Faith & Life

Passion

The English word passion means a strong feeling to accomplish something. It comes from the Latin word pati, which means suffering or enduring. So the real meaning of passion is to actively cope with suffering, not avoiding it, when faced with hardship in the process of achieving a goal. Enthusiasm, another word for passion, also has a profound meaning. Zig Ziglar, a successful American author and motivational speaker, said, “Enthusiasm comes from two Greek words en [in] and theos [God]. This can be explained by the fact that there is nothing to fear and we can accomplish everything when we entrust ourselves to God who is in us.” People who have enthusiasm for the Gospel, too, are not afraid or…

Blessings Given to Those Who Believe and Do

A plan for short-term mission was made for Chachapoyas, a city with a population of about 40,000 in Amazonas Region, Peru. Thirty-eight volunteers were grouped into four different teams, and each team was to preach for fifteen days. Before starting to preach, we made a resolution to complete the mission, fully depending on Heavenly Father and Mother, and we asked God for help with one mind. Then, two assistant overseers went there a few days before the first team took off, to look for a proper building to be used as a branch church and for the areas to preach. Even in Lima, which is a big city, it takes about three to four months to get a big house.…

Jorge Luis Maza Quevedo from Lima, Peru

Mom’s Dish, the Best Homemade Meal

A group of mothers flew for over 10 hours to meet their grown children who were living in a distant country. The mothers brought the spoons, cups, and bowls their children used when they were back home. The moms secretly shopped for groceries in the foreign country where their children stayed, and then cooked their children’s favorite foods. Unaware of what was happening, the children sat at tables in front of the dishes their moms made at the direction of television producers. Some of the children took pictures of the familiar food, and leisurely ate, relishing the taste. Then, their mothers suddenly appeared, wearing aprons, and tears poured down the children’s faces. It is an advertisement titled, “Mom’s Dish, the…

Lost Shoes Back

My grandma always wants to give me more. When I was in elementary school, she bought me a desk for hard study. She paid for school uniforms in my middle and high school days. When I became a college student and lived alone, she sent me various side dishes. She always asked me if I needed anything. During the Korean national holiday Chuseok a few years ago, my grandma gave me a gift of shoes. She had even asked my aunt and cousin to choose my shoes with a fashionable design that suited me well. When I returned to my place after the holiday, she followed me to the bus terminal to see me off though I tried to dissuade…

Oh Jin-hui from Anyang, South Korea

The 49/51 Rule

In dividing the profits of your partnership or corporation, if you take 49 percent of the profits and give your partner 51 percent, your partner will feel like he or she has received twice as much. When we concede to others even just a little bit, we can give them greater satisfaction than we have ever expected.

Confirmation Bias: As I Want to Believe

In the morning, Ju-yeong wanted to put on her wristwatch but couldn’t find it anywhere. Suddenly, she remembered that she left it in her classroom desk drawer the previous day before going to gym class. As soon as she arrived at school, she looked for it in the drawer first, however, it was not there. Since she bought it with the allowance she had saved up for a long time, she was very upset. From that time, finding the watch was all she thought about. After thinking it over, she remembered that Mi-jeong, her classmate, had mentioned that she liked the watch and asked her if she could try it on. Additionally, it was suspicious that during gym class, she…

The Same Side

How can you unite with people you compete against? Researchers at Lancaster University in England found a way. The researchers asked fans of two rival professional soccer teams to wear their team jersey. Then, they were asked to write about “why do you like your team?” Next, they asked the fans to move to another place and planned to have some of them fall down. The findings concluded that you are more inclined to help those you share common interests with than those with whom you do not. The researchers called on other fans and proceeded to a second study. This time, the researchers let the fans write about “why are you a fan of soccer?” Then, they repeated same…

Song of Life Flowing to the World, Taking the Radio Frequency

At 10 p.m. on Sunday is when people leave behind a joyous holiday and prepare for the next day. At this peaceful and starry night, the red light of On Air is on at the studio’s screen, and the radio airs for three hours, lightening up the world and reviving souls. It is New Song Radio. Beautiful and magnificent melodies of New Songs and fragrances of Zion which arrived from all around the world flow through the radio frequency, and make us feel God Elohim’s grace that spreads even to the opposite side of the globe. New Song is the music of the saints who want to give glory and thanks to God Elohim for Their love and salvation. New…

New Song Radio Broadcasting Team from New York, U.S.

Does It Spark Joy?

With the change of seasons, there is a change of clothes. The clothes from the previous season are put away, and those put away are brought out. While doing so, you find clothes you haven’t worn in a while, some of your favorites, and clothes that no longer fit you. Marie Kondo, an organizing consultant, says that the first step to organizing is discarding . Instead of choosing items that should be thrown out, choosing what you absolutely need is the key point. However, the difficulty is to decide what to save or throw away. In her book, Ms. Kondo says when you feel difficult to decide, ask yourself, ‘Does it spark joy?’ If the item sparks joy, it must…

Pay Off a Debt of Gratitude

A debt is something that you must pay back to someone. The sooner you pay it off, the more you feel relieved. When you repay it, you can keep your relationship smooth. Isn’t it the same with a debt of gratitude? In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that we always live in debt to our families. We receive love without any condition, and hurt them or cause anxiety to them unknowingly. Nevertheless, we may take it for granted with a thought, ‘That’s okay because we are family.’ Greeting the end of the year, why don’t we settle our debts of grat-itude we have owed for a year to our family? Expressing gratitude and soothing pain one another, let…

Helping Ginger Harvest

When it was still early in the morning, I went to Zion in a hurry because we planned to go to the city of Andong and help harvest gingers. Gingers are one of the essential ingredients of kimchi and are good for hot tea to prevent catching a cold during winter. We were excited at the thought of digging out the useful roots with our hands. Since the brothers and sisters had already been there a couple of times, they seemed to be used to the ginger harvest; they were joyful as if they were going to their grandparents. As for me, I hadn’t been able to join them until this year because I had to take care of my…

Choi Yun-hee from Daegu, South Korea

Intersection with No Traffic Lights

What would happen if traffic lights, signs, lanes, and curbs between streets and sidewalks were removed from an intersection where many cars and pedestrians pass through? Actually, such a place does exist. In the center of a small city, there is the Laweiplein roundabout in Drachten, the Netherlands. At first, people worried that drivers and pedestrians would be confused and sudden accidents would occur. However, the result was totally opposite from what they had expected. As most traffic signals were taken away, drivers were more alert and pedestrians became more careful. They would gesture politely and make eye contact with each other. As drivers and pedestrians became more responsible, they did not violate any traffic signals or run red lights.…

Keep Your Minds Clean

Just by cleaning your house once, you can’t keep it clean forever. As dust perpetually falls, there is always something new to clean. If you always want your house to stay clean and organized, you must clean it every day. It is the same with our minds. Even if you regret what you have done and make up your mind to do something good, your commitment to that idea doesn’t remain firm forever. Sometimes you may make mistakes and do things that you didn’t want to do. “The shoelace you tied yesterday may become loose today and untied tomorrow. Just as you tie the shoelace every day, you must remind yourself of what you have determined.” If we have made…

Mother’s Love, the Turning Point of My Life

I was born in an unreligious family in Finland. While swinging on our yard in my childhood, I used to think there would be a time for me to die. I couldn’t bear the thought at all and was hard to accept the fact that I wouldn’t exist some day. I always wondered why I was on this earth, what the purpose of my life was, and what would happen to me after death. And these questions grew stronger as I became a teen. However, their answers could not be found anywhere. After I graduated from vocational school, I went to the U.S. to experience new things as an au pair. After months, I could speak English fluently. On one…

Petra iida Emilia Ruokojärvi from Helsinki, Finland

To Spin a Pinwheel

“Dad, look at this pinwheel I made.” “Wow, it’s nice! Shall we try it and see how well it works?” Dad took his son’s hand and went to the nearby park. Excited, the son stretched his arm high and waited for the pinwheel to spin. But it was not windy that day. “Dad, my pinwheel is not spinning at all.” The son was disappointed. “There is a way to make it work in this case.” “How?” Dad grabbed the pinwheel and started to run as fast as he could. Then the pinwheel spun rapidly. He came back to his son after running in a circle and said, “There is nothing impossible for a man who runs hard.”

Love Is Touch

In an experiment with monkeys, researchers prevented a baby monkey from being touched. As a result, the baby monkey contracted a long drawn-out illness and died young. On the other hand, in observations of 10-week to 6-month old baby monkeys, the babies whose mothers often touched and embraced them rarely caught a cold or got sick, unlike the babies whose mothers could not. Human adults are not different. An adult who was highly nervous and depressed recovered quickly according to the frequency and duration of hugs. Stroking a pet, which is a kind of therapy used in depression treatment, comes from the result of such experiments. The scattered souls of the heavenly children, who were hurt and dying in the…

If Your Child Is in Adolescence

A little kid cries like it’s the end of the world when he gets separated from his mom, but then smiles again when she comes back; he also believes whatever his mom tells him even though she’d cried wolf too many times. However, when the kid grows up and goes to school, he likes hanging out with his friends more than staying with his mom, and begins to have some secrets from her. Moreover, he easily gets mad, cares more about how he looks, and even locks his room door. All these happen as he has reached adolescence. Adolescence is like growing pains that a child suffers while becoming an adult. Parents experience his pain, too. The child feels confused…

Everybody Is a Winner

A picture of an elementary school sports day went viral in Korea. In the picture, there are five boys walking on the track, holding hands together. Everybody is smiling except one boy who is shorter than the other boys; this boy is wiping his tears. Why is that? This is what happened: The short boy didn’t grow much because of a disease. Every time they had a race, he was always last. The other boys wondered what they could do for him. They had an amazing idea and asked their teacher for approval. At the starting signal, they seemed to run a little, but then they all stopped and waited for their friend who was coming last, and they all…

Self-Handicapping

The day before the exam, you try to cram all the information, but nothing gets into your brain and you don’t feel like studying. The easiest choice you can make in this situation is to go to sleep. Then, at least you can make an excuse to your parents or friends about why you didn’t get a good grade, and that it was because you fell asleep early the day before the exam, not because you were incompetent. This does not only apply to students who have an exam. When people have to show their abilities to other people, they often make an excuse for their failure ahead of time, just in case they don’t get a good result. The…

Filial Piety Is…

Recently, my right wrist hurt. I thought it would be healed soon that I had no regard for it. But the pain worsened as days went by. I was just enduring pain, wearing a wrist brace and doing hot towel massages. My two daughters, who are junior high school students, started helping out with housework probably because they felt bad to see my pain. After eating, they did the dishes and alternately cleaned the house. Even my youngest son, an elementary school student said, “Mom, let me wash your hair. You should avoid using your sore hands.” As for cleaning the bathroom that got dirty, I couldn’t even conceive the idea of starting it. I said to myself, “I need…

Jang Sun-hyang from Seoul, South Korea