You know, Patti, there is one profound lesson I am learning from Laura, and it has to do with the preciousness of each human being. You know how you feel when you hold a soft, tiny baby in your arms--it's heaven. That little arm goes around your shoulder and that fuzzy head nestles down into your neck, and your whole heart melts! You feel a desire to protect, to nurture, to somehow ensure that love and goodness will surround this child throughout her whole life. So many times, I find myself holding Laura and thinking this child was made to be loved. Well, one night last week, I remembered a very special time I had with Reverend Moon twenty years ago, which I had forgotten until now. It'll take time for me to describe it, but I think it's worth telling.

I traveled with Rev. Moon and his wife as part of an international choir on a series of speaking tours all across America, from September of 1973 until early 1975. During the year and a half that I was in the New Hope Singers, we visited every state (except Alaska & Hawaii) at least twice, some as many as 5 or 6 times. In each city, there were usually 3 consecutive evenings of speeches: God's Hope for Man, God's Hope for America, and The Future of Christianity. These talks are real classics, each with a message that is as stirring to me now as it was then. Maybe in another letter, I'll send you a copy of these because they re quite good. The speeches took place in large halls that seated anywhere from 500 to 5,000 people. Rev. Moon spoke in Korean with a translator standing beside him. Our 50-voice choir would perform to begin the program. My experiences during those travels are still some of the highlights of my whole life.

The best times were the simple personal moments I had with Rev. Moon or Mrs. Moon. Rev. Moon worked so hard on these tours. Aside from being on the road constantly, he met with all kinds of government, civic and religious leaders; he organized international conferences with scientists, government officials, educators and media people; and he talked with our campus ministry groups and teams of international missionaries who were helping with the tours--all this, while still giving speeches at night. But whenever there was time--sometimes late at night, or early in the morning--he always liked to gather us together and talk about a life of faith and the heart of God.

He is both more serious and more candid than anyone I have ever met. He also can be hilarious! With great animation and spontaneous acting, he uses his whole body to convey what he wants to say (maybe, in part, to leap over the language barrier). He shares personal stories of his own and millions of insights about God's heart and God's situation. So many times, we (our choir members) would pack into a small livingroom in a house somewhere belonging to a church member, and Rev. Moon would pour himself out in talking to us. I've never heard anybody else give a sermon the way he does.

One Sunday morning, Rev. Moon talked about how each parent's inclination to give sacrificial love for their child is just a reflection of the vast parental heart of God. He believes that the parent/child relationship is the core of life's meaning. Then he started talking about the suffering of any single individual who doesn't know or feel God's love. He talked about the tremendous inner hunger and loneliness people experience and the protracted agony of feeling unloved--how such a person has no protection against all the craziness, selfishness and evil in the world. How tragic it is when a person can t find the heart of God, can t find their home. As Rev. Moon was talking to us, he wasn't concerned with getting people to join a church; his real concern is much, much larger than that. You and I know lots of good people who go to church every week, but not many who feel that they really know God and that God knows them. People need to personally experience God's love and presence, in whatever way they can through whatever path they know, and build that relationship, making it the center of their lives. Rev. Moon brought up the photos on the American cartons of milk: Have you seen me? --the pictures of missing children. He mentioned that many people think of God as being so high and so almighty, that He is somehow above being unaffected by the situations of individuals on earth. Rev. Moon absolutely disagrees with this idea. He draws a strong parallel between God's relationship with us, and our relationship with our kids, because the same dynamics apply to both situations.

He said: We feel very uncomfortable reading about these missing children. But imagine God's situation--God is the ultimate Parents of every single human being. Can God ignore the tragedies that happen every day? Look at the millions of children who are spiritually lost, many of whom are also in dangerous situations--in war or poverty, crime and corruption, broken families--to say nothing of the horrendous physical suffering in starvation or disease... Can He look the other way or somehow shut out His awareness of these situations? Absolutely not! Even if He wanted to--because it's so painful--He cannot. Even though God is almighty and full of glory, we can also say that God must be the most agonized and suffering person in the whole universe! His position is exactly like the parent of that kidnapped child on the milk carton. Put yourself in that parent's shoes: how frantic and desperate you would be!! No one could stop you from searching everywhere, turning over every single possibility, and even every impossibility! As day by tortuous day went by, without even a trace of your precious loved one, how could you not go crazy? You would totally forget sleeping or eating or washing... When days turned into months of searching, how crushed your heart would be!

You know, God is this desperate person. Because so many of His children are lost, He is running, day and night--calling out the names of his beloved children! Even though His voice is gone so that no sound comes out, still he is calling, just like a crazy man! He is dying every single day like Jesus on the cross, fully aware of all the suffering on earth (and in the spiritual realm) and trying desperately to establish communication with His loved ones. Why won t they answer?!

As I listened, I first identified powerfully with the lost child, Patti, especially when I remember the very real hell I experienced inside as a teenager. Then I was shocked to identify with this tragic parent. Yes, I could see it from that perspective. Reverend Moon talked very simply, but his face was wet with tears the whole time. I began to understand why he works around the clock so often and sleeps so little.

Then Rev. Moon said that, where most parents would lose their hope and give up, God will never ever give up His hope. He knows that each child can be found, because we are each made in the image of God and are always inwardly hungering to be with Him. We are made to desire goodness, truth, beauty and love. And a person's conscience is always seeking to move in a good direction. So God reaches out with redemptive love. He will never stop until every single child--all those born in the past, plus all those alive today--comes back home. (This conviction paints a very different picture of our afterlife than the cut-and-dried assignments to heaven or hell that some people believe in. You have any thoughts about this, Patti?) Then Rev. Moon spoke directly to me and said, Never forget this: every single child was made by God to be loved.

We were all in tears that day, and I m crying now, remembering. Laura keeps reminding me of this overwhelming fact that every person was made to be loved. How can I really hold this in the front of my mind? How can I live from minute to minute with my heart instead of my head? It's a huge challenge. So much of the day, I'll be standing in the checkout line at the Welcome or waiting in a que at the post office, and I m just asleep spiritually. I want so much to wake up! I know it makes all the difference in how I perceive the people around me and how I behave towards them and interact with them. If you have a Bible study group or an adults group that you re part of at your church--especially if people are trying to get up the gumption to talk to other people about their faith--share this parallel of God's situation and the parent whose child has been lost or stolen. Anybody who has a child is bound to be moved by it and gain some courage."

Download entire page and pages related to it in ZIP format
Table of Contents
Copyright Information
Tparents Home