[continued from Part 1]
In late February, a few weeks before God started prodding me about coming to Korea, He gave me these words:
Create space for wreckage. Do not despise it; embrace and bless it. I will renew and restore. I am making all things new, no exceptions.
I was familiar with having to embrace wreckage, but I hadn’t ever thought of creating space for it. Sounded a bit absurd. Yet so… right. (Oh hey there, all things Jesus.) He was showing me that true repentance and restoration is by wreckage: a complete tear-down before build-up, a turning of heart, soul, mind, and body to come into alignment with Him. Only with complete death via entropy is there subsequent re-birth.
I only recently revisited that journal entry and realized that it was for now, my time in Korea.
You see, I did not come to Korea because Adventures in Missions recruited me. I came because the Lord made it piercingly clear that He had more for and through me here, and part of my purpose would be serving with Adventures to develop World Race Fusion. The bigger picture, I’ve known from the start, is that this is a roots journey.
It wasn’t just the achievement-based and appearance-based culture of Korea that I knew all too well and wanted to avoid in my flesh. It was also, maybe more so, all the tension and brokenness that comes with my bloodline being here. My roots are here, and this is something I cannot hide or change. I’d certainly walked through much healing and forgiveness on my Race and beyond, but ohhh, that was just the first chapter of this epic restoration process.
In essence, my calling to Korea was my calling to create space for further wreckage.
The brokenness of family is one of the most tender and sensitive topics in any believer’s life. I’ve been contending for reconciliation in my family for years. But over time, scar tissue made me numb to all of it, while the flicker of true hope somewhere within has begged for more oxygen.
I don’t know why He chose me, except that God is God and His ways are higher, to be the ambassador for Christ in my family.
I remember asking Him in Kenya, month 8 of my Race, Why me?! Why do I get to experience this freedom and love, and why is my family trapped? Why are You so good to me? What about them?! Can’t You do something for them??
Immediately He spoke through Galatians 5:1, It is for freedom that I set you free. It’s not just for you; it’s for them and for My glory.
In His infinite mercy and grace, He chose me to taste and see His goodness in raw form and to bear the privilege of sharing it.
But I actually found myself isolated on one side of impossibly hard and increasingly thick walls within my family. I began accepting the reality of entropy, that things would probably just have to get worse until God decided to miraculously turn them around. In all honesty, my prayers were little more than an act of duty and obedience, and often a vain attempt to uncover more hope and shake back my sensitivity to feel God’s broken heart for my family.
It wasn’t until I got to Korea that my faith in His restoration has grown sure and that my flicker of hope has been revived to burn steadily. Some old wounds have been reopened, but I believe that has simply stirred awake my senses to the brokenness that needs Jesus and powerful prayers by someone who knows who she is.
In the context of this whole roots journey, I have an increasing desire to be true to an obvious part of who I am: my name.
My last name Kwak means a wall surrounding a city. The problem is that the enemy has destroyed the true safety of Jesus as our fortress and has installed pathetic counterfeits that divide our family instead of unite us. (And that only prove pathetic once they’ve been crushed.) My burning desire is to see Jesus be Lord of our household and call up each of us as defenders of His Kingdom that we were named to be.
My first name Michelle is the rhetorical question, Who is like God? In the words of Hannah’s prayer from 1 Samuel 2:2, There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Part of the legacy I want to build is one of holiness and consecration. I want to leave a sweet fragrance of intimacy with the Lord, a byproduct of gazing upon His beauty. This also goes with my Korean name Meeyoung, which means beauty (‘mee’) and glory (‘young’). I hope my life reflects Christ in a way that drives people to say in awe, Wow… who is like God? and to yearn for more of Him. JESUS shall get all the glory for the beauty He has made from this wreckage of life.
