As one of the thin places, Places of remembrance are where God is found in our lives. Celebrating All Saints Day, last Sunday, we took a moment of silence to remember the names of our family and friends who are no longer with us. Among the names, there were the names of my maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather.
As a refugee in the Korean War, my grandmother broke up with her family and came down to South Korea alone from North Korea. Living alone in a strange land far from her hometown, she started believing in Jesus Christ and became a Christian. Like others in those days, my grandfather grew up in a very conservative Confucian family. Although there were many hardships, adversity, and conflicts in life, he confessed that Jesus was the Savior at the last minute of his life and brought his family into the Christian faith.
Although they both had different stories of becoming Christian, their journey of faith planted the seeds of the Gospel in the lives of my mother and father. The seeds grew in the hearts of my parent as they lived their lives. And, finally, as the fruit of those seeds, I am now standing here on the other side of the globe.
Remembrance is a sacred act that can have a tangible impact upon the present because, through remembrance, we are not only thinking of a person but the story of a person. Moreover, since we see God working throughout the stories, the place of remembrance becomes a thin place. Moreover, remembrance impacts our future, too, for, at the end of remembrance, we come to realize that our lives will become the seeds of the Gospel in the lives of our children.
Whose name did you call during the All Saints Day service? Whose life stories did you live in while you were thinking of that name? Did you see God working throughout the life of the person you recalled? What seeds do you leave for the generation after you?
May the steadfast love of the everlasting God be with us all the time.
Pastor Woo.
