Esther, whose name has been changed for safety reasons, was sentenced to a few months detention in a small North Korean labour camp after she was arrested for escaping to China.
She told religious freedom charity Open Doors that she and the other inmates were "treated like animals" as there were 40 inmates packed in a two-by-two cell.
However, her journey to Christianity began when she met a Christian woman in the cell who seemed to have peace "in a hellish situation".
Esther said: "At one point, I gave her a little push and asked her 'Hey, what's going on with you? Why are you so calm?'
"She answered 'When I was in China, God treated me like a princess'.
"I looked at her. She was a fragile, old lady. Why would anyone treat her like a princess? I mocked her, 'Okay, I want to be a princess too'.
'Alright,' she said. 'Just pray like me'. I played along. So she went 'Thank you, God, for everything. Do what you wish. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen'."
Esther said thanking God for being in prison seemed a bizarre thing to do but she did it anyway and asked God to release her.
Following the prayer, the woman nicknamed God's Princess shared the gospel with everyone in the prison cell and said she had faith that they would all be released. Soon God's Princess was allowed to leave.
Three days after Esther prayed, the detention centre also allowed her to leave with the promise that her brother would pay bribes to one of the prison guards.
Once Esther was free, she escaped back to China and started to attend a Bible study. She said she was fully transformed and gave her life to Christ.
She said: "I read about Moses and God's ten plagues he poured out over Egypt. And I knew from experience that those plagues can be very real. I started to experience the living God. Of course, I believed in Christ and I confessed my sins."
Esther, said she thought she was the first in her family to become a Christian, but God showed her in a dream that her grandfather had been praying for her for many years.
She added: "Following Christ in North Korea is done in the utmost secret. My grandfather never shared the gospel with me.
"He is still alive, which is why I cannot share details about him. In another dream I heard him say 'Keep quiet!' And I replied to him 'But I know you are a believer'."
Esther now lives in South Korea and has been able to reconnect with some of her family, although she is still praying to be reunited with two of her children who are still in North Korea.
"God has done many miracles, but I'm still asking for a few more, first, that my children will come to South Korea, and second, that I'll be able to share the gospel with them so that they will also become followers of Christ."
North Korea is number one on the Open Doors 2018 World Watch List, making it the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian.
Despite this, Open Doors estimates that there are between 200,000 and 400,000 Christians in North Korea, worshiping secretly, or imprisoned in labour camps.
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