The first blue-eyed person I ever saw was the pilot of a U.S. fighter plane who was about to fire on my mother and me. I was ten years old, helping my mother pick oranges in a mountain field, when a U.S. squadron flew over our island, heading towards the Japanese naval port close to Hiroshima. One fighter plane broke away from the others and came directly towards us. My mother cried out, “It’s coming for us!”

We ran to take cover under some large trees at the edge of the field, but soon realized we could not make it there in time. My mother took me into her arms for a last embrace, as we looked up in terror. There our eyes met the gaze of the young pilot. Perhaps seeing we were an unarmed woman and a girl made him change his mind, because he did not open fire but quickly pulled his plane up over the mountain and flew away.

I was born on one of the beautiful islands of Seto-Naikai (Inland Sea) in the province of Hiroshima, western Japan, on January 7, 1934. I was seven when World War II started. Due to shortages caused by the war, my parents had to close their clothing shop and take whatever work they could find, which turned out to be farm labor.

I was 11 years old when, at 8:15 the morning of August 6,1945, everything suddenly went dark. The darkness was followed by a blinding violet light; then came a tremendously terrifying, resounding boom and an earthshaking tremor. The first atomic bomb had been dropped by U.S. forces on the nearby city of Hiroshima. Local public warning sirens sounded, and all of us at my small school quietly dispersed to take cover.

Many people from our town rushed to Hiroshima to find out what had happened. There they discovered that the bomb had killed almost everyone within a two-kilometer (1.25-mile) radius of the city center, and others there were in torturous pain.

The people returned to our town heart broken, only to find after a while that they themselves were now suffering from some strange ailment they knew nothing about, which turned out to be radiation sickness. It eventually killed many and caused others to suffer for the rest of their lives.

As you can imagine, these events caused me to develop strong bitterness towards Americans and foreigners in general, which I harbored for years.

I later trained as a nurse at the Osaka University Hospital Nursing School. I worked for 30 years and became what many would consider a proficient and diligent chief nurse in the highly respected government hospital of Osaka. I did not realize that I had deep-seated bitterness towards foreigners due to my war experiences, but if any were admitted to my ward, I would keep my distance and designate other nurses to take care of them.

I retired while still in my 50s, due to heart problems,and moved to the beautiful Pacific seacoast of Shionomisaki, southeast of Osaka. There I lived with a longtime friend who had also just retired from his work.

Living in this natural environment by the sea, fishing and enjoying nature, was like paradise for me for the first two or three years. But after a while, I became forlorn, depressed by the futility of life.

It was my older sister Lydia who introduced me to faith in Jesus. She suggested that if I would simply ask Jesus to come into my heart, I would find the love, truth, and happiness that I so needed. I had no interest in God, but I prayed to receive Jesus out of respect for my older sister.

Our peaceful life by the sea was not to last much longer. My beloved friend had a cerebral hemorrhage, went into a coma, and died two days later. I was so sad and felt so hopeless that I contemplated suicide.

Lydia sensed this. She opened her Bible and showed me a verse about hope, but I could not understand it at all. Later she told me about Jesus’ love and said He could heal my heart. We had talked for hours, when Lydia suddenly noticed that my facial expression had been totally transformed.She suggested that I look at myself in the mirror. I then saw that my face had changed so much that I looked like a child again, happy and smiling.

Lydia continued telling me about Jesus and His sweet love, life, and power. I soon found that my dear companion’s departure from this world was no longer so painful for me. I could actually feel Jesus’ loving arms around me.

It was not so much with the articulate understanding of my mind that I grasped these things. Rather there was an amazingly deep awareness of Jesus’ presence and His supernatural help in every detail of my life. His closeness totally obliterated any thoughts of suicide and hopelessness.

I had never touched a Bible before this, as I had rejected any idea of religion. However, when I did get a chance to read the Bible for myself, I was amazed to see that the physical and spiritual experiences I had had were all explained in there.

I moved up to Tokyo to be closer to Lydia and her Christian friends from the Family International, some of whom were foreigners. I then became aware of another miraculous transformation. My strong bitterness towards foreigners had been totally removed. In fact, I later married a foreigner, Steven, who is British. I had learned that God’s love was relevant to not only myself, but to everyone in the world.

Teiko Frampton is a member of the Family International in Japan.