Letting God Write My Life & Love Story
When people ask me how I met my husband I say, “If God hadn’t led me to China and if He hadn’t led my husband to the US from China, we would never have met.” If my husband or I had not been letting God lead us in our individual journeys we never would have been brought together to travel the same one. In fact, neither of us were looking for a spouse, when God let us meet. So how did I, a Korean American girl, end up in China? Let me share of how God led in my life and how He let my husband and I met.
How God worked in my life
My parents were new Korean immigrants in America where my sisters and I were born. They had to make many sacrifices and they did their best raise my three sisters and me. However, the stress to survive and raise four kids in such a foreign environment was definitely challenging. Growing up, I don’t remember a lot of one-on-one time with either of my parents, and I never saw them showing any physical or verbal affection to one another (very old-school Korean style). I did see them, however, arguing a lot; and at a young age, I had a rather skeptical view of marriage.
As my sisters and I grew up, we were pressured, as many Asian-American children are, to succeed academically. However, no concrete reason was given to do this; it was all implied that this is what success and happiness equated to, and this is what everyone else did. Even though we grew up going to church, when I started high school I sadly didn’t have a goal higher in life than to get good grades, to go to a good university, to get a good job, and make lots of money to spend on myself. Again, no one said this was the logical conclusion of all of this but I couldn’t see anything beyond it.
Because my aspirations were so narrow and selfish, I started to feel empty inside. Yes, I did well academically, had friends, was involved in school and extracurricular activities. Yes, I also went to church and had lots of theoretical knowledge about the Bible and God and was even baptized when I was 12. However, I didn’t realize I was missing the most important piece. I didn’t have a real and personal relationship with Jesus! I didn’t know Him—the only One who unconditional loves me and can make me whole. Because of this huge vacuum in my heart, I tried desperately to fill it with friends, academics, material things, activities, and relationships.
Ok, to be completely honest about the relationships part, I had one boyfriend for two weeks my freshman year of high school before he dumped me. I was irate and completely devastated because I had placed of a lot of my value on that relationship. After that, I wanted to get another boyfriend, but that never materialized. I praise God that He did not give me what I wanted then because I wasn’t ready for any kind of dating relationship with my immaturity and spiritual condition. I didn’t realize that it was only Jesus who could fill the void in my heart and heal me. I was desperately looking for love and I am so thankful to God, that He knew that and was patiently trying to show me that He was the only One who could truly know and love me.
After I was dumped, I became more open to what God was trying to say to me in my devotions, Bible classes, and at church. Then one day, when I was a Junior in high school, the gospel seeds that had been planted in my heart since I was a child sprang up at a Prayer Conference and I made a decision to accept Jesus as my personal Savior. Even though my parents made mistakes, I am so thankful, however, that they did faithfully take my sisters and I to church and send us to Adventist schools. I truly believe it was there that many seeds of the gospel were planted in my heart through the godly teachers, staff, and pastors. After I realized in a small sense how much Jesus loved me, I realized my value and self-worth came from Him. Now it wasn’t about the things I did, or what I looked like, or what I had that made me valuable and loved. I was a precious daughter of the King of the universe who made me and had a special plan for my life! I gave my life to Him, let Him take the pen, and it has been an amazing, growing, challenging, yet joy-filled journey with Him since.
God has led me on so many incredible adventures and I am so thankful. Looking back, I can see that His hand has been guiding and writing something more beautiful than I could ever have imagined for myself. In undergrad He opened up doors for me to serve as a student missionary in Laos for a year which opened my eyes to the unreached overseas. He then led me to a summer internship with ADRA in Thailand which led me to get my Masters in Social Work at UNC Chapel Hill. While at UNC doing an internship at a refugee resettlement agency, I became interested in North Korean refugee issues. The dean of the school connected me to a professor at Seoul National University who invited me to come and learn more Korean and volunteer. Before going to Korea, God led to do a summer of canvassing where I met some wonderful people who introduced me to their mission-minded friends in Korea. While studying Korean, God opened doors for me to become an English professor at Sahmyook University for a year and I became friends with the people my canvassing friends had introduced me to. My new friends in Korea were the ones who introduced me to some of their friends doing missions with people with leprosy (Hansens Disease) in China, and that’s how I learned about it for the first time.
For about four years, I went back and forth from the US and China helping with missions primarily in six leprosy villages. It was by far the most amazing adventure God had led me on to that point. While in China, God was also teaching me that I was the spiritual leper who needed Christ’s healing in my heart, numbed by the sin of selfishness. I was moved when I saw grandmas and grandpas who had no family or material possessions of any value share their testimony of how God had helped them forgive those who had hurt them and start a new life. I saw them and other volunteer gladly share the little they had with others who had a greater need than themselves. I saw blind grandpas and grandmas memorize thousands of Bible verses within just a few years of coming to know Jesus. My spiritual life also was strengthened as I studied the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy and saw direct answers to prayer and divine appointments in my life. I also began to re-learn the simple truth that being a Christian is to be like Christ in character, love, and in actions. I was also awed He would want to use broken and imperfect people like me to be His hands and feet and tell others of His soon return to the world.
During this time, I also realized that my previous perspective about wanting a significant other had been selfish. I had always thought, “What can this person do for me? How can this person make me happy?” instead of asking “How can I love this person? How can I help this person grow closer to Jesus? How can we serve and glorify God better together?” I came to the painful realization that although years before in college I had made long lists of what I wanted in a future husband; I personally did not have any of those qualities. Ouch. I asked God to help change me to be more and more like Him. I also told God that if I would be better used by Him as a single missionary, I would be happy to stay single.
How God worked in my husband’s life
My husband, Lincoln, was born and raised in a small rural village in China. He came from a poor family with no religious background and dropped out of middle school at age 14. He learned bad habits while joining a village gang and as the years went by, he became more and more miserable and desperately wanted to change, but didn’t know how. Praise God that He was orchestrating events that would give Lincoln, the opportunity to know Him. When Lincoln was 18 years old, he went to the nearby city to work when he saw a large church building and was strongly impressed to go inside. It was at the church he heard about Jesus for the first time. He started going more and more often and after 10 months of Bible studies with an Adventist elder, he got baptized. Afterwards, God led him to a small Bible school and there he was sent to do mission work in Indonesia for several years before going to Thailand for five years to complete an undergraduate degree in Theology in English. Yes, God took a middle school dropout to become a to university graduate just like that! Afterwards, Lincoln returned to China and was working there, when God opened doors for him to come to the United States to study for a Masters of Divinity degree at Andrews University Seminary in Michigan, all without any family or financial support.
How God worked in our lives
A few months before Lincoln came to the US, a fellow missionary friend of mine was sharing his testimony at a church in China, where he met Lincoln who was the guest speaker that day. They became friends and later he gave Lincoln my contact information after finding out he was going to the US to study. After arriving to the US, Lincoln messaged me for the first time on social media. When he messaged me, I just connected him with a friend of mine who had also served in China and was at that time an undergraduate at Andrews University. I never thought we would actually meet in person. Then one day, when neither one of us were looking for a spouse, God let our paths cross.
Unexpectedly, the beginning of the next year I had a chance to visit Michigan for a few days to meet several of my friends en route to Toronto. The day I was leaving Lincoln invited me for lunch in the school cafeteria. We both thought it would just be a casual meeting to talk about China. However, that day was the beginning of a friendship that kept growing as we kept in touch. Despite the distance and time difference, we kept growing closer as we talked about life, shared God's Word together, prayed together, and talked about our dreams of serving Him in the mission field. After godly counsel and individual prayers, we felt that God was leading us together to walk on the same path to our heavenly home, as husband and wife. Later that year, Lincoln asked my father for my hand in marriage, and the following spring we were married.
We are so thankful that God brought us together but realize He still isn’t finished with us, individually or as a family yet. After my husband finished his MDiv program, God opened doors for us to come to Maryland to do church planting among the large unreached Chinese communities here. It was shortly after we moved to Maryland, that our son was born and we can see that God has been using him to be a bridge to many families with young children.
I am also so thankful for the time that God led me as a single person. I truly believe there are people only single people can reach, and there are others that only married people and people with families, can reach. God has a time, place, and plan for each one in His great plan of salvation in whatever stage of life we are in. I am still growing in my relationship with God. As a wife and a new parent I am learning more about His love and care for me and that I still need to grow more like Him in many areas. I am so thankful that God is still writing this new chapter of my life and I pray that each person will also let God write his or her story.