by Amanda Tru
How many times he’d let them down.
And Chelsea always forgave him. Always had a smile for Daddy. A kiss. A hug. Maybe that was the blessing—as well as the curse—of youth. You’re able to overlook the faults of those you love …
Jolene had loved her husband. That was never the problem. The problem was his constant drinking. The affair with Miss Perky Secretary. The lies, deceit, everything that came after Chelsea died.
Maybe it was that she’d loved him too much. Enabled him to descend into the abyss of alcoholism, propped him up when what she should have done was separate sooner. Show him that she was dead serious about him changing.
Too late now.
For so many things.
“Jin-Sun’s really glad you’re coming today,” Mena said. Even after their trek across town and their insanely fast sprint, she wasn’t even winded. “I can’t wait for you to hear his story.”
At least listening to Mena’s fiancé would give Jolene something to focus on besides the emptiness and longing, the heavy regrets and incessant sorrow, that weighed down on her soul.
“Thank you so much for allowing me to speak here.”
Joseph shouldn’t have eaten so much pork. Oh, well. At least the speaker’s English was easy to understand. The beginning of the speech was hardly surprising. He’d grown up in North Korea, where of course he’d experienced hunger and oppression. What else was new? You could watch sob stories like this all day long if you wanted.
The speaker was as generic as they come. Younger than some of these charity cases, but he had no other defining characteristics.
“I was raised by my mother, who never told me who my father was.” So apparently men had daddy issues all over the globe. Not exactly the most earth-shattering of revelations.
Joseph fought the waves of exhaustion that swept over him, inviting him to shut his eyes, drown out this background noise, and lose himself in dreams. Dreams of happier times. Just him and Jolene. Young, carefree. No mortgages to worry about, no miscarriages, no fights over who would say the prayers at mealtimes or why Joseph couldn’t be a better spiritual leader.
Just him and his wife. Young. In love.
It was his fault things turned out the way they did. And not just the drinking either. All of it. How he hated his wife’s constant nagging. Why don’t you tithe to the church? Why don’t you say bedtime prayers with your daughter? He resented her relationship with the Lord because it meant there was something in the universe more important to her than he was.
Why wasn’t he enough?
And why did he still feel so guilty after all these years? He’d asked God to forgive him dozens of times. If Chelsea were still alive, he’d apologize to her as well. Beg her to forgive him for that night he’d gotten arrested and ruined her senior prom. For all those times he’d embarrassed her, forced her to make excuses to explain why she couldn’t invite girls from school over like a normal teenager could because then everyone would know about her father’s problem.
Mena was the only friend who spent any regular time at their home, and that was because they’d been together since junior high, before the drinking escalated into the monster it became. Mena was grandfathered into their family’s dysfunction.
And now she was about to get married …
Poor young fool. She was probably just as in love with her fiancé as he and Jolene had once been. Young people never learn. Never understand.
He had to stop feeling so sorry for himself, especially since he was the one to blame for ruining his marriage. Logically, he knew how stupid it was for him to get upset with Jolene. She’d done what any self-respecting woman in her right mind would do. She gave him the choices—his marriage or the affair. His marriage or the bottle. He’d made his priorities clear on both accounts.
She wasn’t wrong to leave.
So why was he so irked at her now, after so much time had passed? Was he mad that she’d found someone else? Who could blame her after nearly half a decade?
Who could blame her for moving on? For daring to live life and enjoy it?
He was a fool. He’d lost her years ago. It was stupid now to wallow in regrets. What pained him the most was that last night she thought he was drunk. It shouldn’t matter so much, but it did. He hadn’t realized until his conversation with Chuck that one of his driving motivations to stay sober was so she’d finally give him another chance.
The rationale was so subconscious it had taken him years to recognize. But somewhere in the back of his head was this stupid, naïve assumption that Jolene had simply put her life on hold and was waiting for him to clean up. Was he really that juvenile? Did he think that after all the turmoil they’d walked through that he could waltz into her life, claim sobriety, and demand her affection once more?
It didn’t work like that. He would have never allowed Chelsea near a man like him. But here he was, after making a fool of himself, burning with jealousy, irked senseless because his wife was here in Seoul without him, was dating someone else, was living her life as if he’d never existed.
It was too late for second chances. He realized that now. But just like he’d been forced five years ago to admit his daughter was never returning home, this new realization would require an adjustment period as well.
He’d get over it. Find peace with the fact that his wife was in a relationship with someone who probably had done far more to earn her affection than Joseph ever could. At least Jolene’s boyfriend had the guts to apologize when he made a mistake.
Joseph needed to accept the fact that any chance he had at reconciling with his wife was lost years ago. He’d just have to face the truth.
The sooner he understood that, the sooner he could move on.
Finally.
“My mother attended secret meetings. I was a teenager when I started wondering where she went.”
Jolene leaned forward in her seat. The auditorium was so crowded when they arrived she and Mena had only managed to grab two chairs in the very back. Jin-Sun was a few minutes into his presentation by the time they got settled in, but Jolene was sucked into his story and listened in rapt attention. She didn’t want to miss a word.
“Back home, children are taught that their primary loyalty is to the state. Teachers commonly ask their students to spy on their parents. That’s why my mother was very careful not to let me know where she was going. It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I realized she’d been attending religious meetings.
“My mother was a secret Christian, or at the very least she was a sympathizer. I say this because I don’t know for sure. It’s never something that could be safely discussed in a North Korean family. I was not a believer, not at first. This is one of the many difficulties Christian parents face back home. If they share their faith with their children, they risk the whole family being sent to prison camp. But according to the Bible, one of a parent’s highest responsibilities is to lead their sons and daughters into a saving faith in Christ. This makes it a dilemma for Christians.”
Jolene listened, surprised to hear religion spoken so freely in a public forum.
“As I said, my mother attended these meetings, even though outwardly, she was highly patriotic. She worked hard at her job. She was on good terms with those we lived near. This is also important back home since it’s very common for your neighbor to denounce you to the secret police. The biggest hardships my mother faced were raising her children during the famine that unfortunately stole my baby sister’s life.”
Jolene glanced over at Mena, who was watching her fiancé with love beaming unmistakably from her expression.
“As a young adult, many things happened to me which it is not safe for me to speak of, but I ultimately escaped North Korea through the network of Christian helpers on Freedom Korea International’s underground railroad. It is to this organization I owe my physical freedom, but it is the blood and power of Jesus Christ that set me free from my spiritual bondage.
“When I arrived in Seoul, I w
as broken. I had been betrayed.” His voice cracked once. “Betrayed by someone very close to me.”
Beside her, Jolene noticed Mena stiffen slightly.
“I was angry and hurt and confused. This is normal for refugees from the north. We are not taught back home how to compete in a capitalistic society. We do not understand the very basic methods of survival here. The first time I saw an ATM, I felt sorry for the poor worker who had to sit inside it handing people their money. I wondered why his boss wouldn’t allow him more room.”
Several people in the auditorium laughed, but Jolene held her breath. Somewhere in her heart was the conviction that this man held the secret she was looking for. He was filled with peace. So composed. And yet he’d faced more heartache and trauma than Jolene could fathom. What was the source of his strength? Was it something he could impart to her through a miraculous act of providence?
“I began studying Christianity in North Korea. It was dangerous, and I only learned enough to grow more curious. When I arrived here in Seoul, I began to seek out the truth more fully. And I came to realize that Jesus Christ is the sole source of freedom and hope that this world has to offer. I weep for my compatriots who suffer under such political oppression back home, but in the same way, my heart breaks for all those—in the free world as well as those living under totalitarian regimes like North Korea—who do not know the saving power of Jesus Christ.”
Jolene couldn’t have stopped listening if her life depended on it. If an earthquake flattened the auditorium where she sat, she’d continue hanging onto Jin-Sun’s words until the wall caved in on her and crushed her beneath its powerful weight.
“I’m here today with a message. A message of hope. North Korea as it stands today cannot persist. Such oppression will not endure in this day and age. Many North Koreans, especially along the border regions, now have cell phones smuggled in from China. They are able to use these phones to gain access to outside information that in previous generations was completely blocked out. The young men and women of my generation understand that freedom exists. They thirst for it. They long for it.
“Even more so, however, they long for the truth that comes from knowing they have a Creator, a Creator who loves them infinitely, who longs to call them his children. That, my friends, is the source of true freedom and belonging and hope.”
Subdued applause broke out, but Jolene was too transfixed to join in. She stared at Jin-Sun, begging God to reveal what made him so different from her. What allowed him to suffer all that he had and remain so pure and faithful.
She asked heaven to reveal what this strange, seemingly unattainable secret of his was, but in her heart, she already knew.
Great. A sermon.
If Joseph wanted to be preached at, he’d download the app from his church in Seattle and listen to one of the recorded services.
His eyes darted from table to table, wondering what his more secular colleagues thought of this holy roller. If statistics were to be trusted, over half of the workers at the Seoul office claimed to be Christian, but that didn’t stop any of them from drinking themselves into a loud and raucous oblivion at nearly every company dinner they attended.
Joseph was wary of anyone who tried too hard to mix work and religion. Some things were simply meant to remain in the private sphere. If you wanted to overdose on Christianity, you became a pastor or a missionary. You didn’t bring it into the workplace and shove it down everyone’s throat.
It wasn’t that he disliked the young man’s message. In fact, if Joseph went to hear this guy speak at church one Sunday, it would probably be a very memorable and uplifting sermon. But this was a work function. This wasn’t the place to tell people about God or talk about their sins or try to force people through heaven’s gates.
He sighed. Is this why Jolene had been so disappointed early on in their marriage? Is this the kind of man she’d hoped to turn him into? The kind of man who’d take any opportunity presented to him as a chance to force-feed the gospel into people’s hearts?
No wonder he’d fallen so pitifully short.
And even now that he was sober, now that he was involved in church and finally working his way into God’s good graces, he would never turn into a preacher like this.
The man had to be wrapping up soon. Did he see how restless his audience was growing? Or was he so enthralled with the chance to speak to people about his private beliefs that he wasn’t paying attention to their reaction?
“I was saved shortly after arriving in Seoul. It was a young woman I met through Korea Freedom International who taught me the steps to salvation, taught me the importance of asking Jesus to forgive my sins and accepting his free gift of eternal life. But I was still far from healed. I was scarred and traumatized from what had happened to me. I was angry at the woman who betrayed me, who gave me no choice but to leave everything behind and escape.
“Perhaps you think about me, or other refugees from North Korea, and assume that we’d want nothing more than to get as far away as possible. But how can that be? North Korea is my home. I know this can be hard for some to accept, so imagine with me if you will. Imagine that someone attacks Seoul, and everyone here is forced to evacuate to Russia, for example. While perhaps we’d be grateful to the Russian government for letting us in, does that mean we would forget about the land we left behind? Not at all. North Korea will always be home to me, and I will never cease to pray for the day when freedom tears down the walls that are holding my compatriots captive.
“But even once I arrived in Seoul, even once I was free from the oppression of my homeland and the burdens of my sins after accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I was still trapped. Still in bondage to the hatred and bitterness and fear that had seeped its way into my spirit. I was angry at the Lord. Once I came to believe that there was a God who spun the entire universe into motion and yet remained intimately involved in every detail of our lives, I had no choice but to ask him why he left me there to suffer so much before I found my escape. Once I realized that God was powerful enough to lead me out of North Korea, I also had to confront the reality that he was powerful enough that he could have saved me years earlier. Or kept my homeland from ever growing so oppressive and dark in the first place.
“I hated him.”
Something in the speaker’s tone, or maybe it was his words, caught Joseph’s attention. How many times had he entertained those same, seemingly futile hypotheticals? If God was powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead, wasn’t he powerful enough to keep his daughter from dying? If he could part the Red Sea, or resurrect the young man who fell out of the window listening to an all-night sermon, or heal all those lepers and the lame and the blind, couldn’t he have prevented Chelsea’s death?
If God was powerful enough that he could have saved her, but he still decided not to intervene that fateful night, didn’t that in a way make him responsible for her death?
Joseph didn’t care how close his thoughts teetered on the edge of blasphemy. When it came right down to it, isn’t that exactly what happened? God killed his daughter. God knew that if she came to Seoul, if she traveled to Seoul Tower, if she got on that cable car that would lift her high up in the hills to see the city skyline in all its splendor, she would die, and he didn’t do anything to stop her. How was that any different than the Almighty holding a gun to his daughter’s head and blowing her brains out?
How could you love a God like that?
How could you trust someone who would allow such a tragedy?
“I prayed a lot,” the speaker continued. Joseph listened, wondering if his words would contain the answers his soul so clearly needed, certain they would fall short.
“I asked God why. Why did you let me be born in a place like North Korea? Why did you sit by when so many terrible things happened to my family and me? Why didn’t you do anything?”
His voice was so sincere, so full of the same questions that Joseph’s spirit had screamed. He leaned forward in his seat. Whe
n had his hands turned so clammy? Why was his shirt collar drenched in sweat?
“I didn’t receive any answers from God.”
Joseph let out his breath. Figures.
“At least not directly.”
Joseph was about to tune him out for the rest of the afternoon when the man stopped and stared right at him. Why would he do that? Out of everyone here, out of this whole room full of hundreds of listeners, why would he single Joseph out like that?
Joseph picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth, finding a small fraction of comfort from having his face partially concealed.
“But he laid a verse on my heart. A verse from Joel. I will restore the years the locusts have eaten. It’s talking in the Bible about a famine. We went through a famine when I was a child. I know what it’s like to boil tree bark and try to swallow it down as soup. I know what it’s like to grind corn cobs down and try not to chip a tooth on the cake you bake from the shavings. And in my heart, I was asking God why he let those things happen to me and my family. My little sister starved to death. I wanted answers.
“But instead, he gave me restoration. He didn’t tell me why the locusts came in the first place. Why my family and I had to suffer the way we did, why my compatriots are still trapped under a dictatorship that stands ready to squash and torture and silence any opposition. My brain was looking for answers, but what my spirit needed, even more, was his promise. A promise of comfort. A promise of restoration.
“I will restore the years the locusts have eaten, God told me through his Word. And that’s what he’s done. Because of my journey, because of my struggles, I’m able to speak at events like this and let the world know what’s going on in my homeland. I’m able to encourage others to pray for the day when North Korea will be open to free thinking and democracy and most importantly the gospel. And after the heartaches of my past, I’ve met the love of my life. A young woman I’ll be marrying in just a few days.”