A New Life - "When someone becomes a Christian, they become a brand new person inside.
"You are not the same anymore. A new life has begun!" 2 Corinthians 5:17
As I walked up the straight and narrow passage on the old wooden squeaky steps, I noticed that the wood on each step was heavily worn down by those who also had walked this same path. There was a musty smell that I have never forgotten. It was a good smell though. I was clenching the handrails on both sides so tightly with fear. I finally reached the top. I adjusted my red and white wool dress that my mother had picked out for me. I then began to descend down the other stairwell into a large tank of barely lukewarm water. At first I began to shiver as I entered, but I proceeded. I reached the middle of the tank. To my left on the wall was a beautifully painted scenery of calm waters with sunlight shining through. It was surrounded by meadows and trees. It seemed very peaceful to me. To my right was an audience of people sitting in old wooden pews staring at me with pleasant smiles on their faces. I
didn’t see my family, only strangers. A very kind old man with grey hair greeted me in the water and smiled. I barely knew him. He was the pastor. This was a Sunday morning on January 7, 1973 in Spokane, Washington. I was nine years old. I had never been to a church before this. I had never seen a bible or sang a hymn. I thought Jesus Christ was a cuss word. He wasn’t. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords who was now in my heart. “This baptism signifies the
beginning of a new life for you,” Preacher Vaughn said. It definitely was.
didn’t see my family, only strangers. A very kind old man with grey hair greeted me in the water and smiled. I barely knew him. He was the pastor. This was a Sunday morning on January 7, 1973 in Spokane, Washington. I was nine years old. I had never been to a church before this. I had never seen a bible or sang a hymn. I thought Jesus Christ was a cuss word. He wasn’t. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords who was now in my heart. “This baptism signifies the
beginning of a new life for you,” Preacher Vaughn said. It definitely was.
What I learned in the Piano Shack that changed my life, filled me with joy and peace and gave me hope:
Have you ever
wanted God to act in an earth-shattering manner in your life? To give you hope, the joy of the Lord and the
peace that surpasses all understanding in the midst of life’s difficulties like
he did for the Apostle Paul and Silas when they were in prison?
One of the events in my life that shaped my faith the most was my experience in the piano shack in 1986. I was 22 years old when I happened upon it. This was a small dilapidated shack that looked abandoned. I came across it in the woods one day on a hike in Gunsan Korea. It was surrounded by a blanket of rice fields that spread endlessly. The shack had no lock on the door. It appeared to be open for anyone who wanted to go in. It was the size of an average bedroom. It had no electricity, carpet, insulation, sheetrock or paint on the walls. Inside it had mismatched wood for the walls, and a weathered wood floor. It had a couple benches that resembled church pews and an old piano toward the front of the shack. It appeared to be abandoned. Inside this piano shack is where I learned how I could sing authentic assertive praises to God in the midst of despair and God would renew my spirit, strength and hope.
Thirteen years prior to this event I became a Christian while attending a protestant church in my rural community. I was one of the first in my family to become a believer. I was nine years old. I was baptized shortly after receiving Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. My father refused to attend my baptism in that he was angry that I had become a Christian. Prior to getting saved, I thought Jesus Christ was only a cuss word. Growing up we did not attend church. We did own a bible and certainly knew nothing about what was written in one.
My father was the last in my family to become a Christian. I was 13 years old when he did. My father immediately was drawn to an extremely misogynistic religious cult that promoted male privilege and dominance over women. My father always had extreme misogynistic beliefs with roots that ran very deep. Now my father was able to enforce these misogynistic beliefs better because he believed he now had God backing him up.
My father frequently distorted scripture to enforce his male privilege, justify physical abuse and cruelty through what he claimed was required discipline. My view of God had definitely become distorted.
My parents both began to teach our family the ways of this cult. They taught us that only men could pray to God and receive an answer. A woman could not. A woman was under her father’s authority until she married and then she was under her husband’s authority. A woman had no choices or a voice. My father was the one who would say who God’s will for me to marry was. He claimed that he would pray to God and God would speak to him. God could not speak to a woman only a man according to this religious cult. My father decided my occupation and every decision in regards to my life. My mother could not make decisions. My mother was not allowed to have her name on my father’s many bank accounts. My father would only give her cash to buy things such as groceries. My mother had to stash away money to tithe without my father knowing. I remember her showing me where she stashed it in her drawer. A woman could not get a job or go to college unless she had approval from her father or husband, if she was married. We had to even vote politically for who my father had chosen. The cult referred to this as the “umbrella of authority.” You could never be outside the umbrella of authority or you would receive punishment and curses from God.
My brothers on the other hand did have freedom of choice. They did have a voice in that they were males. They picked their spouses as well as their occupations.
When I was 22 years old I married a man that my father claimed was “God’s will” for me to marry. I did not want to marry him. I was not in love with him, but was actually repulsed by him. I barely knew him. I married him because I was led to believe that if a daughter is “out of God’s will” or “outside the umbrella of authority” God will cause harm to come to her. A woman would be cursed by God and not blessed if she did not do what her father or husband had proclaimed to be “God’s will.” I was extremely fearful of God’s wrath as I was of my father’s wrath and discipline.
I knew that after I married this man, I would have to relocate to South Korea, in that this man was in the military and was scheduled to be deployed there. He was sent first and I flew there shortly after our wedding.
I had moved out from home when I was 19 years old. I had been living on my own for three years. I had to leave my rental home, sell my car and all my belongings, leave all my friends, church family and go to live in a foreign country with a man that I didn’t know and didn’t like.
The only thing I did know about this man was that he was abusive and had mental problems, in that he brutally abused my pet cat when I told him I wasn’t in love with him and didn’t want to marry him, but it was my father that wanted me to marry. I had told my parents about him throwing my cat against the side of my rental house and it tore her side open and she died. My parents still did not give me “an out.” Abuse wasn’t an out because my father was abusive.
I shared with my parents that I was not in love with this man and didn’t want to marry him. My father lectured me on the scripture found in I Corinthians chapter 13. He claimed that love has nothing to do with physical attraction or chemistry. He went on to say that love has nothing to do with feelings. He told me that I would learn to love him. I never did.
I went through with the wedding in fear of being “out of God’s will.” After all, God spoke to my father and told him that I was to marry this man. It was the most devastating day of my life. I had lost all hope. I contemplated taking my life prior to our wedding but I was afraid that if I did, I would go to hell. The stress and fear of it all caused me to lose 40 pounds in our two month engagement.
Shortly after our wedding my new husband left to be stationed in South Korea. A month later I boarded the 14 hour non-stop flight to Seoul Korea. My aunt and uncle drove me to the airport in Seattle, Washington. I was so upset. I cried the entire 14 hour flight. When I arrived I spent the night in Seoul and then caught a bus to Gunsan about 150 miles south of Seoul on the west coast of the South Korean peninsula bordered by the Yellow Sea. Gunsan is a small fishing village and agricultural area that mainly farmed rice. All I could see when I arrived was a blanket of rice fields everywhere.
When I arrived at the village that I was to live in, I was in shock. Everyone in the village shared one outhouse. The sewage ran down each side of the narrow dirt path that ran through the village. These bingo ditches flowed with sewage on both sides. There were large rats running in and out of the ditches.
The house we lived in was actually a one-room shack. Everyone else in the village also lived in small shacks. We had no furniture. We slept in the middle of the shack on the bare floor. The only heat source was coal that heated the floor. We had to change the coal blocks every few hours to keep the floor warm.
No one in the village spoke English. I was very lonely and became extremely depressed and eventually lost all hope. One day I set out walking with the idea that I would not return. I walked from morning to evening. Eventually I was lost. I walked into a wooded area that was bordered by rice fields everywhere. I found an empty old run-down shack. I opened the door and inside I saw several long benches and an old piano at the front. I decided it must be a remote church for only a few people in that it was so small. I walked up to the old piano and sat down. I began playing hymns that I had learned from the church that I was saved in. I played and sang hymns for many hours in the dark.
Prior to finding this piano shack I had hopelessness and despair and didn’t see a reason to carry on living with a man I didn’t like, know or love. When I left the piano shack, I realized that I no longer had extreme despair and hopelessness. I had a peace that I could not describe. I felt as though I had joy in my heart. I felt renewed, empowered, joyful, a strong sense of peace, and I most importantly had hope. I went to the piano shack every night and played and sang praises to God in the dark. I looked forward to the time I spent at the piano shack. I never saw anyone in or near the piano shack. I wanted to believe that perhaps God put it there just for me.
God began to bless me. I eventually got hired on at Kunsan Air Base working as the personal secretary for the base commander, Col. Charles I. Halt, the highest ranked individual on base. This was definitely a blessing from God. I was now receiving my own income and was not so dependent on my husband who I barely knew. He wasn’t able to mistreat me any longer in that I now worked for the highest ranked man on base.
Soon later I found an orphanage near our village called the Samsung Orphanage. I went there every day after I got off work from my secretarial job on base. I volunteered at the orphanage every day until evening. Then I walked to the piano shack and played and sang hymns to God in the dark for many hours and then walked home and quietly tip-toed into our shack late every night.
At the orphanage I helped the older women (Ah-ju-mas) care for the orphans. No one at the orphanage spoke English so I couldn’t communicate with them except through singing songs. I bought a guitar and taught myself to play it. I played hymns for the children and they sang them in their Korean language. I eventually bonded with all the women and children at the orphanage even though we could not speak each other’s language. We bonded through the singing of hymns and praise songs, the same way I bonded with the Lord through singing praises to him.
What I learned spiritually that has shaped my Christian faith is that serving others brings purpose, and prayer and singing praises to God in the midst of despair brings unspeakable joy which will flood one’s soul with peace and remove every trace of hopelessness. My situation had not changed, but my perspective did. Then everything changed.
This concept is nothing new. The apostle Paul and Silas did the same thing when they faced extreme injustices as well. In Acts 16:16-40 Paul and Silas were imprisoned unjustly for their Christian faith. After being stripped, brutally beaten, and flogged they were thrown into prison and their feet put in the stocks. The scripture doesn’t say how long they were praying and singing praises to God, but it does say they did it until midnight! At that time God acted and caused a violent earthquake that shook the foundations of the prison. The prison doors flew open and all the prisoner’s chains broke loose. It says that the jailer wanted to kill himself with his sword in that he thought Paul and Silas had escaped, which he knew he’d be killed if they had. Paul shouted to him that they were still there. The jailer called for lights, in that it was completely dark in their inner cell. The jailer rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas and asked what he must do to be saved. He was saved that day and his entire household.
Paul and Silas did not know that God was going to act in an earth-shattering way that day because they were praising him. They prayed and sang praises to God because it was necessary to renew their spirit, strengthen them and give them hope. If God will do that for Paul and Silas in an inner cell after being stripped and beaten, for me in a remote village in Korea, he will do that for anyone wherever they are! Pray to God and sing praises to him no matter what you are facing and you will see God act in an amazing way and transform you from the inside out!
One of the events in my life that shaped my faith the most was my experience in the piano shack in 1986. I was 22 years old when I happened upon it. This was a small dilapidated shack that looked abandoned. I came across it in the woods one day on a hike in Gunsan Korea. It was surrounded by a blanket of rice fields that spread endlessly. The shack had no lock on the door. It appeared to be open for anyone who wanted to go in. It was the size of an average bedroom. It had no electricity, carpet, insulation, sheetrock or paint on the walls. Inside it had mismatched wood for the walls, and a weathered wood floor. It had a couple benches that resembled church pews and an old piano toward the front of the shack. It appeared to be abandoned. Inside this piano shack is where I learned how I could sing authentic assertive praises to God in the midst of despair and God would renew my spirit, strength and hope.
Thirteen years prior to this event I became a Christian while attending a protestant church in my rural community. I was one of the first in my family to become a believer. I was nine years old. I was baptized shortly after receiving Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. My father refused to attend my baptism in that he was angry that I had become a Christian. Prior to getting saved, I thought Jesus Christ was only a cuss word. Growing up we did not attend church. We did own a bible and certainly knew nothing about what was written in one.
My father was the last in my family to become a Christian. I was 13 years old when he did. My father immediately was drawn to an extremely misogynistic religious cult that promoted male privilege and dominance over women. My father always had extreme misogynistic beliefs with roots that ran very deep. Now my father was able to enforce these misogynistic beliefs better because he believed he now had God backing him up.
My father frequently distorted scripture to enforce his male privilege, justify physical abuse and cruelty through what he claimed was required discipline. My view of God had definitely become distorted.
My parents both began to teach our family the ways of this cult. They taught us that only men could pray to God and receive an answer. A woman could not. A woman was under her father’s authority until she married and then she was under her husband’s authority. A woman had no choices or a voice. My father was the one who would say who God’s will for me to marry was. He claimed that he would pray to God and God would speak to him. God could not speak to a woman only a man according to this religious cult. My father decided my occupation and every decision in regards to my life. My mother could not make decisions. My mother was not allowed to have her name on my father’s many bank accounts. My father would only give her cash to buy things such as groceries. My mother had to stash away money to tithe without my father knowing. I remember her showing me where she stashed it in her drawer. A woman could not get a job or go to college unless she had approval from her father or husband, if she was married. We had to even vote politically for who my father had chosen. The cult referred to this as the “umbrella of authority.” You could never be outside the umbrella of authority or you would receive punishment and curses from God.
My brothers on the other hand did have freedom of choice. They did have a voice in that they were males. They picked their spouses as well as their occupations.
When I was 22 years old I married a man that my father claimed was “God’s will” for me to marry. I did not want to marry him. I was not in love with him, but was actually repulsed by him. I barely knew him. I married him because I was led to believe that if a daughter is “out of God’s will” or “outside the umbrella of authority” God will cause harm to come to her. A woman would be cursed by God and not blessed if she did not do what her father or husband had proclaimed to be “God’s will.” I was extremely fearful of God’s wrath as I was of my father’s wrath and discipline.
I knew that after I married this man, I would have to relocate to South Korea, in that this man was in the military and was scheduled to be deployed there. He was sent first and I flew there shortly after our wedding.
I had moved out from home when I was 19 years old. I had been living on my own for three years. I had to leave my rental home, sell my car and all my belongings, leave all my friends, church family and go to live in a foreign country with a man that I didn’t know and didn’t like.
The only thing I did know about this man was that he was abusive and had mental problems, in that he brutally abused my pet cat when I told him I wasn’t in love with him and didn’t want to marry him, but it was my father that wanted me to marry. I had told my parents about him throwing my cat against the side of my rental house and it tore her side open and she died. My parents still did not give me “an out.” Abuse wasn’t an out because my father was abusive.
I shared with my parents that I was not in love with this man and didn’t want to marry him. My father lectured me on the scripture found in I Corinthians chapter 13. He claimed that love has nothing to do with physical attraction or chemistry. He went on to say that love has nothing to do with feelings. He told me that I would learn to love him. I never did.
I went through with the wedding in fear of being “out of God’s will.” After all, God spoke to my father and told him that I was to marry this man. It was the most devastating day of my life. I had lost all hope. I contemplated taking my life prior to our wedding but I was afraid that if I did, I would go to hell. The stress and fear of it all caused me to lose 40 pounds in our two month engagement.
Shortly after our wedding my new husband left to be stationed in South Korea. A month later I boarded the 14 hour non-stop flight to Seoul Korea. My aunt and uncle drove me to the airport in Seattle, Washington. I was so upset. I cried the entire 14 hour flight. When I arrived I spent the night in Seoul and then caught a bus to Gunsan about 150 miles south of Seoul on the west coast of the South Korean peninsula bordered by the Yellow Sea. Gunsan is a small fishing village and agricultural area that mainly farmed rice. All I could see when I arrived was a blanket of rice fields everywhere.
When I arrived at the village that I was to live in, I was in shock. Everyone in the village shared one outhouse. The sewage ran down each side of the narrow dirt path that ran through the village. These bingo ditches flowed with sewage on both sides. There were large rats running in and out of the ditches.
The house we lived in was actually a one-room shack. Everyone else in the village also lived in small shacks. We had no furniture. We slept in the middle of the shack on the bare floor. The only heat source was coal that heated the floor. We had to change the coal blocks every few hours to keep the floor warm.
No one in the village spoke English. I was very lonely and became extremely depressed and eventually lost all hope. One day I set out walking with the idea that I would not return. I walked from morning to evening. Eventually I was lost. I walked into a wooded area that was bordered by rice fields everywhere. I found an empty old run-down shack. I opened the door and inside I saw several long benches and an old piano at the front. I decided it must be a remote church for only a few people in that it was so small. I walked up to the old piano and sat down. I began playing hymns that I had learned from the church that I was saved in. I played and sang hymns for many hours in the dark.
Prior to finding this piano shack I had hopelessness and despair and didn’t see a reason to carry on living with a man I didn’t like, know or love. When I left the piano shack, I realized that I no longer had extreme despair and hopelessness. I had a peace that I could not describe. I felt as though I had joy in my heart. I felt renewed, empowered, joyful, a strong sense of peace, and I most importantly had hope. I went to the piano shack every night and played and sang praises to God in the dark. I looked forward to the time I spent at the piano shack. I never saw anyone in or near the piano shack. I wanted to believe that perhaps God put it there just for me.
God began to bless me. I eventually got hired on at Kunsan Air Base working as the personal secretary for the base commander, Col. Charles I. Halt, the highest ranked individual on base. This was definitely a blessing from God. I was now receiving my own income and was not so dependent on my husband who I barely knew. He wasn’t able to mistreat me any longer in that I now worked for the highest ranked man on base.
Soon later I found an orphanage near our village called the Samsung Orphanage. I went there every day after I got off work from my secretarial job on base. I volunteered at the orphanage every day until evening. Then I walked to the piano shack and played and sang hymns to God in the dark for many hours and then walked home and quietly tip-toed into our shack late every night.
At the orphanage I helped the older women (Ah-ju-mas) care for the orphans. No one at the orphanage spoke English so I couldn’t communicate with them except through singing songs. I bought a guitar and taught myself to play it. I played hymns for the children and they sang them in their Korean language. I eventually bonded with all the women and children at the orphanage even though we could not speak each other’s language. We bonded through the singing of hymns and praise songs, the same way I bonded with the Lord through singing praises to him.
What I learned spiritually that has shaped my Christian faith is that serving others brings purpose, and prayer and singing praises to God in the midst of despair brings unspeakable joy which will flood one’s soul with peace and remove every trace of hopelessness. My situation had not changed, but my perspective did. Then everything changed.
This concept is nothing new. The apostle Paul and Silas did the same thing when they faced extreme injustices as well. In Acts 16:16-40 Paul and Silas were imprisoned unjustly for their Christian faith. After being stripped, brutally beaten, and flogged they were thrown into prison and their feet put in the stocks. The scripture doesn’t say how long they were praying and singing praises to God, but it does say they did it until midnight! At that time God acted and caused a violent earthquake that shook the foundations of the prison. The prison doors flew open and all the prisoner’s chains broke loose. It says that the jailer wanted to kill himself with his sword in that he thought Paul and Silas had escaped, which he knew he’d be killed if they had. Paul shouted to him that they were still there. The jailer called for lights, in that it was completely dark in their inner cell. The jailer rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas and asked what he must do to be saved. He was saved that day and his entire household.
Paul and Silas did not know that God was going to act in an earth-shattering way that day because they were praising him. They prayed and sang praises to God because it was necessary to renew their spirit, strengthen them and give them hope. If God will do that for Paul and Silas in an inner cell after being stripped and beaten, for me in a remote village in Korea, he will do that for anyone wherever they are! Pray to God and sing praises to him no matter what you are facing and you will see God act in an amazing way and transform you from the inside out!
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All Rights Reserved and not to be used without permission. All logos are trademarks of Choices and a Voice.org® and its divisions. These and all other trademarks used are the property of their respective owners.
