A Testimony of Grace in the Darkest Hour
There was a season in my life when I believed that effort, skill, and persistence could carry me through anything. I was working relentlessly, chasing recovery after financial loss, and quietly drifting from the God who had once been my anchor.
One night in 2008, that illusion collapsed.
That night, I was trading the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong. The markets had been falling hard and fast, and I expected a brief rebound. I was right. The bounce came quickly, and I was moments away from taking a profit.
Then, without warning, my screen froze.
Nothing responded. Panic set in. I called my broker overseas, only to learn that one of the largest typhoons in recent memory had struck Hong Kong. All financial markets in Hong Kong were suddenly shut down. Trading halted instantly.
What made this terrifying was not just the shutdown—it was the position I was in. This was never meant to be held long-term. After losing heavily during the collapse of the internet bubble, I had turned to highly leveraged short-term trading across global markets to survive. These trades lasted seconds, minutes at most. I relied on precision and speed. This strategy had worked—until that night.
Now I was trapped.
Forced to hold a maximum-leverage position for 24 hours, I watched the world unravel in real time: Japan collapsed. Then Australia. As Europe opened, the selling intensified. With every passing minute, my situation worsened.
As the night stretched on, fear grew heavier with every passing hour. I realized that I was not merely losing what I had—I most likely would owe more than I possessed. There was no protection, no escape, and no one who could intervene. Worst of all, my family had no idea how serious the situation had become.
The weight of that moment crushed me.
I sat alone in the dark, watching the world unravel, feeling completely abandoned. Time slowed. Hope disappeared. I had reached the end of myself.
And yet—even then—I did not turn to God right away.
That realization still humbles me. My life had become consumed with striving, fixing, and surviving. My relationship with God had quietly slipped into the background. I was trying to save myself.
Finally, near dawn, my strength gave out. I slid to the floor, exhausted and broken. With nothing left to hold onto, I did the only thing I should have done from the beginning.
I cried out to God.
There were no polished words. No bargaining. No explanations. Just a simple plea from a desperate heart:
“Lord, please save me.”
I repeated it again and again. Like Jonah crying out from the depths, I called on God from a place of complete helplessness.
Then everything went dark.
When I woke up, an hour had passed. I thanked God simply for the rest. And then I looked at the screen before me—and what I saw totally shocked me.
The chaos was disappearing. The losses were reversing. The markets were surging dramatically. I saw Dow Jones futures rising more than 1000 points. It was like watching the Red Sea parting before my eyes!
News soon revealed why: the Federal Reserve had taken unprecedented emergency action before markets opened, cutting the overnight rate by 75bps —something virtually unheard of, something they had not done even during the panic stricken markets of the post 9-11 terrorist attack. For them to cut rates at 7 a.m., the meeting probably began around 6 a.m, the very moment I was on the floor, crying out to God.
I sat there stunned.
No strategy, timing, or skill set would have saved me. I had been rescued by His grace, and His grace alone!
That moment did not erase every hardship in my life. It did not spare me from future struggles or consequences. In fact, years later, I would still face financial collapse. But that night, God reached into the darkest moment of my life and lifted me just enough to keep going.
And that was grace.
God did not owe me a rescue. I had not earned it. I had neglected Him. Yet He heard my cry.
This experience taught me something I will never forget:
God may not remove every storm, but He will meet us in the depths. He will step into history—sometimes quietly, sometimes dramatically—to remind us that we are seen, loved, and not abandoned.
Isn’t that the story of the cross?
To offer salvation to a broken world, God altered the course of eternity itself. Many would reject the gift. Many would ignore the sacrifice. But God made a way anyway.
That is grace.
That is mercy.
That is the goodness of God.
Eric attends Westchester Adventist church where he’s an elder and the English ministry coordinator.