The Past
I met my God when I was 23 years old. I using the term "my God" becuase it was quite different experience from what my parents taught me who God was like. The God I used to picture was always angry and fury, and ready to punish me as soon as I did something worng. The only access that I could get knowledge of God was the sermons on Sundays. I was almost an expert of biblical stories for I spent most of my time at church except only school. To sum up all the teaching of Sunday school and sermons, it was all about God who rewarded me when I got things done well: otherwise,punished me. I ended up to create my own small box on my head and got myself in it. My God was also stuck and limited in the small box. I did not realize what I was doing, and nobody told me how big God would be. Moreover, the amazing stories in the Bible did not make any connection with my fiath in life. It was just once upon a time stories but did not have power to embrace and change my life. This complete misunderstaiding and seperation from the power of the Word made me confused. My family situation put me into a deeper confusion. Finally, I started to doubt whether God really existed or not. As a matter of fact, I even wanted God not to exist and all the stories in the Bible aout loving, kindness, and mercy of God were all lies. For what I was experiencing would have made more sense if God would not existed. Yet I could not cease to belive in God, and "my God" finally came to me and showed me how much he loved me. This experience totally changed my life, and new stage of my life started.
Present
Having been at Fuller for a year and half, I have changed a lot. Teacings from Fuller helped me to get rid of the box on my head, and opened my eyes to see things in different ways. My God is not any longer limited or small. He is transcendent and omnipotent. He has freed me from my past and made me a new person in Christ. Now I am finding a new path of life as a servant of God. My heart is for those who are having same confusions or hard times as I was. I want to train myself as a counselor and be involved in inner healing ministies. I want to work especially with teenagers and those who are from broken families. When I saw the video clip "This is who I am," I saw myself in the girl as well as those who I want to help. The disconnection between faith and living, and confusions that she has was what I went through. I thought my experiences and stories of my life would be useful to approach to others and understand them more effectively. To enrich myself and others I need to train myself in the four areas, Word, images, aural tradition of community, and dialogue. I think I am quite well equipped at Word and dialogue. Yet I need to be more developed in other two areas to be a good DJ through whom God can easilly speak to people. While taking this class I have learned new ways of thinking and ideas of how to reach to people. As culture and technology develop it has been more difficult and complicated to reach peopel and draw their attention. I strongly belive that the truth has a power within itself, but we still need to use other materials and tools through which we can proclaim the truth in effective ways. This class has taught me not only the need for the ways but also various practical tools. I have realized that how I was ignorant or in a sense lazy to develop myself. Even though I had a heart for teenagers, I was not anxious for looking for ways through which I could get closer to them and understand their thoughts and what they really want and need.
Future
My dream when I was little was to be a pastor's wife. After meeting my God I wanted to be a missionary going around the world and preaching the gospel. Now I am dreaming to be a good counselor for those who have broken hearts. I used to think that it would be enough to have much knowledge about the Word to be whatever I have dreamed. Yet I have realized that if I want to achieve my dream, I need to constantly expand myself and smooth my raw skills. After taking this class I started to think how to utilize images and other technical tools to make counseling effective. I am not a specialist in counseling now, but still able to help those around me from church and school. Images, music and certain kinds of video clips could be useful for those who are having a difficult time to open their hearts and share their stories. Even though counseling is not to speak but to listen first, I also could use storytellings from my own experiences and sometimes aural traditions of communities when it would be particulary helpful. Moreover I could DJing the stories in the Bible and deliver them to heal people's broken hearts deeply for I strongly believe that ultimately it is God and his Word that heals the wounded and broken. There could be many other ways to reach out people living today in individualizing postmodern context. And it is my responsibility to find them our and utilized them in order to expand and train myself. I will not stop changing and be afraid of getting rid of boxes that might have been put on my head in different ways.
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4 comments:
Sunghee, thank you for sharing how you are growing in your love for God and you your call to be a counselor. It strengthens my faith to hear you talk about "your God" I need to be reminded that God is very personal, and God is in the process of building a redemptive community through many individuals bringing their lives together. As we share our individual gospel stories with in our communities, faith is found (p.106). As you complete your Fuller education, my prayer is that you also learn to DJ as a counselor in a way that touches body and soul of individuals in order to build a redemptive community that is the Body of God (p.107).
Taylor, Steve, The Out Of Bounds Church. Zondervan Publishing, 2005
Hi Sunghee!
Your desire to work with teenagers and those from broken families reminds me of something Doug Pagitt wrote. Pagitt writes, “…the goal of Christians, and of all of humanity, ought to be to join in the activity of God wherever we find it. That may lead to preaching, but preaching and church life are not the only way in which God is active in the world.”1 By reaching out to teenagers and those from broken families, you are doing exactly what Pagitt says is the goal of Christians. You encourage and inspire me to do the same, to also join the activity of God in the world, and not to focus just on church life.
Blessings,
Thomas Cheong
1 Doug Pagitt, Preaching Re-Imagined (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2005), 14.
Your story about working through your doubts and pain to a point where you are beginning to see God and what He has called you to do is encouraging. I find Debbie Blue’s methodology for pondering Scripture transferable to your desire to help youth. She sees herself wrestling with Scripture and therein finding “the word of a lover” (1), a message your clients will need to hear often. I encourage you to dwell in the Word – inserting yourself into the stories – so that you can speak, after listening, not only about God but about what God has said to you (2).
(1) Debbie Blue, Sensual Orthodoxy (St. Paul: Cathedral Hill Press, 2004), 9-10.
(2) Tex Sample, Ministry in an Oral Culture (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), 73-74.
It was great to read your testimony of what God has done within your life. There is evidentially a connection that you and God have made to allow your faith to bloom within your life. Your heart for teenagers and desire to help teenagers is to be commended. The desire to be able to effectively communicate with teenagers, through the 4D’s and DJing, can be instrumental in order to effectively impact their lives. There is a great need to connect the younger generation with the older generation that is relevant for both parties. As you seek to help teenagers through DJing, it would be helpful to “be in common” which is formed from shared uniqueness and attention to dislocation, both ours and others. That is what community is about and where healing can take place. (Taylor p.52).
Taylor, Steve. The out of Bounds Church? : Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change. El Cajon, CA Grand Rapids, MI: Emergent YS ; Zondervan, 2005.
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