There was a mart nearby, tucked between a pharmacy and a flower shop. I stepped inside, greeted by the cool air and bright shelves. The familiarity of convenience stores in Korea had long become part of my daily rhythm. Even though I couldn’t read every label, I had grown used to recognizing brands and shapes. I reached for a can with a bright yellow label. The image was unmistakable—lemons, ice cubes, droplets of condensation on the illustration. Without thinking, I paid for it and stepped back outside.
The first sip was glorious. It was just what I needed—cool, sweet, slightly tart. I kept sipping, grateful for that moment of ease. I walked slowly, savoring each drop. But halfway through the can, something shifted. A strange warmth began to build in my chest. My head grew light. The lines of the buildings blurred ever so slightly, and I blinked, trying to focus. I paused, my feet unsteady. This wasn’t just lemonade.
I turned the can in my hand and looked again. And there it was, just under the ingredients list—7%. I froze. Seven percent alcohol. My heart sank. I had unknowingly consumed alcohol. I hadn’t meant to. I wouldn’t have, if I had known. But I hadn’t seen the word. I hadn’t read the Korean characters that now stared back at me, so familiar and so foreign all at once.
I stood still in the street, blinking at the bright afternoon light, the alcohol coursing through my system. My thoughts were muddled, my body no longer fully my own. I felt the dizziness settle in waves. I felt vulnerable. The images of the world doubled and split around me, and in that fractured moment, I realized just how deep my isolation could go in a place where I did not fully know the language.
It wasn’t just the alcohol or the accident. It was the reminder of how fragile understanding can be. In that moment, the language barrier was not an abstract inconvenience or a humorous mistake—it was an embodied confusion, a fog that blurred not just my vision but my sense of self. I hadn’t just drunk alcohol; I had been unaware, unprepared, and unprotected. Not because I was careless, but because I was in a world where the very letters on a label could be undecipherable, even dangerous.
I remember finding a quiet bench nearby and sitting down. I took deep breaths and tried to steady myself. I whispered a prayer, even as my head spun. “Lord, help me.” Not just with the dizziness, but with the deeper ache underneath. I was embarrassed. Ashamed, even. How could I have made such a mistake? How could I not have known? But as I sat there, I began to realize that this moment, as disorienting as it was, carried a deeper spiritual lesson.
In many ways, my journey in Korea had been marked by small and large acts of misunderstanding. Ordering food, reading street signs, understanding church announcements, catching jokes in conversations—all of these were daily reminders that I was not fluent, not fully present in the way others were. I had learned to smile, to nod, to rely on context and tone. And most days, that was enough. But the lemonade incident showed me the thinness of that safety. When you cannot read, you cannot fully guard yourself. You cannot fully belong. You depend on others, on grace, on the hope that mistakes will not be costly. You walk by faith, quite literally.
As I sat on that bench, I remembered how the Scriptures speak of the Spirit interceding for us in groans too deep for words. And I thought, perhaps the Spirit also intercedes in those moments when we lack language—not just in prayer, but in life. When we do not have the words, when we do not understand, when our speech and reading fail us, God does not fail us. God becomes our interpreter. God becomes our clarity.
There is a kind of humility that language barriers teach you. A kind that strips away the illusion of control. You become dependent in ways you were not prepared for. You learn to trust the kindness of strangers, to laugh at your mistakes, to ask for help. But deeper still, you begin to understand the silence between words. You begin to hear differently—not just with your ears, but with your spirit.
In those weeks following the lemonade incident, I became more cautious. I started asking more questions before buying anything. I would often ask store clerks or friends to translate for me. But beyond the practical adjustments, I also began to reflect more intentionally on the spiritual implications of being a foreigner, of living within a language I could not master.
Jesus, too, walked as a stranger. He crossed cultural lines. He spoke Aramaic but lived in a region ruled by Rome, layered with Greek influence. He knew the sound of being misunderstood. His disciples often failed to grasp His words. The Pharisees misinterpreted Him. Pilate asked, “What is truth?” without really wanting an answer. Jesus navigated the spaces where human understanding faltered, and yet He remained the Word made flesh.
And so I realized: if God chose to reveal Himself not through overwhelming clarity, but through incarnation—through a body that could be misunderstood, misheard, even rejected—then maybe my own embodied confusion was not beyond God’s reach. Maybe God could speak through it. Maybe He was already doing so.
I began to keep a small journal of language mistakes—not just to laugh at them later, but to track what they revealed about me, about my context, about my journey with God. In those pages were stories of asking for sugar and getting salt, of nodding through conversations I didn’t follow, of missing bus stops, of using the wrong honorifics. But in those same pages were moments of grace: a stranger walking me to the right platform, a shopkeeper who took time to explain a label, a friend who sat patiently as I searched for the right words. And I saw, again and again, that where language failed, love did not.
It occurred to me that Pentecost is, in many ways, a response to the pain of language barriers. In Genesis, at Babel, language was scattered and confusion reigned. But in Acts, the Spirit came and people heard the good news in their own tongues. God did not erase language diversity—He honored it. But He also bridged it. The Spirit translated what human speech could not.
Perhaps my experience with the lemonade was a kind of Babel moment—a scattering of understanding. But the Spirit was still near. Not with fire and wind this time, but with a quiet steadiness that reminded me that I am never truly alone in my misunderstanding.
Language, I have come to believe, is not just about words. It is about communion. It is about presence. It is about the willingness to dwell with one another, even when we cannot fully explain ourselves. God is fluent in every language, including the silence of our hearts, the confusion in our minds, and the unspoken prayers of foreigners in foreign lands.
That day in early summer, I drank what I did not understand. But I also came to taste something deeper—the vulnerability of not knowing, the humility of needing help, the grace that carries us when we do not have the words. And in that place of dizziness and disorientation, I found that God was still speaking.
Not in the clear, crisp logic of perfect sentences, but in the fractured images, the blurred lines, the bench on the side of the road, and the whispered prayer: “Lord, help me.” And He did.
Now, whenever I see cans in a mart, I smile to myself and take a little longer before picking one up. I read more closely. I ask more questions. And I remember that mistakes do not define us—but they can teach us. They can soften us. They can remind us of our need for God and for one another.
For in this life of faith, we are all, in some way, learning a new language—the language of grace, of patience, of love that crosses borders and breaks down walls. And sometimes, that language begins not with perfect understanding, but with a dizzy heart, a humbled spirit, and the presence of a God who walks with us, even when we do not yet have the words.
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