I look or how much I weigh makes me undeserving of love, so I need to make up for it in other areas of my life. 

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For the past year and a half, I've been feeling like I was stuck in place. While everyone around me was moving along with their plans and aspirations for their future, I felt like I wasn't going anywhere. I would go to school, do my work, go home, play games for a couple of hours and go to sleep. That was basically my whole routine since high school but starting junior year of college my demeanor started to change. Over time, I felt that I was becoming depressed and started to not care about anything anymore. I would just cut classes and go out to drink and hang out with my friends. I eventually quit school thinking that school was what was causing me to be depressed. But I soon realized that school wasn't the issue. I still felt depressed while playing games or watching television at home.

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My childhood was something I considered to be normal all my life. It was only recently that I began to realize that the conditions in which I grew up in was not normal. Growing up, my dad had a hard time controlling his alcohol use and suffered through depression. I don’t think I have many memories being with him when he was sober. He would come home drunk almost every day and release his anger towards the rest of the family. He would only tell me that he loved me when he was drunk and his actions would make me feel uncomfortable. And on especially rowdy nights at home, I would have to speak as a witness for my mom whenever she called the police to report my dad. I would lie to the police while my mom acted as the victim and my dad will be pulled away in custody. 

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I grew up under extremely religious parents. All my parents talk about is church and how blessed they are to be believers. They go out of their ways to spend money that we do not have to contribute to the church. And they take time out of their busy schedule to attend almost every service, prayer meeting, and fellowship. My parents taught me almost everything I know about what it means to be a Christian - mainly to know that God is always with me and that He loves me. Thanks to my upbringing, on Sundays, I would wake up super early to go to church with a very eager heart to learn more about Him. For the rest of the week, I would read books filled with pictures and Bible stories for hours and pray consistently. I loved and craved it. It was such an amazing feeling to have as a four-year-old. 

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Growing up, I always knew I was different. I never really felt like I fit in anywhere and I struggled with a constant state of loneliness for my entire life. When I was in high school, I fell into depression. I struggled with social anxiety, and I was constantly reminded by my peers of how weird and awkward I was. My reputation in high school developed into the “awkward, dumb girl." My confidence was shattered and I felt extremely alone. I was afraid to talk to people and be myself because of the constant state of rejection I faced. 

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Last year, I broke up with my boyfriend after being together for about two years. It was definitely one of the hardest times of my life, but I can confidently say that it was also the time I felt closest to God.

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Growing up in a Korean church, I’ve always felt that church was a place for perfect people. It may have to do with the fact that I grew up in a rather very conservative, Seventh-Day Adventist Church where sharing our inner struggles was unusual. So testimonies such as these were never shared. We all knew just the right amount to share before it got too personal. We had to dress in our “Saturday best” (since Seventh-Day Adventists have services on Saturdays). And we were expected to look and act a certain way. However, my upbringing felt far from perfect, especially compared to the other families at church. In my eyes, it seemed as if my family was the most broken and the most different.

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In the summer of 2018, I was diagnosed with End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), more commonly known as chronic kidney failure. I won’t delve into any details about the bodily suffering I went through because in the grand scheme of things, it is inconsequential. Pain was, and still is, nothing but an ever-present, dull reminder of my illness. True pain, no, the agony and anguish, comes from my heart, the memories and constant uncertainty of my future.

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When I was in elementary school, my mom started her own business. It operated for a couple of years until one of my mom’s coworkers decided to take advantage of her by stealing the store’s finances. My mom’s store went out of business because of that and it left a detrimental financial burden on our family. For years, my parents had to pay off the enormous debt while trying to financially support me and my two brothers.

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I’ve always had trust issues. Growing up, I witnessed countless two-faced adults who lied and masked their true intentions in order to get what they wanted. These included our relatives who betrayed our family out of greed, and our family-friends whom we trusted and loved but turned cold faced in a matter of seconds. I was also confused by my own parents who pretended like we were a happy family in front of others when in reality we were not. So from a young age, my view of the world and people became very cynical. When people approached me, I would second guess their intentions and question their motives. My heart was hardened to the people around me. What made things worse was that a few friends whom I thought had loved me not only turned their backs on me but started using my insecurities to bully me. This solidified my belief that I only had myself to trust.

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My biggest struggle in my spiritual walk with God was my identity. I grew up with so many false labels that people had placed on me: loser, useless, nobody, and a waste of time. These were some of the labels that stuck with me all my life, which blinded me from seeking my identity in Christ. Whenever I heard these words, I would get hurt and bring out such a spiteful side of me.

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I am in middle school. In my school, I am usually known as a hard-working and a well-behaved student by my classmates and teachers.

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When life gets hard, we tend to feel bad about ourselves and the situations that we are in. We start to give up, falling into anxiety or depression. We lose confidence and take breaks from people and social media. But worst of all, we begin to lose hope. We can keep a mask on with those around us or avoid people to escape reality. We may sulk in our beds, not getting out of the house because we want to “sleep it off”. We might wander in our dark thoughts over and over again. We can even go to church and seek God, but nothing may change. No one would understand our hearts fully, and it doesn't matter if anyone does, because our problems won’t be solved with comforting words. Yes, we have all been there and felt incredibly alone. And it is when these negative thoughts come that we get deceived into believing these lies and struggle to get out of the darkness.

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It seems like it was so long ago, but there was a time when I used to suffer from anxiety. I never got diagnosed, but I had a strong feeling that I had Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It peaked during my first few years in college. I remember the times when I felt like I could not do anything: When I would constantly think of the worst outcomes, and when I felt helpless and utterly hopeless as I thought about school, my future, and my family’s financial state. Even if my circumstances were not substantial, they would hit me like a wave. It felt miserable to wake up in the morning and despise life. I did not want to get out of bed, and instead, I wanted to stay under my sheets and wished to escape from my troubles. That is how I remember myself as, always wanting to escape reality.

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Everyone experiences suffering, whether they like it or not. I became a Christian not too long ago and have been attending Grace Church since a year ago. Before committing my life to Christ, one question that I kept asking myself as an atheist was, “If God is real, why do people suffer? Why is there evil in the world? Why doesn’t he just end all suffering?”

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I am not the type of person to open up to people. I don’t want others to feel burdened by me, and I always think that they wouldn’t want to listen to my problems. I have a friend whom I’ve known for a very long time. I was always with her at church. Even to her I was unable to open up completely.

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I woke up to clapping. That was how my mom used to communicate since the tracheotomy tube prevented her from speaking. A tracheotomy is a surgical procedure which incises a hole in a person’s neck to allow for breathing. The cancer on my mom’s neck had grown to the extent that her airway had been obstructed. I thought she was calling for me to help feed meal replacement shakes into her Per cutaneous Endoscopic Gastronomy (PEG) tube. The tracheotomy also prohibited her from eating so a feeding PEG tube was surgically placed through the abdominal wall into her stomach. Groggy from being awakened in the middle of the night, I slowly got out of my bed to help with her routine feeding regimen. But, the clapping grew more frantic. Sensing urgency I ran to my mom’s room with my sister, who had similarly woken from my mom’s agitated claps. The panic in my sister’s voice as she desperately cried to the ambulance dispatcher, and later the ER attendants, was soon drowned out by my own thoughts as I tried to make sense of the chaos happening around me. The paramedics, ER doctor and nurses did all they could with futile efforts. I feebly looked as the hands, which had produced wakening claps just moments ago, lay lifeless before my eyes.

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