My Path to Father

I was born in Korea and brought up in a family which had no Christian influence. I attended public grade school and the government high school. When I was 16 years old, I suddenly felt questions within me: What is the purpose of my life? What should I do in this world? For what should I live? Where am I going? What will happen after I die? But, in the next moment, I thought It was foolish to think about those things and went back to my studying. In a few weeks the same questions arose, and I pondered them once again.

At that time I was living in my sister’s home. I looked at my brother-in-law, who was really enjoying accumulating wealth. But deep in his heart there was only greed and pride. I didn’t see in him true happiness, a joy or love for other people. In spite of his kindness to me, in my heart I felt a repulsion toward him. Often when I saw him being contemptuous towards our relatives, tenants and servants, I felt rather antagonistic and thought, “I will never live in order to accumulate wealth. That cannot be the purpose of my life.”

Then I looked at young people, college students. Their arrogant and lazy attitude disgusted me, and I thought the plain uneducated or less educated people were more honest, sincere and warm-hearted. What does education do to man? Money doesn’t raise one’s personality, and education doesn’t necessarily make one good. Of course, this is the experience In a small environment. But I thought it is foolish to waste all my life acquiring knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

I had a 70-year-old grandmother who, looking back upon her long past, couldn’t recall the happy part, but only the sad part. To her the future was uncertain and fearful. There was no joy. She had bad teeth and a weak body. Living was a burden for her. If long life is such a thing, why should I live long? I should die young, I thought. Well, if I didn’t want wealth or education or a long life, for what should I live? In Korea, marriage Is not quite what it is here. There, couples live with a sense of obligation rather than exciting love. So, at 16, marriage wasn’t very attractive to me. Why should I bind myself to a family and suffer that way. I couldn’t understand it.

Then I was lost. Without a purpose, I did not know what to do. I shook my head and said, “Why should I think about things I cannot solve? So I went back by my studies. But in a few weeks the same questions drove me to a beautiful hill behind our house. I didn’t want to see people, so I ran out to the hill, sat down in a quiet place and pondered these things. Then I shouted, “If there is a God in the universe, please appear to me.” Nothing appeared, so I came back. In a few weeks the same questions drove me to the same hillside, and I cried and shouted, saying the same thing. If there is no God and no answer, I might commit suicide because there is no meaning in this life. I continued in this way for about six or seven months.

Early one evening I was sitting quietly in the front yard thinking about these questions when I suddenly heard a distinct voice from above, which said, “He loves you, he loves you, the Bible tells you so.” I tried to recall where I had heard these words. Then I remembered that it was a chorus of children singing, “Jesus love me, Jesus loves me,” at a Sunday school when I was 10 or 11.

Hearing these words again, I felt somewhat good, but I didn’t feel like going back to that church, so I went back to studying. Within a few weeks the same voice came to me again, but still I didn’t want to go back to the church. The third time it happened I thought, “Why am I so stubborn? I must go to a church and see what is there.”

I didn’t want to meet Korean friends, so I sneaked into a Japanese church. It was Wednesday prayer meeting, and attendance was small. The minister started to sing a very new hymn. As I followed for two or three lines, I heard a voice which said, “It was not you who have been seeking me, but I who have been seeking you.” It was a short sentence. “It was not you, but I who have been seeking you through valleys, hillsides and those lonely places to which you have been wandering.” Then tears just gushed. I couldn’t sing any more. I felt such closeness to someone who had been seeking me.

Early the next morning I went to the same quiet hillside to pray. At the end of my prayer, I added, “I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ,” which I picked up the previous night from the church minister. I continued to pray every morning month after month, year after year. I was driven to pray incessantly.

While in prayer one night I saw Jesus hanging on a huge cross and myself kneeling at the foot of the cross begging forgiveness of my sins. Morally I was very pure, but I felt so helpless and miserable in front of this cross. I cried and cried saying, “I did not know that you suffered for me. I did not know that you suffered for me.” After several hours of prayer, I got up and went home about 5 o’clock in the morning.

When I went back the next day, even the same trees looked different. The houses, and the birds, and the flowers, plants, even the sun seemed to talk to me. The entire creation seemed made for me. I had never thought that God had created the entire creation for me. Now it was talking to me, and I to it without any special effort. My life Then God said, “You must know the weapon of your enemy.” What? The weapon of my enemy? Am I going to stand against Christian leaders someday? It seemed ridiculous.

After graduating from the seminary, I was invited to teach at a woman’s Bible college in North Korea. I preached from my own experiences and taught what I had studied in the seminary. The two did not go together, and even though they liked my sermons, I was completely changed, and yet I did not tell anybody about this inner change. But I overheard my family talk about how I was an entirely different girl.

I had seen the crucified Lord, and now I wanted to see the resurrected Lord and to be resurrected with Him. This strong idea drove me to the church. I prayed, asking for resurrection. On Easter Eve the resurrected Christ appeared to me, along with Mary Magdalene who was going to touch his robe. The Lord said to her, “Don’t touch me, but go to my brethren and tell them that I am risen.” That whole scene appeared to me and just poured into me. I just couldn’t pray any longer. I stood and sang the hymn of resurrection, “He is risen, He is risen.” From that moment I felt it was my mission to proclaim the resurrected Lord to the whole world. No matter what kind of work I did, it was my mission to tell people that our Lord has risen.

After I graduated from high school, I worked in a small bank. One day a voice said, “Do not work with dead numerals, but work with human lives.”

I thought I might become a school teacher. I went to Seoul to take some teacher training courses and became a school teacher. I loved teaching, and I put myself completely into it. Everybody said I was a very good teacher because I was in my students and they were in me.

After a year, God said to me, “Do something for eternity.” Then I realized that anybody can teach the alphabet and mathematics. Why should I devote my life to such commonplace work? By this time I had had many unusual spiritual experiences. I was also familiar with Swedenborg’s books and had much knowledge about spirit world. When I heard God say I must do something for eternity, I immediately understood this to mean that I must teach the Word of God to people. Through these books, I knew that in Paradise they were still teaching and discussing the Words of God and that His was the only eternal literature on earth.

I went to Japan to study theology. I found my studies at the seminary fascinating academically. But spiritually the atmosphere of the seminary was completely dead. My inner spiritual life and my academic studies couldn’t be reconciled. I couldn’t find any harmony or connection between them. I thought, “What am I going to do with this study? This does not help my spiritual life. How can I save or help others’ spiritual lives with this study?” I noticed that my fellow students suffered in the same way.

They had come with high great visions, but now their visions were all gone.

I asked God, “Why should I study?”

I couldn’t reconcile the two. No one knew about spirit world as I did, but I couldn’t connect it with my teachings.

Shortly after Korea was liberated from Japanese domination, the communists flooded into the North, and the land was divided. This was worse than before. But God said, “Your true liberation will come later.” I

was urged by God to quickly go to the South. So I fled to the South as a refugee and began teaching at the one of the oldest and largest women’s universities in the Orient. Then I met a Canadian missionary who offered me a scholarship to study in Canada.

I accepted it and went to Toronto in 1948. While there, I hunted and hunted through different groups looking for something spiritual, but I couldn’t find it. After two years I was ready to leave.

Then suddenly I heard the news of the Korean War. I have never seen war in my life, and the thought of all the destruction shocked me. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t move. My whole body seemed numb. In that moment suddenly I heard a voice say, “I will protect and preserve my remnants.”

Then it was clear to me that no matter how many people were sacrificed or killed, God will still hide, protect and preserve the seeds of the good, of the righteous. So I summed up my courage and started praying, “Father, please protect the seeds of the righteous to reestablish the church and the country.” Because of war, my scholarship was extended for another year.

I went back to Korea in 1952. I was immediately attacked by acute diarrhea. I do not know what caused it, but no medicine helped me at all. Finally, it turned to chronic diarrhea. Then bronchitis started. This problem was over in a few months but the diarrhea continued and continued.

I was so weak that I only lectured one hour or two hours and then lay down most of the day. Finally, I couldn’t carry on any more. The university put me into a hospital. My condition improved but after my release, it all came back. Diarrhea and then kidney trouble. I couldn’t sit up, and I couldn’t lie down any more. I was so miserable. I couldn’t pray more than 15 minutes.

One night a voice said, “This is a spiritual crisis.” I woke up and asked, “What do you mean by spiritual crisis?” There was no answer. Yet I couldn’t do anything. The doctor said he couldn’t find any functional, organic trouble, but I was suffering. Physically, there was no hope for me to recover. I was just skin and bones. But spiritually I wasn’t ready to die. There was something I had to accomplish. I did not know what it was. But I knew my mission was not fulfilled.

My spiritual life had progressed so fast during the early stages of my Christian life. But now I couldn’t advance any farther no matter how hard I tried. I was completely devoted to God, and yet I found my spiritual life was not progressing. This was most unbearable for me. Spiritually I couldn’t grow. Then all of a sudden it was a spiritual crisis. I couldn’t understand all of this.

At this time a friend of mine came to me one day and said, “I have found a small group in which a young man who has received a special revelation from God is now teaching this new truth. According to this truth, God has already started a new dispensation on earth, and the New Testament Age is now over. Because of this new dispensation, God is pouring out His spirit to people on earth. You must come and listen to this man’s revelation, and see if this truth is from God or not.” I thought I knew everything. Why should I learn anymore? Deep inside I was rather jealous that somebody received revelation from God. Who knew more about God than I? Externally I knew everything. Then the word revelation struck me. I knew a revelation was something from God.

So I accepted her invitation. But that same night stomach cramps came. The next morning the ambulance came and took me to the hospital, where I stayed for three weeks.

When I came back, diarrhea and kidney trouble started again. My friend came back and said I must come with her. Well, I had no hope. So I thought I had better go. I started hearing the message at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The first part was very much like Swedenborg. So I asked the leader, “Have you read Swedenborg’s book?” He said, “No, I have never read it, but I saw him several times in the spirit world.”

Who is this, to meet Swedenborg so easily?

After he detected how much I admired Swedenborg, he said, “Swedenborg is not in the high position you think, and 80 percent of what Swedenborg said is mistaken.”

What? I thought Swedenborg was absolutely correct. If Swedenborg was mistaken, the foundation of my faith was shaking. I was rather displeased with this statement, but I was curious to know more about this. Then he continued the lecture. It was very different from what I had been studying and teaching and I told him, “Please tell me the source of this revelation. Unless you tell me this, I cannot continue. It is so different.”

Then he told his members to give me their testimonies. One by one, very educated college girls and boys, uneducated women and men, young and old, told me their experiences. They were authentic, wonderful experiences in the light of my knowledge of Swedenborg and my own spiritual experiences. I just couldn’t deny this. Then the leader explained very briefly how he had received this revelation. By the end of the

second day, I became very humble, and I was more open-minded. I was ready to hear more.

When I got up on the third morning my diarrhea had stopped, my kidney was cleared up, my swelling had disappeared, and I felt so light inside. I ate fish, pork and spicy pickles and still my digestion was 100 percent better. I couldn’t understand. So I asked the leader, “I didn’t even ask for healing. How did this happen to me?” I was more than happy, more than grateful. It was the last part of December, 1954.