💌 426. Who is the Author of the Affectionate Voice that Says “Why do you not wake up and go home now?"

My sorrowful cries filled the air in the silent church, but no one, not even Jesus on the Cross answered. With tears in my eyes, I lifted my head, and gazed upon Jesus on the Crucifix, who had not returned even an echo of an answer. Then I met the eyes of Jesus who seemed to be looking at me with compassion.

‘Jesus alone knows all about me. Yes, just as I suffer, how painful must be for Jesus crucified on that high cross?’ When I looked at Jesus dying for me on the Cross, I let out a groaning sound from the innermost recesses of my soul in spite of myself. Could this be like how Jesus felt when He died with all the blood and water draining from His Heart?

From the most delicate and deepest recesses of my heart, I desperately confessed my weaknesses to Jesus, crying out once again. "Jesus, since you truly know me well, either bring me back to life or take me away. Please do something for me quickly. My family is all having a hard time because of me. No matter how much pain or agony I experience, I am willing to take it.

But my heart is very sorrowful, even to death because my mother, husband, and children, who I tried to care and protect, are having a hard time due to me. Now, it is too much for me to go on sublimating everything into Semchigo as if I were receiving love.” In a grim reality where I was caught between a rock and a hard place, the tears, which I had been holding back so far, began pouring down all at once like waters bursting out of a reservoir.

The cancer had metastasized throughout my whole body, starting from my throat, extending outside my rectum and covering my anus. And my blood pressure was 50/40 and eventually out of the measurable range, which made it impossible to have another surgery. Therefore, I could not even have a colostomy. Is this not a crueler situation than death itself? It is the most final stage out of the terminal cancerthat had spread to my toes!

Even though I was sentenced to death, I did not tell it to any of my family so as not to be a burden to them. But no one around me even tried to find out how much pain I suffered and where it hurt, even though I was in the state where I could not even take a sip of water and had become so thin. However, thinking that it was my fate to fade away like this, I endured each day, sublimating their complete indifference into Semchigo as if I were receiving love from everyone.

In extreme pain and agony, I could not sleep well, staying up many nights with tears but when I opened my eyes again every morning, how grateful I was to God that the previous day had not been my eternal end without warning. And how infinitely grateful I was for being able to live and breathe on another new day!

While I had been quietly waiting for my death, sublimating everything into Semchigo as if I had received love, I had already made a resolution to live for my family until the end of my life. So, as usual, I had always taken care of my family as best as I could. Nevertheless, grasping for a glimmer of hope to survive, I had held out by offering up everything with all my might. However, before Jesus, I became like a vulnerable naked baby without realizing it and cried out loud for the first time.

As I cried my heart out at the foot of the Cross, My heart was pounding as if it would burst, thudding loudly that it felt like being on the verge of bursting.

I was crying out so sorrowfully. Then, I fainted and fell to the cold floor in the end. ‘If only I could just fall asleep here as it is ...’ As I laid down giving myself completely and surrendered myself entirely before Jesus, I was losing my consciousness with my body going limp. How long had it been since then?

"Why do you not wake up and go home now?” A sweet and soft voice was heard. I was startled and struggled to my feet, thinking, ‘Who could it be?’ I looked around to find the author of the voice but a calm silence alone hung over the atmosphere of the church. There was no one but me. But that voice was definitely the familiar voice that I had heard every time when I faced a critical moment of death. At that time, I looked at the clock hanging in the church, and it said 3 A.M.