In the name of the Lord Jesus, I would like to share about His grace that I’ve received. First of all, thank God for this opportunity to share my personal testimony with His church in Canada—to write about it in English is hard for me, so at times I will be unable to adequately express what I want to say. However, I believe that God will help me and guide me to do it.
When I was invited to write a testimony, I thought about which of my life experiences to choose. In my life, I have experienced so much grace from God, so choos-ing one part of it is not an easy decision for me. This time, I am going to share about the most difficult period of my life.
It was about two years ago, when I was a teacher at an elementary school. My shift was very good. I usually went to work from 9:00 to 4:30 on weekdays. Since I only had classes from 9:00 to 12:30, I could spend time privately, such as for preparing classes, personal studying, reading books, doing sports, etc. The greatest thing from my job was that they provided 3-month paid vacations twice a year. I was so proud of my job and of myself. I loved my peaceful routine. I really thank God for allowing me to have the job position. I worked at that school for four years before I came here, to Canada.
People might wonder why I quit the job and took the challenge of studying abroad. Here is the reason.
As everyone has a mother, and thinks that their mother is special, my mother is very special to me too. Not only as a mother, but also spiritually, she’s a very special per-son in my life. She is the person who impacted my life the most, hence I cannot tell my life story without mentioning her. My mother’s very talented, wise, mature, and positive. Whenever she faced difficulties, she was confident and always put God first in her decisions. She always sought comfort from God and told us that God would help at all times. She’s a spiritual mentor to me and my family. I am so proud of my mother and appreciate that I have her as my mother. One of the most enjoy-able times in my day is talking to my mother about church, God, and testimonies. My family is blessed by God. I have three sisters. Thank God that the four of us get along very well as friends, and I love my sisters a lot. Our family has a lot of thank-fulness all the time and we have very positive personalities.
I had a stable and enjoyable job, a great family, and lovely friends at church. So, everything looked good in my life. God always provided me more than I expected.
However, one event totally changed my life. It had already been seven years. I stayed in Australia for 10 months to travel and learn English. While I was staying there, I felt I had something bad in my body. It did not hurt but I felt that I needed to get a checkup at least. So when I came back to Korea, I asked my mom to go to the hospital with me for a checkup. My mom and I went to the hospital and got checked together. A few days later, we were told of the result. The doctor said that my body was very healthy and that there was nothing wrong. I felt so thankful. However, the doctor called my mom privately and talked to her. I felt that there was something bad happening to my mom. There was—she had cancer. Thank God it was only second stage cancer. As my family is very positive, we really appreciated that she got a cancer that was not in a bad stage. We did not even worry too much and my mom also felt confident that she could endure well. Thank God she was sur-gically operated on by a renowned doctor. She did not even look sick. After that, my mom worked harder than before for God. Whenever she met people, she shared her story and gave them hope. I loved her, and she was very brave. After the operation, even though it was only in the second stage, she needed checkup’s regularly. After six months, she went back to the hospital for a regular checkup and she received a bad news. Her cancer recurred and it had already spread all over her body. The doc-tor said that he had never seen this kind of case, and said that my mom had only six months left to live. I remembered that time. I was at school and I cried a lot. I was so scared and felt so sad about how my mom must have felt depressed, shocked, sad, and scared. However, my mom did not look scared or afraid of it. She decided not to be treated at the hospital. Instead, she prayed every night at church. Also, she made a list of 10 things to do before she died. She thought that if it was God’s will, she would live longer, but if God called her back, she was prepared to see Him. She started to evangelize to her younger brother’s family, and finally the family came to church. It was her first thing on the list of 10. She testified at church while she was suffering a hard time. She gave many people hope even during that time. My younger sister had just graduated from university and gotten a job at that time. My mother said that she had raised all her children up, so she felt thankful to God if He called her then. She did a lot of work for other people before she passed way. Yes. My mother went to heaven after one and a half years.
I am still quite sad. Even while I am writing her story now, I miss her so much.
As I said, this incident totally changed my life. After that, I did not have that much confidence in my life, and I felt depressed often and did not understand why God called my mom so early. She was only 51 years old. She truly worshiped God and helped people a lot, which is what God wants us to do.
At that time, for a year, I prayed every day, for one hour at church, after I finished my work. I cried a lot and I asked God to comfort me and my family. Thank God, God comforted me and also changed me to be more humble. People often say to me I have a lot of love inside but I did not before. Now, I realized that so many things changed positively due to my mom’s death. It changed my family to rely more on God. Also, I could pray to God a lot. If this did not happen to me, I would still be very picky and overly confident about myself. I might not know how to love and comfort people either. As God took away the most valuable thing from my life, I could see myself. My mom showed her strong beliefs and love to many people until the last moment when she went to heaven. She let God receive her back to Him, and she believed that God would take care of us too if she needed to go. If I were her, I might not have shown that attitude.
I still miss my mom a lot. However, I believe that I can see her in heaven and God will provide comfort. While I am suffering this sad experience, I strongly feel that God is the only comforter.
I am here in Canada now. Yes. It was a hard decision to quit my job and leave my family. Living here I feel that God is taking care of me and has a specific plan for me.
Thank God!