This morning was more of the same: a quick ‘prayer meeting’ in which Pastor Park talked about the difference between guilt and shame. He compared Judas and Peter, who both betrayed Jesus, but their responses were completely different. Guilt is shame for something you did, where shame is for what you are.
For the first session, Pastor Park talked about how most fears stem from the fear of death, and then how we have life in Christ. He showed us more of the one video that interviewed many adoptees on KBS, and we watched the interviews of Kang Oak Jin (the woman from ‘First Person Plural,’ which we watched at the orientation retreat) and then of Susan March (she helps out at KAMC in MN, and we met her at the orientation).
Lastly, Pastor Park shared a story of a girl he arbitrarily called ‘Mary.’ This girl was a Korean baby, adopted by an American soldier during the Korean war. She grew up in the US and did well in school and such, but by her teenage years, she began to hate Koreans and hated her birth parents. She started drinking and using drugs to cope. Her father was waiting for the right time to tell her how he found her, and after a night in which she came home drunk and high, he asked to speak with her the next day. So, he told her that he was passing through a town with his company in Korea in February, the coldest month. Over the sound of the tanks, he thought he heard a baby crying. He thought that was impossible, but the crying got louder as they progressed. He asked his CO for permission to investigate, and when he went, he found a newborn baby, wrapped in clothes. The mother was next to her, stripped naked and frozen to death. She had wrapped all the clothes she had on her body on her baby to keep her warm. From that point on, Mary changed. Eventually, she asked to go see her mother’s tomb. So, the father made arrangements to go to Korea during February and visit. They found the place of Mary’s mother’s burial site, and Mary asked to go see her grave alone. The father complied, of course, but some time went by, and he got nervous. He went up to the grave site, and he found Mary naked, with all of her clothes laid on her mother’s tomb… Her body had already began to turn pink from the snowy cold. She said that now she understood how much her mother loved her.
This kind of unconditional love is what God has for us… And that is something that I’ve heard over, and over… But, this same kind of love is what a lot of the birth moms have for their kids that were given up for adoption. There is some trauma in the abandonment associated with adoption, but these mothers almost always wished for the best. In seeing the mothers at the Ae Ran Won society, I can believe it. The information that I have from my case shows that it was not irresponsibility, or wild and careless living, prostitution or anything that was the cause of my birth and subsequent adoption, but rather, poor circumstance. I know my parents loved me, and everything points to the notion that they wanted the best for me. This is something that I never once even thought about before the orientation retreat. Stories of a mother’s love always get to me. Perhaps it is because somewhere deep inside I knew my birth mother really loved me.
Mmmmmmf. More home-cooked comfort food for lunch...
The next session we talked about Joseph and how he went from the bottom to the top, but forgave his brothers in the end. The key phrase was that the brothers had intended evil, but God used them for good. In that way, Joseph forgave his brothers with no hesitation when they came begging at his feet. Pastor Park also told us about an adoptee named Dr. Paull Shin (yes, two ‘l’s). He was given up to his aunt for adoption, but ran away and became a street child after unfair treatment and obvious favoritism towards her 'real' children. He was eventually adopted again and his adoptive father helped him get his GED and such. Eventually, he got a PHD, and then moved on to become a leader of the state and a member of congress. We watched a clip in which Dr. Shin shared a bit about how he met his best friend. He had made a request for some help with his campaign at a conference, and this other guy said something patronizing and told him to ‘go back home.’ While he was hurt, he thought about it for a second. Then he went off and said how he had lived in the US for so and so long, his wife, children and grandchildren were all born in the US, he had paid taxes for so long, he had a degree, a master’s and a PHD from the US, his kids were Boy Scouts, etc, etc. He saw a change in the demeanor of the guy’s face, and then he said, ‘why don’t you go home, and I’ll follow you?’ After that, the guy put his arm around his shoulder and told him that he would support him. They went through the campaign, and when Dr. Shin won, he cried with him. They became best friends.
So, the issue of the day is forgiveness. Forgiveness for me is usually pretty simple. Like with David the other day, what’s done is done and we move on. I feel closer with him now than before our little falling out. However, the case is very different with my adoptive parents. They did not sell me into slavery like Joseph’s brothers or anything extreme like that, but I have a hard time forgiving them for their selfishness and apathy. I do not love them and I do not want a relationship with them, so the two things that make forgiveness easy for me are absent. However, I know forgiveness is mandatory and that it is inevitable. While I know having forgiveness in my heart is healthier for me, I’m still afraid of what else might come with it. I think I feel that I have control in my unforgiveness, and by forgiving them, I relinquish that control. I am fearful of the uncertainty because I do not want to go back to having a forced relationship with my parents. For me, it is not letting go of the past so much as it is fear of the future.
We ate dinner…
The last and final reflection of the retreat was based on the 2nd half of Stephanie Fast’s testimony again. Her revelation of the cross was that Christ came and died not because He sympathized with us or felt sorry for us, but because He wanted to identify with us. He was born into a humble, probably pretty poor life, and He was tortured and killed unfairly and in a horrible way. Once she realized this, she was able to submit her pains and memories of the past to God. The cross to her meant identity.
I’m not really sure how much I relate to Stephanie’s healing process. My childhood was not as traumatic as her's, and I grew up hearing the message of the cross continuously. While I’ve had new revelations and understanding of God, it was never just words. God always used events or people to help me understand Him more – theology alone never really brought about significant change in my life since I’ve always been exposed to so much of it. The healing that has taken place in my life already has been through God actually showing me His love, not someone just telling me about it.
After our group discussion, we played the ‘yarn network game’… Essentially, we sat in a circle and would toss a ball of string (it wasn’t actually yarn) to someone else and say something nice about them or to say encouraging words to them. Maybe they were just supposed to be simple things, but they ended up all being pretty meaningful. The things said just really went to say just how much the group of us have bonded over the past week and a half.
Our finished 'network'...
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