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“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.” (Acts 16:31) This scripture has supported me. I heartily appreciate much grace and blessing from Jesus. Great love of Jesus has set me free. I have been released from all the negative things inside me such as hatred, sorrow, suffering and loneliness.
My Background
I was born and raised in a city called Kumamoto. My father worked as a plasterer and my mother was a housewife. She was mentally retarded and was suffering schizophrenia. I had an elder sister, but she died before I was born. My parents who had lost a little daughter were very much looking forward to my birth. I have a memory of my childhood back from the age of three or a little younger. When I was that little, my father and mother were already living separately. My father just came home briefly only in the morning and in the evening. The night after he was gone, I felt so lonely and crying for him. However, he never came back home for the night. I remember I wanted him to stay home all the time. During those days, my mother physically abused me when she found something displeasing about me in the daytime. She hit me, grabbed my head and hair, and dragged me along at quite a pace around a eight-mat room. I was so scared and hurt that I screamed at top of my voice. I frequently suffered this sort of thing. My father who had noticed my mother’s physical abuse on me couldn’t bear to see it and asked his sister to live with me and take care of me. This way, my aunt, my mother and I began to live together. Though my aunt had suffered from the after-effects of a traffic accident and had almost rested in bed for a couple of years, she protected me at the risk of her life form my mother’s abuse. Partly due to the illness my mother had, she was fierce-tempered and behaved violently in the house. She once used violence against a mother of a friend of mine who was living in our neighborhood. Her rampage lasted for several years. There was nothing we could do with her, and she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital for fifteen to sixteen years. I hated her so much and couldn’t accept her existence. I felt the same way toward my father. He didn’t divorce my mother, but he was self-centered and was living with another woman. I couldn’t forgive him. Besides, he piled up debt and gave his family and relatives trouble. I wanted to have ordinary parents. I cursed and despaired over them, saying in my heart, “Why do I have to be born from these parents? God is unfair.” I found myself jealous of a friend with a happy family. I was sometimes ridiculed because of my parents. My aunt came to school for me on events such as an entrance ceremony, a graduation ceremony and classroom visitations, which made me feel lonely, compared with other friends having their mothers come. My aunt poured her affection one me and did a lot of things for me instead of my mother. However, I wanted affection from my parents and was craving for their love. I was raised as an only child, but I thought if my deceased elder sister were alive, I could have shared everything with her, and that would make a difference in my ways of life and in my attitude of heart. And other times I sometimes wanted a brother. My heart was not filled, but I felt empty, and always lonely.
My Earnest Desire
Since I was put in this terrible family situation, I was sensitive to any kind of god near and far to have my wish granted from the bottom of my heart, praying like this: “God, bring my father back home and help him live together with us. Please heal my mother of her illness. Please help my parents go well with each other and help three of us live together.”
Meeting with Jesus Christ
After graduating from my high school, I had to pay off the debts of my father, and got a job of office work. I was separated from my aunt and became independent. However, at the age of 22, I also made a debt of two to three million yen myself. All I had left with me was the debt, and my emptiness grew larger. (I was able to pay off that debt over several years’ time.) I was crushed down by the emptiness in the heart. One day I went to a church nearby to pray to God for help, wishing to die and to get free. After I prayed, I was so relieved and felt easy. Half a year after that, a Christian lady was newly employed in my company. She told me about salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ, and I got to know the real, true God. After a while, one morning when I woke up, I suddenly understood the cross of Jesus Christ. The true Father God loves me so much that He hanged His only Son Jesus to die on the cross for me. I understood this great love of God in my spirit with astonishment. Half a year after I heard the gospel, I prayed the prayer of believing and accepting Jesus Christ into my heart. The vacuum in my heart was filled the instant I prayed, and got freed from loneliness.
Stopped Suicide
Soon after I believed Jesus, I couldn’t go well with human relationship and hated to live and didn’t care for anything. I couldn’t sleep because of uneasiness, and I decided to kill myself by taking a pack of sleeping pills and cutting the wrist with a razor. The moment I tried to cut the wrist, I couldn’t kill myself, remembering the faces of the people who would be sorrowful of my death. Later, I deeply repented of my sin and my trial of suicide.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
The Dedication to God
One year after I became a Christian, I had a desire to live for God. I prayed the prayer of dedication. I had a burden for the overseas mission, and was enrolled in a seminary, with a strong desire to be a missionary. I went on a short-term mission trip to the U.S.A. I prayed and sought for a future guidance at the Prayer Chapel of the Church On the Way, and God told me about two things: a transfer of my church to Nagasaki Church of the same group and my marriage partner. The person I was shown to marry was a brother in Christ, whom I didn’t get along with. I never thought of him as a marriage partner. I kept the things I unexpectedly received from God in mind, and retuned Japan.
The Fulfillment of My Marriage
I wanted to marry sometime, but when I was a non Christian, I had been convincing myself to give up on marriage because of my complex family situation. I wondered with uneasiness if I could find somebody who would marry a person like me with an ill mother. When I became a Christian, I was given a scripture from Isaiah Chapter 62, especially verse 4: “People will not call you, Deserted anymore. They will no longer name your land Empty. Instead, you will be called The One the Lord Delights In. Your land will be named The Married One. And your land will be like a bride.” I was comforted and encouraged by this scripture. Also, the pastor’s wife advised me to pray for my marriage, requesting 70 items for a potential marriage partner. Several years later, all the items of my request were met as a confirmation of my marriage. I finally married. The partner was a man God showed me in the U.S.A. Hallelujah.
Living with My Mother
Three years after I got married, my grand mother contacted me, saying that she wanted me to live with my mother. My parents didn’t get divorced, but lived separately for about 30 years. They said that they wouldn’t be able to live together. Therefore I, their only daughter was compelled to take in my mother. It was about one year after I began to live in a city called Kushiro with my husband who was a pastor and our two-year old and three-year-old daughters. We even didn’t have the travel expense to pick up my mother, but we were soon helped, given an offering for it. I appreciated it. On the departure day when I went to pick up my mother who lived in Kumamoto, a large rainbow appeared in the sky. I thanked with my husband for that rainbow as God’s promise of blessing. I had left my mother when I was six years old, so I was going to live with her after twenty years’ interval. My mother had believed and confessed Jesus Christ several years before she came to Kushiro to live with us. She participated in the church’s worship services every week after she came to our home.
Set Free from Hatred
My mother was steadily healed, but I was not used to living with my sick mother, which was a headache to me. Above all, my inner problem surfaced: hatred caused by her physical abuse. I spent painful days. She didn’t remember what she had done partly because she was ill. However, I clearly remembered what she had done, and I was furious and was consumed with hatred. I felt a pain in the heart and uncontrollably I vented frustration on my family, and raged. I quarreled with my mother many times. Every time I calmed down, I repented and apologized to her. However, I repeated the same thing. I didn’t want to forgive my mother’s abuse I had suffered in my childhood, and the hatred I had had against her didn’t go away. After about one year, I had an asthma-like symptom. It hurt so much that I couldn’t bear it. I had my husband pray for me, and he just said to me, “You suffer because you don’t forgive your mom.” I honestly prayed to God, saying, “I don’t want to forgive my mother for her abuse against me. Please forgive me of the hatred I’ve held onto inside. Please help me have a desire to forgive her.” God spoke to me, saying that I should forgive my mother just as God had forgiven me. Around that time I recalled her looking so gloomy when I saw her in the church. I felt I caused her to feel gloomy and I was led to deeply repent my attitude toward her. Since then, I have never suffered a sense of hatred against my mother, and have been released from that bondage. Hallelujah. I give thank to God for that.
Living Together with My Father
I hadn’t thought about living together with my father yet. He had diabetes, and I didn’t know he had its complications developed. He had suffered myocardial infarction twice, cerebral infarction and retinopathy, and as a result, he had to live in a wheelchair. He still had debts to pay off and had given trouble his relatives. We as a couple were desperate, having no money for costly hospital charges and no travel expense to pick him up to bring home. We cried for the costly medical expense that was abruptly demanded, and we prayed and relied on God for it. With a help from God, and with prayers and offering of brothers and sisters in Christ, it was made possible to live together with my father. I truly appreciate that. My father and mother were reunited with tears. It seemed very painful to my father to live in our home town Kushiro away from his dear old home land. He had wanted to go back to Kumamoto all the time for four and half years, which bothered our family, until he was gone to heaven.
Nursing Care of My Father
My father attended the church’s worship service every week after he had to stay for home healthcare. He had believed and confessed Jesus Christ quite a long time ago. In the early stage of his diabetes, I had told the gospel to him when he was hospitalized. As he had been prayed for healing and listened to praise and worship music tapes, he was touched by God and opened up his heart. He was stubborn after he came to Kushiro, because he wanted to return Kumamoto. However, toward the end of his life, he voluntarily changed his clothes to go to church. My husband took good care of my father by helping him take a bath, and carrying him on his back to a church or to a hospital, etc. My father who was depending much on my husband called my husband’s name, saying “Kiyoshi, Kiyoshi,” from his bed all the time. My mother who stayed in the same room with him helped him eat and change clothes. All the family members got involved in caring for him. Through his illness God brought him back to our family. When he was still conscious, he said to us, “Thank you, “and, later, returned to heaven. When he was gone to heaven, the hatred and unforgiveness in my heart toward my father were gone away, and I anxiously prayed that he would live on this earth much longer so we could live together.
My Answer to a Prayer
God remembered the prayer I prayed while I was single. He reunited my split family: father and mother and me. It became a treasure of mine that I had been able to live with my parents after marriage. The Lord has made the thing that was impossible with man possible with His hand, manifesting His glory. I offer thanks to God from the bottom of my heart.
Zion Mori
God is Love.