Chapter 16: The reason it had to be that way(1)

Behind my grandparents’ house in the countryside where I used to live, there was a small church less than twenty steps away.

In my childhood, that church was practically like a second home to me.

I don’t mean that in the religious sense of “we are all children of God, so the church is our home.”

I say that because I truly spent as much time in that church as I did in my own home, going in and out of it constantly like it was mine.

I doubt I could have done that at any other church.

It was a rural village where everyone knew who lived where and what they did, to the point where locking your front door was considered unnecessary.

So naturally, the church doors weren’t locked 24/7 either.

And since I had been going there hand-in-hand with my grandparents since I was a baby, the pastor who managed the church gladly told me I could come by anytime.

There were many reasons I spent so much time at the church, and those reasons changed over time.

Until I entered elementary school, the reason I often went there was simply because I had no one to play with.

My parents both worked in the city and left me to be raised by my grandparents in the countryside.

But the countryside was largely populated by the elderly.

Since most younger adults moved to the cities for work, naturally, there were very few children around.

Even if you gathered all the kids from the neighboring areas, there were barely ten of us, if that.

So, was it just the lack of kids that left me without friends?

…Unfortunately, no.

Even with so few kids, we usually stuck together tightly and played.

The problem was that I was excluded by the small group of kids we had.

The reason?

My appearance.

I had a slightly noticeable physical trait, and one day, the kids I used to play with started spreading rumors that I looked that way because of a disease.

It was a completely baseless rumor, and I was upset about it, but from that day on, the kids refused to play with me, saying they’d catch the disease too.

And just like that, I became the kid with no friends my age.

Later, I learned the real reason that rumor started.

In every group of kids, there’s always one who acts like the leader.

Our group had one too—and he was the one who spread the rumor.

The reason?

It was petty.

He had a crush on a girl, and I used to hang out with her a lot.

I guess that didn’t sit well with him.

If I had let him play the dad in our pretend family games, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.

Anyway, because of that, I stopped playing with friends and started hanging out at the church instead.

More specifically, I would go to see the pastor, who always gave me tasty snacks and played with me whenever I visited.

He was especially kind to me from a young age, and to me, he was like a substitute for my parents, who could only visit on weekends because of work.

So I grew to love the pastor and visited the church often as a child.

Time passed, and when I was old enough to enter elementary school, my parents had finally become stable enough in their jobs to take me to live with them in the city, where I started school.

But that life didn’t last even half a year.

That was when I began to see strange things.

Confused and frightened—and after facing serious bullying at school—I begged my parents:

“I can’t live here. Please send me back to Grandma and Grandpa’s place.”

So I returned to the countryside.

Thankfully, life there was much more bearable.

I didn’t see as many strange things as I did in the city, and in fact, nothing strange ever appeared inside the church.

So I treated the church as my sanctuary and spent my days there.

Then, time passed, and when I turned ten, hardship struck.

…I don’t want to go into detail, so I’ll keep it brief.

My mother passed away, and my father abandoned me and left home.

The collapse of what was once a happy family.

It was a hardship so unbearable that the only one I could cling to was God.

Aside from school and sleep, I spent nearly all of my time in the church.

And I poured all that time into praying to God.

I told Him:

“This little lamb who believes in You is suffering and sad.”

“So please, with Your almighty power, help me.”

I begged and pleaded in prayer.

At first, I cried endlessly while praying.

So much that I fainted several times from dehydration.

But after living in tears every day, consumed by grief, I realized something one day: When I cried, my grandparents cried even harder.

After realizing that, I stopped shedding tears during prayer.

Instead, with dry eyes, I looked up to the heavens and the Bible as I prayed.

In hopes that someone up there would answer.

In hopes that I could find the reason for my suffering.

Months passed that way.

Then came Christmas Eve of that year.

Even though it was a small rural church, all the believers gathered to celebrate Jesus’ birth, singing hymns late into the night.

After the service ended and everyone had gone home to sleep,

I couldn’t fall asleep, so I returned to the church.

The sanctuary, which had been filled with worship just a short time ago, was now dark and cold, almost like it had never been alive.

I knelt alone on the cold, unlit floor and prayed.

But that night, like every other night I had prayed, there was no answer.

“…Hwijoon.”

“…Pastor.”

As dawn approached, I heard the pastor’s voice calling me from behind.

Perhaps he had come early to the church that morning.

But he wasn’t surprised to see a ten-year-old child praying alone in the empty church.

Because this wasn’t the first time.

Still kneeling, facing the cross on the wall, I spoke to the pastor without turning around.

“Pastor, you said that the Lord is the most benevolent, all-powerful, and perfect being—like, in modern terms, the ultimate king of kings, right?”

Without waiting for a reply, I continued:

“Then why doesn’t the Lord answer my prayers? Why does He give me such hardship and suffering?”

The pastor couldn’t answer my question.

When ordinary people face hardships and come to him, asking why the good Lord is letting such things happen to them, he usually says:

‘Everything was planned by God from the beginning of creation, so please don’t be too sorrowful. If you keep your faith and follow Him unwaveringly, He will reward you even more greatly in the future.’

But perhaps even the pastor found it difficult to say that to a ten-year-old child who had lost both parents.

I kept questioning the pastor, who remained silent.

“Was all of this part of His plan? Or is He testing me, like Job, who was tested in the Bible?”

“In the Bible, it says that despite all his suffering, Job didn’t lose his faith, and God rewarded him by giving him back double what he had before—14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 oxen, 1,000 female donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters, and lived 140 more years, seeing four generations of his grandchildren before dying.”

“But in the end, Job never got back the children who were killed by raiders. So could Job really have been happy with the reward God gave him? I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think I could have been.”

Because for me, more than 14,000 sheep, more than 6,000 camels, more than 1,000 oxen, more than 1,000 donkeys, more than having seven sons and three daughters, more than living for 140 years—

Living with the family I love would have made me happier.

Maybe God would consider this way of thinking impious, but I couldn’t help but think that way.

Having come to that conclusion, I stood up.

Then I turned around, bowed deeply to the pastor who still sat in heavy silence, and said:

“Pastor, I think today will be my last day attending church. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

As I turned to leave the church after saying goodbye, I heard the pastor’s voice from behind me.

“Hwijoona… Have you come to hate God?”

To the pastor’s sorrowful question, I answered:

“…No. I don’t hate Him. Honestly, I did hate Him a little at first, but I’ve decided not to anymore.”

Hating someone I once loved—that’s something I already do with my father, and that’s enough.

I didn’t want to hate Him. Or them.

So instead of hating, I decided to try thinking.

Even though sometimes I felt like I was bothering him by coming…

Even though this church only treated me kindly because it was founded by my grandfather…

Even though the pastor, even now, is probably fretting inside over whether he upset me…

“God probably also had His reasons—reasons why He had no choice.”

Yes, I told myself—God must have had His reasons, too.

With that final thought, I turned my back on the pastor and left the church.

From the day after Christmas Eve—the day I turned eleven—

The church was no longer my home.