Repentance

Hyung Moon Jin and Yeon Ah Moon
January 30, 2013
Excerpts

Yeon Ah Nim: When my husband reintroduced the concept of repentance and of our being sinners to our church a couple of years ago, many of our church members did not know how to deal with it, how to digest it. It may be interesting for you to hear me say this, but I also had a problem with that concept -- repentance and being a sinner. I joined the True Family when I was nineteen years old. I had kept my purity and didn't have any other problems. So I was wondering, "What do I have to really repent for?"

I had never before been told that I had to repent in front of Heavenly Father and True Parents. I was thinking, I am in the second generation, so what do I have to repent for?

It was a new concept and I didn't know how to digest it. After hearing my husband's teaching about repentance, I looked back on my life and realized that in some way I had been resenting God, and even True Parents. When True Parents blessed my parents, True Father gave a blessing to my father and mother, saying that from you will come a great war general; that a great world leader would appear in your family. My mother was struggling a little bit with their blessing, so my father and mother really cherished those words, and they really wanted to fulfill them. They had a daughter, then a second daughter, and then a third daughter -- which was me -- and then, finally, they had a son.

At the time that my brother was born, however, he suffered oxygen deficiency and his brain was damaged; he has a mental disability. I had thought what True Father said would come true, but his words were not actualized. True Father -- Heavenly Father -- had said there would be a blessing, but actually there was not. Because of that, for many years of my life, I could not open myself to Heavenly Father and True Parents. I was struggling.

Then, when I realized how I had been feeling, I repented, knowing I had been a sinner for resenting Heavenly Father and True Parents. I truly repented. Then a couple of months later, at a small gathering, True Father told me to give my testimony. So I stood up and gave my testimony; I said, True Father, I truly repent in front of you; at one point of my life I resented you and I even could not see you as the True Parent.

What True Father said to me was remarkable, you know what? Who said only a man can be a general? You, as a woman, can be a general, too!"

I am a very shy person. I'm a very bashful person, as you can see, but I became a "world general" to preach for the Good Sex Marriage Ministry. This is where God has worked a miracle....

[Hyung Jin Nim, laughing: I am the chairman of her fan club....] All ladies, let's be our husband's biggest fan. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned this: As Foundation Day is coming and as we develop our Good Sex Marriage Ministry, many of our blessed couples who are in difficult situations may actually feel scarred and hurt. They sometimes feel judged and even condemned, as if we were saying that if you don't have a good sex marriage, you'd better work it out.

Some of our blessed family members may feel like this. Even so, this is truly True Father's teaching. This is actually God's teaching, one that we need to manifest in our lives. This is what True Parents want for us to have in our lives as blessed family members.

So, all that the Good Sex Marriage Ministry is saying is: Let's take a step toward having a good sex marriage. Let's do it step by step. We don't have to have everything perfect overnight.

My husband and I are not perfect. That's why our marriage's motto is Every year gets better. Even though we are not perfect, that's okay! As was said today, if we move one step, God will do two steps. God will push us forward two steps. We cannot do it with our own might or power alone, but with God everything is possible.

Hyung Jin Nim: Oh, give Him praise!

We were sharing with another group the other day, and I realized we could never grasp the heroic task we are involved in. What is our heroic mission?

Think of the "Bad Sex Movement." They have heroic missions. They're fighting for "civil rights," they're going to eradicate AIDS through condom education. Right? They have "heroic" missions, heroic "grand" visions.

What we have is "We will create world peace and unification." But how are we going to do that? What's the method? We might do service work, but it never hit me that that is going to totally transform the world. Yet I always knew, deep in my heart that we have an amazing, heroic mission. We have something that nobody else has. We've been told that, but why aren't we clear about how we are going to do this?

Yet, Father made it clear: We are here to build the kingdom of God. How are we going to do that? Through good sex marriages.

There's been so much research done on this. We saw two articles this week. When a man focuses on his wife's happiness, as his priority... The study was that some men had to do three good validating things every day. They found that these men made more money, became more productive at work, became happier in the household, became healthier and wanted to become more attractive (through lifting weights, etc.). They started prospering in all sorts of ways just because they started focusing on their spouse and on a good sex marriage. [Yeon Ah Nim: I liked those articles.] My wife loved those articles.

We want to believe we are in a heroic mission, that we have a heroic purpose. What is that? It's good sex marriage. That is how the kingdom of God will be built.

When couples are loving, when couples are fulfilled, when couples are in joy, when they are one and giving joy to God, the kingdom is starting! That energy is going to influence their children. We had remarkable lectures by Richard Panzer here, showing the signs and key factors to child poverty -- all were related to how the parents are. For example, the top three factors (from the national Kids Count report) were, first, out of wedlock birth; second, when the mother has her first child as a teen; and third, that the mother has not graduated from high school. These are the three key factors accounting for over 79 percent of children in poverty. They are directly related to their parents' "marriage" situation.

So, when we talk about good sex marriage, I know this is something that changes the world.

Many people are in difficult marriages. Yet it is not hopeless if that changes, step by step. One person makes a commitment. The other person makes that commitment. Step by step. And it starts things changing. That relationship can change to the kingdom of heaven.