Yesterday

I actually spent the whole day doing nothing. We made breakfast together and had a sweet time. Tom played with Sammy and Lizy. I watched. I took a nap and read Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I made dinner. Gifford came for dinner. We ate and played a game. That was the whole day. I think Tom spent most of yesterday reading Harry Potter to Lizy. And she loves all the attention she gets from dad.

I would normally have nervous energy and my mind would be filled with, “You must use your time wisely. Do not waste your life. Learn. Use time...” How long have I not allowed myself to be in the moment just enjoying the precious things of life, my family, and friends...or just give myself to rest in God.

I remember doing so many things with the older children. Everything had to go through the filter of “not wasting time.” I would get puzzles only after I found out that puzzles developed their brain. Any kind of play thing was “waste of time.” I wanted them to read history and science. When I went to work, I gave them a pack of “educational” things only to find out they played all day (they were ages 5 & 3).

I remember taking them regularly to soccer games, ballet lessons, skating rink. I would be watching them, so keenly aware that I was wasting time while the kids were doing things that were “good” for them. I always carried around a big bag of things that I could do. Reading a novel, or crocheting would be considered waste of time if I was at home, but it was time well spent if I was just waiting for my children’s activities to end. At home, I would spend as little time as possible in cooking and cleaning because that was a waste of time. The only thing that was NOT wasting my time was to study, to work towards something, to develop a business or work at a job.

Dear mother, in your suffering, in your longing for a life you could not have, you have instilled value in me that would rule for decades. Dear Grandfather, in your longing for the destiny of the Kim family, you have sealed in me the program that would control me. Yet this is human tendency.

It is too bad that we don’t have the wisdom when children are young, when they are a blank page, just to love them and allow them to blossom in God. This would empower them to be the best God has created them.... rather than what we need them to be or who we want them to be.

I would raise my kids differently. Three are young adults now. God has to carry them on just as who they are with all the idiosyncrasies they have received from me. I am learning with age that my wisdom is nothing, my ways are nothing...it is God’s wisdom that will last. His wisdom has substance and will fulfill the meaning of life.