Every Piece Has Its Place

I’ve never been good at saying goodbye.

Even after many years of walking with God, I still find myself struggling when He leads me into a new season and asks me to leave people behind.

Whenever that happens, I often find myself asking the same questions.

“Lord, are they ready?”

“Shouldn’t I stay a little longer?”

“What if they still need me?”

Deep down, I already know the answer.

The people God brings into our lives were never truly ours to hold on to. They belong to Him.

But knowing that and living it out are two different things.

Over the years, I have often pictured God standing in front of a huge puzzle board. He holds every piece in His hands and knows exactly where each one belongs. He sees the entire picture, while I only see the small piece in front of me.

Sometimes I feel like one of those pieces.

Other times, I feel that God allows me to help place one small piece into someone else’s life before gently moving me somewhere else.

He knows when my part is finished.

This is something God first began teaching me when I was a university student in England.

At that time, I was studying nursing at Southampton University and living in the beautiful city of Chichester.

Those years were some of the most important years of my life.

I was discovering Jesus in a deeper way than ever before.

The more I came to know Him, the more I wanted to know Him. I was amazed by His character, His patience, and His love. I remember thinking that if people could only know Jesus the way I was beginning to know Him, they would love Him too.

But at the same time, I was walking through one of the hardest emotional seasons of my life.

From the outside, everything looked normal.

I went to university.

I attended classes.

I attended Bible class.

But inside, I often felt like I was barely making it through each day.

The place where I found strength was being in God’s presence.

Early in the morning, before the day began, I would spend time with Him.

I wasn’t doing it because I was trying to become a better Christian.

I wasn’t following a routine because I thought I should.

I simply needed Him.

Those quiet mornings became the place where I could bring everything—the pain I carried, the fears I couldn’t explain, and the emotions I didn’t know how to handle.

Sometimes I talked.

Sometimes I cried.

Sometimes I simply sat quietly.

Through those moments, God became more real to me than ever before.

Looking back, I can see that He was preparing me for something I didn’t know was coming.

At that time, I had also been carrying something from my past.

For many years, I had intentionally tried to forget my Korean background. Leaving Korea had been connected to painful memories from my childhood, and part of me wanted to start over somewhere else.

I didn’t want to look back.

I wanted to move forward.

But while I was in England, God slowly began bringing Korean people into my life.

I found myself enjoying conversations in my own language again.

I laughed at things only another Korean person would understand.

I shared parts of my story with people who understood where I came from.

One of those people became a very close friend.

She was very different from me.

The first thing people noticed about her was her confidence.

She was strong-minded, outspoken, and never afraid to say what she thought. She was the kind of person who would tell you exactly what was on her mind.

Sometimes she could come across as aggressive, but I never saw it as a problem. It was simply part of who she was.

She was also someone who struggled to trust people.

She questioned motives.

She didn’t easily believe what others said.

She trusted her own judgment and depended heavily on herself.

But I respected her honesty.

She never pretended.

Our friendship grew naturally.

We talked about life in England, our families, our dreams, and our experiences being far away from home.

Eventually, she told me very clearly,

“I’m an atheist.”

She wasn’t trying to argue with me.

She was simply telling me what she believed.

She didn’t believe God existed.

That didn’t bother me.

I wasn’t trying to change her.

She was my friend.

I cared about her.

Of course, Jesus naturally became part of our conversations.

Not because I wanted every conversation to become a religious discussion.

It was simply impossible to tell my story without telling His story.

When I talked about difficult seasons, I talked about how God had carried me.

When I talked about hope, I talked about where my hope came from.

When I talked about my life, Jesus was naturally part of it.

She would often laugh.

“Here you go again,” she would say. “You’re talking about Jesus.”

I would laugh too because she was right.

But I never wanted to force anything.

She knew what I believed.

I knew what she believed.

And we respected each other.

Over time, I began to understand why she rejected Christianity.

She wasn’t rejecting a God she knew.

She was rejecting the picture of God she had created in her mind.

To her, becoming a Christian meant losing freedom.

She thought God would take away the things she enjoyed and control her life.

I understood why she felt that way.

She had never experienced the God I knew.

One weekend, she came to stay at my small apartment.

That evening, we talked as we normally did.

We laughed.

We shared stories.

We talked about life.

Before we went to sleep, I mentioned casually,

“My alarm will go off at four tomorrow morning.”

She looked at me with surprise.

“Four?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I want to spend time in God’s presence.”

She looked at me as though she thought I was a little strange.

“Okay,” she said.

The next morning, while it was still dark, my alarm rang.

I quietly got up, expecting her to continue sleeping.

But she woke up too.

“You don’t have to get up,” I whispered.

“I know,” she said. “I’ll just stay here.”

I smiled and began spending time with God as I normally did.

For me, it was an ordinary morning.

I wasn’t expecting anything unusual.

I was simply being with Him.

After some time, I opened my eyes.

She was lying on the floor.

At first, I thought she had fallen asleep.

I called her name.

Nothing.

I called again.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

Her body was trembling.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” she said.

Then she told me what had happened.

While I was spending time in God’s presence, she suddenly felt intense heat filling the room.

Then it became stronger.

So strong that she felt herself falling to the floor.

She was awake the entire time, but she couldn’t move or speak.

She couldn’t explain what was happening.

Finally, she looked at me and asked,

“What was that?”

I didn’t know how to explain it.

But I knew it wasn’t because of me.

I had done nothing.

I was simply being with God.

But God was revealing Himself to her in a way she could not ignore.

After that morning, something changed.

She began asking different questions.

Not questions because she wanted to argue.

Questions because she genuinely wanted to understand.

She wanted to know who Jesus was.

She wanted to understand why He mattered so much to me.

Slowly, she began discovering Jesus for herself.

Eventually, she decided to follow Him.

I will never forget that moment.

She was the first person I had personally walked alongside from disbelief to faith.

I was so grateful.

I loved watching her grow. In many ways she felt like my spiritual baby.

She had so many questions, and I wanted to help her with every one of them.

In my heart, I wanted to stay for the whole journey.

Then God asked me to leave England.

The decision itself was not difficult.

To be honest, I was happy to leave.

England had been an important place in my life, but it had never truly felt like home.

I was ready for the next chapter.

The difficult part was leaving her.

She had only just begun.

She still had so much to learn.

I worried about who would encourage her.

Who would answer her questions?

Who would walk beside her?

I remember bringing those questions to God again and again.

Then He gently reminded me of something.

She was never mine.

She was His.

He loved her before I met her.

He was already working in her life before I became part of her story.

And He would continue caring for her after I left.

I realized I was trying to carry a responsibility that had never belonged to me.

God never asked me to complete her journey.

He only asked me to be faithful with the part He had given me.

Years later, I heard wonderful news.

She had married a Korean pastor.

When I heard that, I smiled.

Only God could have written that story.

He had continued guiding her.

He had brought the right people into her life.

He had never forgotten her.

I still don’t find goodbyes easy.

I probably never will.

But now, whenever God asks me to move on, I remember that young Korean woman in England.

I remember how worried I was.

I remember thinking she needed me.

And I remember what God taught me.

People are never truly in our hands.

They are in His.

He sees the whole picture.

He knows where every piece belongs.

Sometimes my part is to stay.

Sometimes my part is to leave.

Either way, I can trust the hands that are holding every piece.