The Light of Eternal Agape 東京アンテオケ教会

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My Husband Who Was Changed 180 Degrees – He went just to fight, but was saved

To those who suffer from married couples’ relationships

This post is also available in: Japanese

My Husband Who Was Stubborn and Difficult

I married my husband in 1985.  He was very short-tempered.  He threw a tantrum when things didn’t go the way he wished, and to get at anybody.  Soon after our first son was born, he argued against his boss in his company and quit the job.  Even after that, he continued to quit jobs whenever things didn’t go the way he wished and changed jobs many times.

Salvation 

In about half a year after my second son was born, a good friend of mine who lived near by came to see me every day.  After a while, she started to talk to me about God.  I had known her well since we had been in the same elementary school, playing volley ball together.  I was surprised to hear her talk to me about Christ all of a sudden, because we went to the Buddhist high school.  It didn’t ring a bell when she told me that Jesus Christ had been hanged on the cross to take place of our sin, had died and had been resurrected after three days.”  However, she joyfully came to me and my husband to tell us about Jesus almost every day.  I realized she got something that changed her to a joyful one.  But my husband abruptly shouted at her, saying, “Religious addict!  Don’t come to us any more!”  In spite of this, she came to tell us about Jesus without getting discouraged by my husband’s words.  I had a desire to believe in Jesus, but couldn’t decide to have faith, not telling that to my husband.  So my friend and I asked him to go and see a pastor just once.  Surprisingly, he accepted that.  As a matter of fact, he was going to take this opportunity to beat the pastor to a pulp.  In January, 1989, my friend and I made an appointment for him to see the pastor at 6 o’clock in the evening, but my husband didn’t come home soon on the appointed day.  He came home around 9 p.m. expecting that we had got impatient with him and gone to see the pastor without him.  However, he found us waiting for him when he got home after he had killed time by playing pachinko.  So we all went to see the pastor together.
As I expected, as soon as he met the pastor, he started off by saying, “Show me God if there is really God.”  However, as he was talking, his truculent attitude was changed, and he was telling the pastor he first met about his painful times, and lastly he repented his sin, crying.  He and I made a confession of faith together, and he was saved.

Starting to Go to Church

We started to go to church with our two children and kept going with no absences. However, my husband unwillingly went to church only because he needed to pick up the two children and me, and showed up in the worship service about five minutes before it was over.  He sat down the farthest corner in the church, but he was not absent from it either, keeping a good attendance rate.
In a holy meeting, we as a couple were prayed for and given a prophecy saying, “See what two of you will be in five years.”  I asked the pastor who led us to salvation about what this prophecy meant, since my husband, though he was saved, was not really a part of the church.  He told me that my husband might become a pastor five years later.  I was so surprised to hear that, but I received that word from God by faith. 

Led to Dedication to the Lord

After a while, our church planned to send a mission team to the U.S.A., and I decided to join this team with my second son.  This mission trip was about three weeks long; we went to pray in the Church on the Way and had a time of fellowship in the church sponsored conference and dined out with Dr. Yoo.  Dr. Yoo asked me what my husband did, and I answered to him, saying, “He is now a salaried worker but will become a pastor in the future,” although he was weak in faith and was always late for church.  Later, I thought that the Lord had made me make a confession of faith about my husband at that time.  Around the same time in Japan, God gave my husband the scripture of Matthew 16:18, saying, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”  From this point on, he received a calling of pastor, began to obey Him, and his faith and mine were reversed.  In the next year, the seminary classes opened in the churches outside Tokyo, and my husband and I were enrolled in the seminary.  I thought that service to God doesn’t allow me to make excuses of having children, being pregnant and having a job, and I took as many classes as possible.  Every day, from Sunday through Saturday, I attended a dawn prayer meeting and, after that, prepared breakfast and lunch boxes, and I sent off my husband and children.  In the morning I went either to the seminary or to a prayer meeting, and, after that, I went to work, and then went back home to prepare supper to take out to eat for the seminary in the evening with my children.  I was well known among my friends about being always absent from home when people called me.  Then time passed and my husband became a pastor five years later just as the prophetic word had been spoken, and we as a couple were sent to Sasebo Church.

Blessings Through Listening and Obeying God – From Sasebo to Mie

We received many blessings and various trainings after we were sent to Sasebo Church.  We were given four children and when I was expecting a fifth child in the last month, we were told to be transferred to the church in Mie.  I was planning to give birth to the fifth baby in Sasebo, and was thinking it was hard for me to move so soon.  However, when I prayed to God about it, He told me to go.  I consulted with an obstetrician right away, he said to me, “The estimated delivery date will fall on the golden week, so if you’d like to go, go as early as tomorrow.”  We decided that only the fourth child and I would go ahead of the rest of the family and our luggage would come late. However, the elder pastor in the church in Kyushu district gave us the offering for the train fare for my husband, saying, “I am worried about your wife going alone.  Pastor Mori, you go along with her.”   We left Sasebo and changed trains at Fukuoka and to Yamaguchi on Shinkansen(Bullet-train), and to Hiroshima through a tunnel.  As we were passing by, I started labor.  I tried to put up with it, passing Okayama and Kobe, but I reached an intolerable level and we got off at Shin-Osaka.  I was made ride an ambulance, putting up with the labor, but was declined for admission to some hospitals.  Finally I was admitted and was able to give birth to a baby.

The following day, I heard people speaking the Kansai dialect I was not used to from outside of a window.  I wondered why I ended up delivering a child in such an unfamiliar place as this, and I wept, and couldn’t stop weeping.  I wept the whole day, having my eyes swollen up, and finally I prayed to God and opened the Bible.  I was spoken through John 14:1-3: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.・・・I am going there to prepare a place for you,” which very much comforted me.  Then I was given the faith that God would manifest His work even on me.
The following day after that, a new person was admitted to the hospital in the same room as mine.  Our room was narrow and our beds were put in such a way having our heads close by, but in such setting I told her about God and she made a confession of faith and was saved by the time I left the hospital.  She used to go to a Christian school, but didn’t know about God.  I thought God led me to meet with her to lead her to salvation.  While we stayed in Mie, more than 70 people were saved within a period of one year and two months, and God blessed us very much.  If I hadn’t follow the Lord in the time of the childbirth, this work of salvation wouldn’t have taken place, and even worse, I might have robbed my husband of his calling.

My Husband Who Was Changed 180 Degrees

When we were in seminary to become a pastor, both my parents and his persecuted us, telling us that we were thinking about something light-hearted, and to get down to business. My mother told me that my husband was easily warmed up but just as easily cooled down, and that he would quit a Christian activity sooner or later.  It was natural to think of him that way if you knew him until then.  When he had been saved, he was absorbed in playing pachinko, mahjong, and golf.  He was so big a spender, and our family finances were hard-pressed.  Fortunately, my parents’ home was running an eating place, and we were never stranded because of lack of food. So, naturally, my parents couldn’t believe that my husband would be a pastor.  Going against our parents’ opposition, we continued to study in the seminary and to walk on faith. As we did that, our parents have seen my husband being changed, and began to think there was something in Christianity, and eventually they also had a desire to receive blessing as well. 

My mother was saved through my husband seven years ago. His father was also saved about three years ago.  Both of our parents who had been strongly opposing their son to become a pastor are now glad that he is a pastor and they are proud of him.
I heartily appreciate God who changed the character and life of my husband 180 degrees.

God is Love.