The Unstoppable Path!
Like the Cows of Beth-shemesh!
In the rural Jin young village, where persimmons are abundant, I finally settled down after a long life as a foreigner and acquired a small home. It began as a farm shack, and my father built it with his own hands, making it all the warmer.
In summer, there was the scent of wood soaked with humidity in spring, the vibrant rebirth of tender green leaves in autumn, bright orange persimmons were everywhere. And in winter, bare trees stood resilient with the fallen leaves they parted with in autumn. It was a place where all four seasons truly lived.
My daughter and I were discharged from a hospital near a military base in Yeosu, and with my husband returning from his military service, we headed to my parents’ house to recuperate after childbirth.
Oh, how long it had been! I, now as a mother, fell into my mother’s embrace, overwhelmed by the yearning that brought me to tears. My mother, weakened by time, held me close and patted my back, recognizing the daughter who had weathered life’s storms. She didn’t know how I’d lived after leaving for the mission field, for there had been no words to convey it.
“My one and only beloved daughter,
you’ve done well. I’m proud of you, my girl!”
For a long while, I basked in her embrace, drinking in the scent of my mother that I had missed so deeply. The meals and seaweed soup prepared by my mother and my grandmother were sublime. For a month, I was wrapped in the love of my family, resting in happiness.
Eventually, the time to leave drew near.
As my husband and I prepared for the journey, he told me he would go to a prayer mountain for prayer before departing. The day after he left, something unexpected happened to me. Suddenly, I could barely breathe and couldn’t lie down.
Oh, what was happening?
My heart felt like it was falling out of my chest.
Up until then, I had been breastfeeding, but I had to quickly buy a bottle and formula, leaving the baby in someone’s care as I headed to the emergency room. Hearing my baby cry out for me as I closed the door and walked down the long path to the bus with my father was so painful and break my heart so deeply.
“You’ve been carrying tuberculosis bacteria, and it has progressed into tuberculous pleurisy. You need to be hospitalized immediately to drain the pus that has accumulated in your lungs,”
the doctor said. They urgently inserted a tube into my side in the emergency room to remove the fluid. I was lying there, barely breathing, feeling as lifeless as a corpse.
What am I to do?
How will I feed my baby?
What do I do with my painfully engorged breasts?
When will my husband return?
How can I reach him?
Lord, where are You?
Is this the end of the road for me?
I want to stop now…
The pain of draining the pus and blood from my side was less severe than the deep despair in my heart. I felt like a prisoner, bound to the bed and sinking into a bottomless pit with each breath.
I was discharged and recovering while caring for my baby when a message arrived from Pakistan.
Both my husband and I needed to return promptly to extend our visas.
I still couldn’t lift my right arm! My husband, who had never administered an injection, had to give me streptomycin shots as I gradually healed from tuberculosis.
I had reached the limit of my endurance.
This was truly the end—I couldn’t go any further.
One day, my mother quietly called my husband over.
She read from '1 Samuel 6:12: “the cows took the straight path laong the road to Beth-shemesh. They stayed on the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn to the right or the left. The Philistine lords followed them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.'
"Listen closely my son, " she said. "I’ll care for the baby for a while. You two go and do your destiny in the mission field. When the time comes, bring your daughter back, or we’ll bring you daughter to you. Help my daughter recover her health. I will take good care of my granddaughter; don’t worry and fulfill the mission God has given you both. I am here, and so is your father too. We’ll stand by your calling."
Like the cows that bore the Ark and left for a distant land, the mother cow leaving behind her calf would have been torn with anguish.
I remembered the pain I felt as a child when I was separated from my mother, first to live with my grandparents and then briefly in an orphanage in Busan. Now, I had to pass on this pain to my daughter.
“No, Lord, not this. Anything but this.”
I had gone far to heal the poor and the sick, yet I became a patient myself and a missionary who was now a burden to everyone. What could I do?
As I sat, lost in tears, a thought struck me suddenly. After giving birth to my youngest sibling, my mother had spent a lifetime bedridden after her right lung was drained and partially removed. And now, one month after giving birth to my own daughter, my right lung was afflicted, and tuberculosis…
Could such similar events happen to a mother and daughter?
Why?
Despite her lifelong confinement due to illness, my mother loved her life, embraced even her suffering, held onto hope, and encouraged those around her!
My mother could not bear to see her daughter incapacitated as she was and unable to live out my calling.
Oh, like my mother,
I must embrace all pain and move forward without faltering!
With my beloved three-month-old daughter, who was my everything, we took a photo in advance for her 100-day celebration and fervently prayed, entrusting her to God’s care.
This time, I boarded the plane with my husband by my side.
