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My family's become one by the love of Our Lord!
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 13573 |
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April 2, 2007 |
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"Yield now and be at peace with [God]; Thereby good will come to you" (Job 22:21).
 ~ Deaconess Eunkyung Kim (New Gwangju Manmin Church)
Continuous discord at home from differences in personality
My marriage began in 1988 in a rented single room but I began dreaming of a simple life as a wife: waiting for my husband to come home at the end of the day, preparing dinners, and little things like that. My husband, however, was introvert and brusque.
I, on the one hand, had to hear from him what I wanted to hear. My husband, on the other hand, was unskilled at expressing himself. Both of us, naturally, often found ourselves arguing and as the number of quarrels began to mount, a rift was beginning to form between my husband and me.
We had a son and a daughter but I preferred going out with my friends and drowning my grief in drink to taking care of them.
Drinking glacial acetic acid in a fit of anger; becoming a wreck
One day in February 2003, I was drunk, as I always was, and had a big argument with my husband when he came home from work. Evidently mad, he slammed the door behind him as he went out into the hallway of the apartment building and I drank glacial acetic acid in the kitchen in a fit of anger. Within seconds, I became parched with thirst and tried to quench it with the tap water in vain. My stomach was upset and, as I began to realize what had just happened, I was overcome with devastating anguish.
"I feel like I'm going to die! So-mang! Someone, help me!"
"Mommy!"
When my husband heard our daughter's shriek, he came back inside and took me to a hospital right away. I kept throwing up blood on the way to the hospital and received emergency treatment there. I was moved to an intensive care unit but as the toxin in the glacial acetic acid had already damaged the esophagus and infiltrated the stomach, I was left to be fed and medicated through a tube.
My condition improved about a month later. The tube was eventually removed and I could now eat just about any types of food except for extremely spicy or salty dishes. A few days before I was discharged from the hospital, I was so excited to leave there and was in the mood for some salted fish. A little later, my stomach became upset and I threw up blood again. My stomach, which had not been completely healed, was not yet ready for that kind of food.
I received intravenous injections for the following few days without any food; only after 6 days could I begin to eat watery rice porridge.
'I think I'll be happy too once I start going to church.'
During this time I began thinking about church. There was a man who was recovering in the same room with me at the hospital and I frequently caught him reading the Bible whenever he could and church members would come and visit him to pray for him and praise God with him. Such images were engraved in my heart.
"Excuse me, sir. Do you go to church? I'd like to start going to church once I get out of here, too." I was discharged from the hospital in March 2003 and the church to which I went – the same church that man was attending – was New Gwangju Manmin Church.
Messages of Rev. Dr. Jaerock Lee I heard via satellite were very easy and thorough. As I began attending Sunday services and other services and prayer meetings, I began to understand the wrongs I had done. 'I made life difficult for my husband and my children. It was all my fault!'
Through the messages of life, I slowly transformed into a wife who never forgot to smile and unconditionally obeyed her husband's opinions, and into a mother with whom her children could openly talk about anything. The ambience at home, which had been dark, began to brighten up as well.
Healed by God's power
One Sunday, I asked my husband to drive me to church because I didn't want the church van to come all the way up to where we lived. Thankfully, he ended up staying and attending the service with me that day. For I had been sharing the news of Senior Pastor Rev. Dr. Jaerock Lee and God's power, nothing much was new or surprising to my husband and he readily joined the church.
Furthermore, my damaged esophagus was healed by Rev. Dr. Jaerock Lee's prayer for the sick, the Muan Sweet Water that had turned into sweet, potable water from salty and bitter seawater, and the prayer with the handkerchief of God's power by my Senior Pastor at New Gwangju Manmin.
At first, my stomach could only handle watery rice porridge. After a while I began craving spicy and crunch dishes and when I tried some, I realized I could digest even such dishes well. A test at the hospital revealed that the esophagus and the stomach had been made whole again. Hallelujah!
Relatives evangelized; Teeming blessings at my husband's business
After he met with the living God through my experiences, my husband quit drinking and smoking and has since become a cornerstone-like worker for the church. Through my husband who's undergone his own transformation, his employees at Urim E&C (a firefighting equipment enterprise), my mother-in-law who had long worshiped idols, my brothers-in-law, and my own siblings have come to live their lives in Christ as well.
One of the employees to whom my husband had preached the gospel was to work on Sundays and asked my husband what he was to do. My husband did not help him keep the Lord's Day holy and instead had him work. However, the duration of a construction project was delayed, affecting the construction of the company's next project. His firm was not able to begin working on it from the agreed date and ended up incurring a penalty of tens of thousands of dollars.
From this my husband did not fail to learn his lesson; he made sure that all his employees kept the Lord's Day holy. Also, after hearing that giving tithes is an integral aspect of Christian life and that God blesses all those who sow by faith, my husband giving tithes of the firm's income. Then he was able to strike a deal he had not expected. Isn't God's love so wondrous yet so delicate? My family has become one by the love of Our Lord!
I give all thanks and glory to God my Father for blessing us in such a marvelous way and I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to Senior Pastor Rev. Dr. Jaerock Lee for his heartfelt prayer in love for us.
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