On the evening of December 12, 2025, Christian singer Karen Kong held the first session of "Radiance—Zero Distance Concert" at the Black Box Theatre of Kwai Tsing Theatre in Hong Kong. Organized by the nonprofit Christian media organization Goodnews Communication International, the concert drew around 100 attendees. Through music intertwined with personal testimony, Kong shared how she encountered God's love and renewal amid brokenness and inner struggle.
Kong opened the concert with the well-known Malaysian folk song "Rasa Sayang Hey." Throughout the evening, she performed a selection of Cantonese and English original songs, including "Cinta Hello Kitty," "Don't Wanna Move," "Light," and so on. Each song reflected a different stage of her life and faith journey, serving as a musical response to God's grace.
The concert marked the launch of the "Radiance—Zero Distance Concert" series, a year-long, bi-monthly series of intimate music gatherings featuring six Christian artists sharing their faith journeys through music and testimony. Kong was the first artist to headline the series.
During her onstage sharing, Kong spoke about her childhood longing for love, particularly from her family. She described her father as strict and domineering, recalling a painful incident in which he strongly opposed her romantic relationship. "It felt as though, overnight, I might lose two important men in my life—my boyfriend and my father," she said. The tension in their relationship fueled her desire to escape home and seek freedom elsewhere.
After leaving her hometown for university, Kong experienced a newfound sense of independence. Yet the freedom she pursued did not bring lasting peace. A painful breakup left her overwhelmed by loneliness and despair, and she admitted that she once struggled with suicidal thoughts. Living far from her family and lacking emotional support, she turned inward, bearing her pain alone.
It was during this period that she wrote "Cinta Hello Kitty," an early work through which she poured her unspoken loneliness and longing into music, using songwriting as an emotional outlet.
In 2007, after debuting in Malaysia, Kong came to Hong Kong to participate in a music competition and was later signed by a company that planned to release her first Cantonese album. Despite not speaking Cantonese at the time, she committed herself to learning the language and completed most of the recordings. However, just as the project neared completion, the company abruptly halted the album's release, leaving her deeply discouraged.
She eventually chose to leave the company and remain in Hong Kong to continue pursuing music independently. The uncertainties and challenges of this path led her to confront a difficult realization—that the success she once believed would bring fulfillment could not heal her inner emptiness.
"I always thought that once I achieved my dreams, I would finally be happy," she shared. "But in the process, I wasn't happy at all."
Prolonged emotional wounds and broken relationships gradually pushed her into anger and rebellion. Questioning the value of kindness, she began to believe that the world rewarded aggression rather than goodness, unknowingly hurting those who truly cared for her. She described that season as sinking deeper into mud—the more she struggled, the more trapped she became.
At the brink of collapse, Kong returned to the God she had known since childhood and offered a simple prayer: "Jesus, save me."
She testified that it was as if she had been pulled out of the mire. Through earnestly seeking God again, she encountered His unconditional love—a love not defined by her past failures or inner darkness. Learning to forgive herself and others, she gradually found renewal and peace.
The concert concluded with "Light," a song that encapsulated the evening's testimony. As she sang, "Jesus, you're the light… only You make flowers bloom in the darkness," Kong brought her story of brokenness, healing, and faith to a quiet yet powerful close.
This concert series is organized by GoodNews Communication International, a Hong Kong–based Christian media ministry founded in 1972. Over the past five decades, the organization has produced faith-based content across audio, video, broadcast, and digital platforms, while hosting concerts, talks, and public events that share Christian testimonies and stories of life transformation among Chinese-speaking communities.
Originally published by the Christian Times
- Edited and translated by Poppy Chan
