Faith & Life

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

A Warm Price

There was a man who sold waffles in a shabby alleyway. His calculation of the prices for the waffles was a bit odd: 300 won for one and 1,000 won for three. If one waffle costs 300 won, it should be 900 won for three. But the prices on the menu read, “3 for 1,000 won.” His customers wondered and asked him, “Why don’t you sell cheaper to those who buy more?” He replied, “He who buys one is poorer than he who buys three. So one should be cheaper.” He gave the example of a student who shared one waffle with his friend, and that an elderly woman who bought one with the money she earned, collecting wastepaper. His…

And Then

A poor student went to see a rich old lady in the village to borrow money for school expenses. “I want to study and become a lawyer.” “Yeah? And then, what are you going to do?” “I want to earn a lot of money and become rich, like you.” “And then?” “I’ll get married, have kids, and live happily.” “And then what will you do?” As her questions seemed never-ending, the student got irritated. “What do you think I would do next? I’ll just live like that, and probably die when I get old.” “Then, will that be it?” “What can happen after I die?” “Then, does that mean you’ll study just to die? I can never lend my money…

I’m Happy Because I Have…

My friend’s new cell phone, a pair of shoes on display in the department store, a house in a magazine, a car in a commercial . . . People want fame, prominent positions, or other things that they don’t have, and only imagine themselves having them. However, when they come back to reality and look at themselves without the things they want, they feel down. If you keep thinking about what you don’t have, happiness will go further and further away from you. If you want to be content and happy with your life, think, ‘What if I don’t have what I have now,’ instead of thinking, ‘I wish to have that.’ Your family, health, co-workers, precious things . .…

Until One Soul Is Led

Before I met the truth, I tried many times to have faith in God but it didn’t come to me. I thought, ‘Having a religious belief doesn’t seem my thing. Would I meet God after death?’ Frustration came along with many thoughts. Every day, I would ask myself, “At the end of this life, what will happen to me? Where will I go?” I put all my time and efforts into my studies, consoling myself that those were what I needed to do; but something always felt empty and I was not happy at all. When I was planning my future, I could not help but think that everything was meaningless. I wanted to find something that could bring me…

Maria Cleofe Cuchillo Gutierrez from Lima, Peru

Surpassing the Limits of Our Muscles

The muscles of an athlete are not built up in a day. In order to gain physical strength and improve their skills, they constantly have to train themselves. Only when they surpass the threshold of their muscle capacity can they gain the fruit of their efforts. The maximum threshold of your muscles is the point at which you have exhausted all of their strength. When the critical limits of the muscles have been reached, the muscular tissues that have been tightly tied together become loose or are even painfully torn. However, the torn muscles are repaired within a short time. If we use the repaired muscles again, they are damaged again and the damaged muscles are then repaired once again.…

Treat Your Family to Tea!

Tea is a favorite food loved both in the East and the West. To enjoy a deep taste of tea, you have to be careful in every step from preparing the tea water to steeping it in the cup. As you need time and effort to make it, you can enjoy tea if you drink slowly, savoring it. Tea is sometimes a medium of communication among people. When you have a cup of tea, a conversational atmosphere will be naturally created, and you can get to know each other while talking. This month, enjoy a cup of fragrant tea with your loving family. Treat your family to tea, regarding them as valued guests, and enjoy a friendly talk. Then, fragrance…

Crisis Can Be an Opportunity

In Yosemite National Park located in California, U.S., there are giant trees which are about 262 feet [80 m] high and 16 feet [5 m] in diameter. These trees are giant sequoias known as the “President Tree.” Among the giant sequoias, there are some that are even more than 3,000 years old. Interestingly, they have many burn marks on their trunks, surviving more than eighty forest fires—some lasting seven days. In the forest where fires occur regularly due to friction between trees during the dry season or by lightning, the secret of these giant sequoias surviving there for so long lies in their soft bark which is 3 feet [1 m] thick. As they hold abundant water in their bark,…

Coming Close to God

When I was in my first year of middle school, I learned the Bible deeply at Zion. Actually, I started to go to church with my family when I was a child, but that was my first time to study the words of God seriously. I had been always proud of myself, thinking I knew the Bible to some degree even though I was young. However, the prophecies of the Bible and their fulfillment made me feel as if I had never experienced the Bible before; the Bible was full of testimonies that I couldn’t deny, and God truly existed. I was so happy to be able to completely believe both in God and the Bible that I wrote a…

Lee Pyung-hwa from Seoul, South Korea