Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 174

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 7: True Parents’ Course of Suffering and Victory

BOOK 7. TRUE PARENTS' COURSE OF SUFFERING AND VICTORY

True Father endured six prison terms during his life. He was incarcerated once under the Japanese occupation regime, three times by the North Korean communists, once in the Republic of Korea and once in the United States. He was in prison for a total of five years. He accepted the hardships of these six imprisonments as his course of suffering for the will of heaven.

Nevertheless, prison was mentally grueling, and he was subjected to torture and physical deprivation. The most extreme was Hungnam labor camp. There, the cold and hunger were beyond description, and Father faced death as he endured the hard labor of packing and carrying straw bags of ammonium sulfate fertilizer. Even in the free world, Father endured suffering in Seodaemun Prison (South Korea) and Danbury Prison (United States) as a result of persecution and false accusations. This indicates how much longer and steeper the course of indemnity had become.

As he faced these ordeals, True Father considered that they were for the sake of a greater righteousness, and he endured them to comfort God. He understood the principle that he could best advance the providence by allowing himself to be struck first and then being entitled to claim compensation. Knowing this, he regarded prison as a place of refuge where he could most deeply experience God's love. What a paradox! Having taken responsibility to pay the indemnity for all human beings, it was in prison that he established the conditions of victory for the salvation of humankind.

God had prepared Christianity, but when it was not able to fulfill its responsibility, the suffering True Father endured under the North Korean communists served to build the foundation for a new start on behalf of Christianity. While in North Korea, he met a spiritual Christian group, the Inside the Womb Church, which had been offering conditions of devotion in order to meet the Returning Lord, and through them, he indirectly connected with True Mother. It happened that when True Father was imprisoned at the Daedong Detention Center, the leader of the Inside the Womb Church was imprisoned there at the same time. It was tragic that she did not accept Fathers direction, but since True Mother was given a special blessing from that church when she was six years old, in the end that group was connected to True Parents. Such was the mysterious work of God.

During his suffering in Hungnam Prison, True Father found more than 12 disciples. In this way, he set providential conditions to restore through indemnity the death of Jesus on the cross. After he was freed from the prison, the conditions he laid there became the foundation he could use to create the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity after he returned to South Korea.

Moreover, during the time of his suffering in Danbury, American ministers supported him. Their unity with True Father despite decades of persecution from the Christian churches was indeed a miracle. Moreover, True Mother was completely united with True Father as he went through the painful course of Danbury, and they walked together and led the global providence. In this way, True Parents walked a course of hardships, giving their blood, sweat and tears for heaven. They overcame the history of bitter sorrow and persecution, and emerged victorious.