Family story:
"Dad, when you die, I will remember you."
February 24, 2009.
More and more, as I live in this wilderness-liked world, I feel and experience more sorrow and sadness, a lot of hardships, distress and full of death. My heart is heavy and sore. But somehow I like to feel heavy and pain in my heart for some reason. I want to be a little bit heavier and more painful. As I do so, I want to pray to God. And in prayer, I want to remember the memories that God has given me that are more precious in my heart.
I think a life is making memories. I think that it is life to make beautiful memories in the Lord through the meetings that are permitted in the sovereignty of God. Among those meetings, there are meeting with our parents, brothers and sisters, relatives, friends, teachers, and so on. Some meetings are meeting for a long time on this earth, planting precious memories that cannot be forgotten forever. I think that the meeting with our parents and our spouse is like that. Some other meetings are memorized deeply in the corner of our hearts, even though it is a short meeting. Especially nowadays, through the Internet, we are able to extend our meetings and have unforgettable memories through short meetings that God allows. Especially when we go through the hardest moment of our lives, God leads us our meeting so that we can pray for each other in the Lord and the indwelling Spirit uses us to comfort each other. Those kinds of memories of love that God gives us, we keep them deep in our hearts.
Today I wrote a letter of love in prayer as I thought about a co-worker in Christ, whom I met in the sovereignty of God. It is a short, about 2 years, fellowship with him in the Lord, but I cannot forget the three or four time meetings with him in Korea. When I was writing the letter as I recall those memorable memories, my youngest daughter, Karis, who couldn’t go to school due to a cold, was making a card diligently for her mom and her dad, me. I was writing the letter from my room in front of the computer, and my beloved daughter Karis was making the card at the desk in the living room. Then Karis brought the card she made to me. So I stopped writing the letter for a moment. Then I opened the pretty card that Karis made. And I saw what Karis wrote inside the card. She said ‘I love my dad’ and she wanted me to like the card she made. I was grateful to Karis. So I hugged her with love. Then, when I tried to write the letter again, Karis was next to me and seemed like wondering what I was writing. So I told her that ‘I am writing this letter to my friend in Korea.’ And I told her that my friend might die soon because he is very sick. Then Karis said to me, "Dad, when you die, I will remember you." Haha. It seemed like Karis is saying that I was going to die soon. Nevertheless, when I look at Karis’ pure and simple face with no sadness, I once again had time to think about what Karis said, “Dad, when you die, I will remember you.” My heart was grateful and I felt good because my beloved daughter would remember me. Haha. The reason was because I think it is a blessing to have someone to remember me. But I cannot help but think about what kind of memories I am making for my daughter Karis. Of course, not only Karis, but also Dillon, Yeri, my wife, my parents, all my family and loving church members, my beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord, and my friends who do not believe in the Lord, I cannot help but thinking about what kinds of memories I am giving to them. The reason is because if the contents of memories are far from Jesus, then those memories are not beneficial to them at all. But if they see little Christ in me, such great sinner like me who lives by the grace of God, and my imitation of Jesus can be written on the tablets of their hearts as beautiful memories, then my I think that life will be beautiful in God 's sight. I want to live such a beautiful life. I want to die as a person who reminds Jesus so that only God may receive glory from me.