Spotlight on HEARTSPEAK

By Caroline Park

On June 27th in the home of Solomon and Sue Tang, the inaugural gathering of the single women at NOC took place and brought women of different life stages together. There was a strong, singular heartbeat throughout the evening, and as each respected individual of our community shared her life, the whole room almost seemed to breathe in synchronization. In addition, the sight of seeing that "click" occur in each woman's heart as something tugged at her heart or sparked a sense of curiosity, it was truly a privilege to witness. This was beyond what I had expected, and it was the opening of a floodgate that had been laying dormant for far too long.

For quite some time, God had been teaching me interesting lessons of connecting with women. For someone who does not have a pleasant bank of memories involving the female population, it was a million thorns digging into my skin each time an opportunity presented itself where I was forced to spend time and get to know women in my life. God seemed to have thought that the time had come to teach me even deeper, more difficult lessons the past several months, so he overwhelmed me with meeting after meeting, all of them filled with women. Even at work, I would walk into a class that I had to teach, only to find that it was at capacity with just-- you guessed it, women. Whether it was from the mothers on welfare who were struggling day by day to the successful career woman who was single and completely satisfied with her life, I began to learn. Soon, this learning started snowballing into a complete paradigm shift, and the scabs over my heart started crumbling, revealing a brand new surface that was rid of past hurts and betrayals. I started seeing the beauty in which God sees each of us, and even to this day, the bitterness is progressively getting smaller and smaller. This was when God instilled in me the desire to initiate a relationship with the single women of NOC and to unite them with the single purpose of pursuing Him together, with support and encouragement.

HEARTSPEAK was a miracle. To see all these women come willingly to listen to stories, to engage in discussion, and to walk into a vulnerable environment, it showed a lot of character and longing within the single ladies' community for connections to be made. Each of those women who were there were just like me where they needed a shift in their perspectives, and we were blessed to receive that motivation from the ladies who shared. Imagine Jesus sitting atop a hill, speaking softly yet powerfully to each person surrounding Him, eager to soak in every single word. This was what I saw before me as I sat there with thirty women in that space. Sue Tang and her sister Jenny, Irene Thompson, and Jeannie Kim poured out their hearts to us, speaking about the greatest Love of all, and how it transformed them through their triumphs over scars and prepared them for the men God had sent them. After a time of sharing, Cindy Park joined them to answer some thought-provoked questions which were answered honestly with no sugar coating. I noticed that the sincerity of these answers really moved some people to re-evaluate some situations that they may have been stuck in, so praise God that challenges were met face-to-face!

There are so many possibilities as to why God called each of these ladies to join Him at HEARTSPEAK. But whatever it was, it united all of us and it was a wonderful time to get to know each other, celebrate and mourn together, and simply get to know the role models who we look up to and strive to be more like. We're not perfect and we carry baggage that we feel are like weights tied around our ankles, disallowing us to feel lovable or even free of shame and guilt. But one of the biggest lessons that I learned from HEARTSPEAK was that God knows exactly what we've been through and He knows what we bring to the table. He wants us to trust Him though, because in His mad pursuit of our hearts, He's collecting the pieces and He's making us whole, so that when we come closer to His heart and we realize the truths of what He's trying to teach us, the gifts of life start pouring in. No matter what, we should never be surprised, right? After all, God is our ultimate knight in shining armor, our King. He is beyond our wildest dreams of Edward, Jacob, the perfect man... and he's just waiting for us to participate in this ultimate relationship.