Mother of Peace: Episode 21
Mother of Peace: And God Shall Wipe Away All Tears from Their Eyes
A Memoir by Hak Ja Han Moon
Chapter 3: The Marriage Supper of the Lamb, pg 92-98
God’s dispensation for the salvation of humankind is not something that happens in one generation. To carry it out, God has sought out and established central people throughout history. Two thousand years ago, how did God send Jesus, His only begotten Son without original sin, to this earth through the people of Israel? The Bible records that God had to restore a pure lineage in several stages. There are unresolved issues connected to this lineage that I must set straight during my lifetime, and so I set to recover and rightly establish the lineage of goodness centered on Heaven. In order to give rebirth and resurrection to this complicated lineage and thus transform it into the true lineage whose center is God, I willingly took the risks that come with pregnancy and childbirth, including managing the birthing pains that put a woman’s life in God’s hands.
I gave birth to 14 children over a period of 20 years. The first four were born in our small private quarters at Cheongpa-dong. It was not until my fifth child that I was able to go to a hospital. Though it taxed my body, I gave birth to children year after year. Our second daughter died a few days after her birth. Our final four were delivered by Cesarean section. It is rare for a woman to go through a C-section more than once. When I said that I would undergo it for the third time, my doctor hesitated, saying it was dangerous, especially for a woman of my age. The doctor did not understand how I could insist so calmly on having another C-section, and he wanted to explain the issues to my husband. I assured him that my husband would agree with me, and I went through it for a third and then a fourth time, thus fulfilling the promise I had made to God.
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My husband, being a charismatic spiritual leader, sometimes received unwanted attention from women. There was once a woman who appeared in front of him claiming to be Eve, and another who hid under his bed. As God’s true son, and as a true husband and father, he never wavered. He, and I as well, felt only sympathy for such women.
I encountered similar advances. Once, while my husband was away on a world tour, a strange person shouted loudly, “I am Adam,” jumped in front of me and tried to assault me. At the time I was seven months pregnant, and I was so shocked that I almost miscarried. I encountered the same forms of hardship that Father Moon did. At times my reality turned into a whirlpool of tests and ordeals, and in my heart I would feel like a little boat floating on rough seas.
Knowing well my mission, I overcame those hardships through prayer. My silent perseverance and constant prayer actually deepened the members’ devotional life. I always strove to maintain a generous heart, and my unwavering faith as a young person encouraged those around me. The greater my absolute obedience to and reverence for God, the more hope everyone felt. Sometimes my elders would hold my hand and whisper into my ear, “Thank you so much for the grace you have shown us through your sacrificial love.”
Victory through perseverance
“Oh, no, I’ve lost another pair of shoes.” Even before the member would finish his sentence, those around him would know what had happened. Poverty sometimes makes people do bad things. At the end of Sunday services, we often would find that a pair or two of shoes were missing from the shoe rack. So, whenever I had a little extra money, I would buy new shoes for members who had lost them. I also prayed that the person who had taken the shoes would set his or her life straight.
Between 200 and 300 people would attend our services and other events, and there was never enough rice to serve them all. So we made porridge by boiling barley in a large iron pot. As the event progressed inside the church, outside we would make a wood fire and cook the barley porridge. Members would sit down in little clusters and share bowls of the porridge, and they were more grateful for this than anything else. “All of this is a gift from God,” they would say.
When I was pregnant I craved tangerines, but we could not afford them; they were so expensive. One member learned about this, however, and bought some tangerines for me. I ate six or seven of them on the spot. I was so grateful, I cried.
When a church holy day would approach, I felt more anxious than excited or happy. I would have to start making preparations two weeks in advance to organize the deliveries of the offering table towers of fruit and delicacies, banners, flowers and candles, hoping that there would be enough for each member to have an apple or a candy. Once we had made this offering to God, I would feel immense satisfaction.
From my birth until my marriage, my path had not been easy, and after marrying, personal challenges impacted not just me but also our movement. So I never deviated from the path of faith, obedience, and love for God. Just as Satan tested Jesus and Father Moon, he tested me. I persevered through those ordeals with ever-deepening devotion because it was at such times that I felt most keenly the grace of God. In the midst of pain, God came very close to me and guided me with pillars of cloud and fire.
My husband and I always conversed intensely on various matters. We could do so out of our infinite trust in each other. We went through so much together that we could understand each other with only a look. The life of Father Moon and the path I have walked bear an uncanny resemblance. Most people assumed that I was so happy and that I wanted for nothing. “You received the seal from God as His only begotten Daughter,” they would think, “and you were born as a perfected being. Therefore, you attained your position with no effort.” Many people were like this. They believed that as the Mother of the universe I blissfully had met Father Moon, formed a happy family and enjoyed life. That describes my life from one perspective, but I have scaled mountains as treacherous and impassable as any in this world. I was able to surmount them all with my husband’s love, which was more than any wife has ever received.
Although I had 14 children, I never once thought that I had too many. Nonetheless, my children had to go through difficult experiences. When they went out to play, local people would glare at them. “Your father is Sun Myung Moon, isn’t he?” adults would shout at an innocent five-year-old. “Do you know what your father does? The Unification Church is creating such a disturbance in the world!” While in Korea they were criticized for being the sons and daughters of Sun Myung Moon, and when we moved to the United States, they faced discrimination for being Asian. It pained me to see my children suffer, but I did not lament or blame others. I held them in my arms and set an example for them by offering prayers of gratitude.
My husband and I cared for our children with love and devotion, but because we had so much work to do for the church and the providence, we were unable to spend much time with them. One day, when my husband was on his world tour, Hyo-jin, barely three years old, sat on the bedroom floor and began to draw. Normally he liked to draw cars or bikes, but that day he clumsily drew a face on the white paper. Even though I knew that it was his father, I asked him, “Hyo-jin, who is that?”
Hyo-jin did not answer me, but drew a face on another piece of paper. Though it looked different from the first one, it was still without a doubt his father’s face. Hyo-jin was usually very active, but on that day he sat quietly and continued to draw. He did not grow tired of drawing his father’s face, even after spending the whole day at it. And he did not stop drawing it the next day or the day after. It was only when his father returned that he stopped drawing. I can still remember quite vividly how brightly he smiled at his father as he was embraced by him. It was as if he had been given the world.
Seven sons and seven daughters
True Father and I offered three generations as a True Family to God, culminating when we with all of our children, their spouses and our adult grandchildren, taught God’s word and ministered the Blessing in 180 nations, in what we call the Jubilee Years, 2006-07. I risked my life to bring our children into the world, and now they have their own missions and responsibilities that Heaven wishes them to fulfill, and that I also hope they can accomplish. Although, as their parent, I may be unable to help them enough, I pray for them every day.
If I had experienced only joyful things, I never would have been able to look into people’s deepest, innermost hearts. I never would have known the joys of the kingdom of heaven. I have passed through the bottom of hell and experienced every kind of bitterness in life. God wanted me to train myself. What I needed was untiring faith, strong will and perseverance. That is how I reached this point today.
No matter who you are, you will not experience only sweetness and joy on the path to the kingdom of heaven. Going through spiritual struggle is, in fact, a most precious blessing. Through it you can feel the grace of God. Only when you pass those tests can you be born anew as a true human being. The fruit of perseverance will grow and ripen within you, and one day will become the source of your deepest pride.
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I grew up in a time of global turbulence, from which my homeland of Korea was not exempt. As our people endured Imperial Japan’s colonial rule and the Korean War, a wild rush of confused ideas and values wreaked havoc on our traditions. The people of the world, even the Christian nations, struggled as their societies descended into chaos. Where were we to turn?
When there was no institution to depend on and no shelter to protect my heart, I remembered one thing: “God is my Father.” I grew up holding the belief that I would realize the dream and hope of God. Convinced that within my lifetime I would complete the long, sorrowful providential journey to restore God’s original ideal for His children, I retained my faith, no matter what happened.
It was with this heart that I decided to receive the Blessing in marriage with Sun Myung Moon and, with him, work to prevent religious conflicts and factions from continuing beyond my generation. Conflicts caused by religious divisions must now stop. I am also determined to resolve racial divisions and the conflicts that have arisen from them.
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In 1982 I accomplished one of my promises to Heaven. In the two decades after our Holy Wedding, I bore 14 children, seven sons and seven daughters. When they were just days old, my husband and I offered each child to God and the world. Each has supported us heroically in their own way and each is now pioneering their own course. They have given us more than 40 grandchildren.
Now I am always on the move, traveling the five seas and six continents, working to establish a world without war and conflict, and to release God from His sorrow.
FFWPU, USA