Last year was a year I wanted to blank out. It was a year after my father’s sudden diagnosis of stage 3 cancer, followed by chemotherapy, my quarantine in different countries during the pandemic, internship, and parenting of my younger brother. I stayed strong, but it was challenging and sometimes a bit overwhelming.
The time when I thought to ‘hang on’ has passed, and the situation has returned to normal. My father recovered his health, and I returned to my daily life in the UK. There is nothing I lost significantly after all. I managed to work as an intern at a larger company. Because my father had been exercising regularly before he got sick, he quickly recovered his health and reorganised his intense lifestyle.
It was a time when I seemed to have been grateful, but I also felt very unfair. I thought, ‘God lets my peers walk the easy path of life without much trouble, but why did He test me, who has dedicated myself so hard to Him?’ The love of God I knew in theory and my disappointed heart clashed, and my heart toward God continued to harden. However, thankfully, God removed the impurities from my heart through these tests, allowing me to face the shameful reality of my faith. I came to confess that my faith was too dependent on the surrounding circumstances and that it was not about God.
2023 was a time of ‘recovery’ for me. Through the Bible, I learned who the true God is and gained the joy of knowing God. It was a year where I saw the living God working in my life, rather than a one-sided communication with the god I created, hoping that he would act according to my favourable situation. For I, who pretended to act fine but could not sleep properly in reality, He made me feel true peace. By completing the B2 course with my friend, who had been away from church for a long time, I saw God’s work of changing a person.
I got to know God more and more, my love for the God’s Vision Church community grew, and I participated in the living kingdom of God. I also met lots of believers in the faith. There were many difficult times during the ministry, but God worked through me as I focused on my relationship with God. Five of the people I served confessed that they met or reacquainted with God through B2, and there was also a foreign member who confessed that he came to GVC every week because he felt grace from the livestream translation that I blamed myself for failing so badly. The Production Team, which I only treated as labour for several years, is no longer mentally and physically challenging but has become a time of ministry with family-like members. This is all God’s work.
Of course, I am not perfect. There is still a countless number of challenging and frustrating days. I continue to fall, and there are a lot of times when I regard myself as weak and useless. However, compared to when I used to spend a long time refusing to stand up again, now I leave it to God to help me stand up and walk forward again toward God. This is because the God I know is the one who will take responsibility and care for me with love and compassion more than anyone else. I want to get to know God more, I want to be filled with the peace and joy He provides, and I want more people around me to confess their faith.
This year’s keyword is ‘recovery’. I am thankful for God’s work in my life and our community!
