After graduating and preparing for employment, it felt like I was standing alone in the wilderness even as I sought for God. As the job preparation period lengthened, my heart grew dry, and anxiety about the future continued to increase. Though I professed to entrust my future to the Lord with my lips, in my heart, I constantly doubted and despaired.
During this time, a wonderful opportunity to intern in the UK emerged, and God led me through every step until I was able to confess that God had orchestrated it all for me to come to the UK.
Before coming to the UK, I prayed daily for joy and gratitude to live life within God and to meet the people God had prepared. In the solitude of being alone in a foreign country without knowing anyone, I found myself deepening my relationship with God. Despite confessing to rely on God every time problems arose in life, I eventually realized that I leaned more on the people around me. God had been waiting for me to spend time alone with Him, and He granted me that time in the UK. In the presence of God, my sharp and anxious thoughts melted like water before His love. During the lonely times, He filled me and allowed me to encounter a new community of faith.
As I served in the GVC Choir, prepared for worship with praise throughout the week, and cried out to God in prayer during midweek services, I encountered God more deeply. Through Saturday evangelism meetings, God planted a heart for the Gospel in me, and I realized I could be a channel of God’s goodness to someone else. As a result, I began to see people through God’s eyes and developed a love for them. Through other believers at GVC, I deeply understood what it means to be one body in Christ. While in London, I received so much love, and God reassured me that He hears my prayers and loves me incessantly.
However, as the internship came to an end and the day to return to Korea approached, the worries and anxieties about the uncertain future continued to grow. The joy and gratitude I experienced from meeting God deeply in life gradually faded, and a fearful heart took over. In such times, God spoke through His Word, through the loving co-workers He placed around me, saying, ‘I know your heart completely, and I love you. I am with you.’ The fact that God loves and is with me, regardless of where I am or what I do, became a great source of strength for me.
Even though I have nothing to offer to God and am nothing, I wanted to love God more every day and offer my fleeting youth and obedience that will never come again to the God who loves me, even though I have nothing to give.
Life in Korea might be challenging, but I look forward to meeting God more deeply in the future, trusting in the best, kind plans of God who knows me best and loves me. Even if His plan is not in the direction I desired, I hope to remember the God who has already worked in my life, to trust in Him with faith, and to be obedient to God. Lastly, as I leave behind the immeasurable love received in London at the place God permitted, I pray that the nature and abilities of the Lord will be revealed in my life.
