Chapter 21
Father's First Wife

When Father was ministering in Pyongyang, I myself did not, or could not, have any real interest in Father's marriage situation. Prayer, tears and God's words were all we had at that time. Besides, we were persecuted so much that we didn't have any time to think of anything else.

The members could understand God's will and didn't want to leave, although they were faced with a lot of persecution from their families and churches. Father was desperately taking care of them, saying that God Himself would take care of their families and jobs if they completely devoted themselves to God's will.

Father's words impressed me so much that I still remember them now. But at the time I couldn't understand how his words could be true. I came to know that Father's word was true through my experience. I worried myself about my family since I didn't have time to look after them. But they were well protected by God and the result was good. It is important to know the validity of Father's words through experience, but it would be more clear and simple if we carried out God's word, being logically convinced from the start. This is what I always think. I myself can confirm that Father's words are true through my own experiences, but when we show them to others, we must explain them logically.

I'd like to explain why Father told us that we should desert our physical family because of God's Providence and how the result was still good.

Suppose you love your spouse, children, parents or relatives, but you have understood God's circumstances and heart, too. You now must choose between the two. Which should have priority? You left your family and don't have time to take care of them and because of this you are heartbroken. This proves that you have loved God more than your family and yourself. But if you were in disharmony with your family from the beginning, it would be a different case.

Let's apply the principle of give and take action to Father's word. You love your family but you love God more. Then, in return, God has to love and take care of your family more than you do. Your family belongs to you; in a word, your family is identical to you. Therefore, that you love God more than your family means that you love God more than yourself. Then God has to love your family and yourself more than you do.

What is God's desire? It is to bring all mankind back to God. Therefore, if you work for this purpose, the spiritual world has to protect your family. It's God's responsibility to mobilize the spirit world.

Suppose you always think of your own family, writing to them, sending people to them, visiting them yourself and praying for them, while you are working for God's Providence. Then who is worrying and thinking most about your family? You, yourself. Then God thinks that He need not take care of your family. I'll give you a good example. Suppose there is a lady who cannot take care of her son because of God's Providence and she asks me to take care of him. But she comes to see him many times to see if he is all right. If she comes often, then I will lose my desire to take care of her son, thinking that she should take care of him because she is the one who is worrying most. If there was another lady, who works so hard that she can't come to see her son even when he's sick, then I can sympathize with her and take good care of her child, thinking that I must be responsible for the child while the mother is away. I would worry more about him than his mother If we truly cannot take care of our family because we are working for God, then God will send an angel or the spiritual world to protect them. I have gradually come to know that this is really true.

In 1945, after the liberation from Japan, Father started a family with God's blessing. When Father came to Pyongyang life was difficult for everybody and food was scarce. Father went out to get some food for his wife, who had recently had the baby. Then, on the way, Father got a revelation that he should go to Pyongyang. He had to leave that instant. I'll skip some details to make my story short.

On the way from Pyongyang to Pusan, Father sent me to the place where Father and Mother lived together. I found where Mother had lived during the Korean War and that she had taken refuge with members of a Christian group. She was a very pious Christian.

It took us two months from Pyongyang to Pusan since we walked all the way carrying the man with the broken leg on the bicycle, although it would have normally taken only 10 days. Some people took cars and others went by train or boat. We walked over the mountains and crossed the river on foot. Arriving at Pusan, Father started visiting the members who he couldn't meet in Pyongyang and the friends he had met in Seoul.

In 1951 Father started writing the original Divine Principle book and finished it within the year. Father himself built the shack which was our home. During this time, friends he had known in Pyongyang, Seoul and Japan came to see Father again. Through the younger brother of Father's cousin, he found out where Mother and the child were living. I'll tell you how they met again.

At that time, when I was living together with Father in that small house, many guests came. As well as Father's friends from Seoul, Pyongyang and Japan, there were the spiritualists, people who were trying to discover truth and newly witnessed people from Pusan. They came one by one and listened to the Divine Principle from morning till night. Father spoke and witnessed all day and night. Even though our house was so small and miserable, it was a free place for us to use as we liked. Some people wouldn't go home even after midnight, so we built a small tent in the garden so that those people could stay and pray all night.

One day, Mother came to see Father. Father was speaking to guests that day, too. She was standing outside with the child and called Father and he let them in. I think it was such a dramatic scene that Father and Mother, with the child, met after six years. When he had left for Pyongyang, his child was only two months old. Also, he couldn't even tell any of God's word to his wife. For six years, Mother had lived without knowing whether Father was alive or dead.

It drew people's attention in those days for a woman to live alone with her baby. It was also very difficult for her not having any relatives in South Korea and having to live and take care of her baby by herself without knowing where her husband was or what he was doing. She didn't have money to buy milk, so she had to work. She did all a woman could do in those days with the one hope that some day she would be able to meet her beloved husband. She could overcome all difficulties with this hope.

When Father married her, he told her to learn various skills with which she could earn money since so much could happen on the way of God's Providence. For example, they perhaps would have to be apart for a while. It was not so difficult for her to work, even though she had a baby. She could manage it somehow.

Although the 38th parallel existed, people came and went between North and South Korea. She happened to hear the rumor that Father was imprisoned in North Korea, having been condemned for disturbing the society. A rumor is always worse than the truth. What she heard was so distorted and so different from the reality. She didn't believe the rumor because she knew, respected and loved Father. She tried not to listen to it, but she must have struggled very much inside, thinking the worst.

Another difficulty was that when a young woman with a baby lived alone, the neighborhood became interested and asked about her husband. Then she had to move somewhere else. She couldn't stay in one place for more than six months. She was afraid of people's attitude. For three or four years, she had to live like this without knowing when Father would return. It would have been much easier if there had been a fixed time limit, but Mother didn't know how long she should wait for Father. She had to live in hope, in hopeless circumstances. If some man became interested in her and asked for her hand in marriage, she would have been in an even more difficult situation. When the neighborhood came to be interested in her, she had to move to another place. She strengthened her heart by attending church.

She could overcome all the difficulties with the one hope that they would be taken away when she met Father. That was the only hope for her. During the Korean War, she heard a rumor that Father had been executed. How difficult it was for her to cope with such a rumor. During the Korean War she had no house to live in and had to survive with her baby by herself. Father such hardship, Mother received the news that Father had come back to South Korea alive and well. What happy news it was for her!

She heard that Father was living in a house. She may have expected it to be a big house. She climbed up the hill looking for Father's house. She climbed up and up, but couldn't find it. The higher she climbed, the more miserable the houses became. Finally she reached the cemetery and there beside it was a very small miserable house. She discovered that this was the very place where Father lived, but it didn't matter at all to her because her whole heart was full of the expectancy that at last she could meet Father. What Mother saw there was not only Father but also many strangers who were visiting Father. Father and his son could not recognize each other and Mother introduced them.

Even on that day Father continued speaking to the members who were at the crucial point of eternal life or death. He couldn't stop talking when the guests were being resurrected. He must have thought that, if he stopped speaking, the guests would not have been resurrected. Mother couldn't understand Father's heart so deeply. Night came, but the guests didn't go home. Of course they had no idea that it was such a precious meeting after six years.

That night I had to draw the pictures and, while I was drawing, nobody could sleep. It was a special day for this lady and she surely wanted to be alone with Father and their son. It was the same for Father. How long he had been waiting for this moment to see his wife and son. But I wasn't sensitive to the idea that I should leave the room.

At that time there was only one room. It was quite different from what you have in this country. There were not enough bed clothes either and we had to share. It was like that not only that day, but for one month, two months, three months.

To begin with she thought and said nothing. More guests came to see Father. Gradually she began to feel loneliness in her heart. Father was such a nice person and was so good to the guests and as a result they didn't leave but came more frequently. She began to get fed up seeing the guests and they came to realize that she was not happy to see them. Then they stopped visiting Father and moved to a place over the hill. Only I still stayed with Father. She couldn't be happy as long as I was there. I was sleeping together with them. How about you sisters? Can you understand her heart? What would you do if you were in her shoes? "Go away!" She did not say anything like that.

The members moved to another place and Father started visiting them. He came home very late at night. The lady thought that she could live together with her beloved husband after the members moved somewhere else, but, contrary to her expectation, Father started visiting them. She had lost everything.

Father and the lady had met, centering on God's will to be realized on earth, but she came to be in a very difficult situation at that time. She had to choose whether she would work together with the members for God's will or leave Father. Father had to choose the lady or the brothers and sisters. Father was very decisive in choosing the brothers and sisters. Father met her in order to fulfill God's will. He didn't lose the attitude of having to be prepared to forsake anything and everything in order to realize God's will.

Father talked with her about various things, but she couldn't accept it. Father carried on visiting the brothers and sisters and came home very late. She didn't like it and decided that she would stop the guests coming to Father. Otherwise, she thought, she could not be happy. She respected and loved Father and was more pious than anyone else. She had to decide whether she would choose the way of God and sacrifice her own happiness, or not. And she couldn't overcome it. It was the most difficult moment for her to overcome as she felt so strongly about meeting Father again after six years of hardships when she had been alone. Father really wanted her to get a victory, so did Heavenly Father. But Mother could not overcome these difficulties. To begin with she disliked the members and then gradually she came to feel a dislike towards Father. Father really tried so that she would change her heart.

Can you understand? Please don't forget that you were given a big blessing on the foundation of Father's difficult course.

Father would not tell a story like this. Do you think that it was easy for him? You must know that Father was actually in a more difficult situation than Mother. I'd like to conclude my story here. Thank you very much.

Return to the index of the book Father's Course and Our life of Faith, a biography of Rev. Sun Myung Moon by his first disciple Rev. Won Pil Kim.