What Your Parents Mean to God

In Jin Moon
June 9, 2012

The senior pastor of Lovin' Life Ministries spent five days in Japan. Among other activities, she attended two Youth Concerts for World Peace and Ideal Families, which raise funds in Japan to support the performing arts education of those in our second generation.

We must not forget the original intention of God, our Heavenly Parent. When God created Adam and Eve, He wanted to experience happiness. He wanted to experience joy. He wanted to experience what it meant to be a parent. In a way, God wanted to experience a parental heart -- that's why He created His children, Adam and Eve. So, for those of us who have children... (There are many beautiful second- generation members seated here in the front.) When we think and when we pray and when we truly love our children, what do we want most as a parent? We want our children to be happy. We want them to be successful at everything that they do. We want them to go through the Blessing Ceremony and have the opportunity -- as we did -- to build an ideal family. This is what we want for our children. In a way, that's what God wanted for all of us, too.

Audience members tell In Jin nim their dreams or suggests ways to improve the church.

But because God's first children, Adam and Eve, fell away from God, humanity was thrust into a period of restoration and indemnity and we've had to suffer a great deal. The last forty or fifty years for the Unification Church has been an incredibly difficult time. I know many in the first generation gave of their blood, sweat and tears -- everything -- for the sake of the providence.

But we realize what you have done -- and this is why we in the second generation have to have incredible pride in our parents. Though I'm sure that many of you are looking at your parents and wondering, What are they doing? Maybe they're crazy -- crazy about God, crazy about the providence, crazy about True Parents. They don't think about anything else. So maybe some of us might feel as if we don't want to be like our parents. They're not rich.

They're not like the CEO of Honda Motors Corporation. They have no money. They're struggling every day. They can't wear the best clothes. They look so tired. Maybe sometimes were not proud of our parents. But it is important for us to understand them not just as our parents but as people who were moving providential history along. Without your parents, in a way, True Parents would not be with us today.

Rev. Moon speaks to a very young member during an autograph session.

The beauty of it, the real reason we have to respect our parents, though they may not be powerful, be the most handsome, be the most beautiful... They may not look like "winners" in society's terms, but we have to honor our tradition and be proud of their sacrifice, because they did something that Jesus' disciples could not do two thousand years ago. They were committed to True Parents. They were devoted to True Parents. They stood by True Parents. They were loyal to True Parents, and it is because of this foundation that they protected True Parents. When the world persecuted our True Parents, your parents were there. When the world spat at our True Parents, they were there. Even though they may not look as if they are great giants of providential history, a hundred and two hundred and three hundred years from now, theirs will be the stories that people hear over and over and over again. In a way, it is their sacrifice and their dedication and their love for True Parents that allowed True Parents to continue the work as the Messiah and the True Parents of all mankind.

This is the reason we honor our parents and our tradition, and this is the reason we in the second generation have a responsibility to not think we are just like anybody else. They've laid a firm foundation for all of us. If you want to build a beautiful house, or a beautiful building, the higher you want to build it, the deeper you have to dig the foundation. Our parents were busy digging the foundation -- you know, many times it was dark, many times it was uncomfortable, many times there was unbearable suffering, and they could not lift their heads because they were so busy digging that foundation. But who did they dig that foundation for? They did it for all of us. We in the second generation can see that we are more than mere families; we are history in the making. Then we come to realize, Wow, our parents really did sacrifice so much! But there is meaning to their sacrifice -- their sacrifice protected our True Parents. At the same time, they built an incredible foundation for us, the second generation, to fulfill our own destiny and create something beautiful.

So, here we are coming out of the wilderness age, when our parents were busy building that foundation. The wilderness age was actually about mere survival. No matter what, True Parents had to survive! No matter what! We had to survive as a movement. Many times we were like an army unit. You know, you receive a command and carry it out, execute it. We were not thinking about anything else -- only mission, mission, mission. We had a job to complete; we had to successfully accomplish it, and then move on to the next job. We didn't have time to build a real home, or take root.

The first of the two concerts In Jin nim attended this year attracted 1,400 people and was held in Tokyo on June 8. The second concert, which drew 1,600, was held two days later in Fukuoka.

But still, God's desire to move us forward into that ideal world -- one world family under God -- never loses steam. Even as we're building the foundation, even as we're trying our best, we were given the opportunity to try to build families to the best of our abilities. Now that the second generation is coming into its own, its members are getting into positions of leadership, taking on more and more responsibility. This is the time to bring God's original blueprint for all of us into fruition. We need to realize that no matter how wonderful, how powerful, how strong the foundation is, if we do not build any- thing on it -- a beautiful house or a beautiful building -- all the effort that has gone into digging the foundation will be lost. It will not be appreciated unless those in second and the third generations receive the baton -- realize that our parents accomplished something absolutely incredible, something that's never been done in history, what the disciples of Jesus Christ could not do -- and then build upon their foundation. You realize that we manifest the beauty of the profound message God wants to share with all the world -- or what I call "the breaking news." We are coming into the era of the settlement, the time to substantiate it, or to make it real, and God is giving us the space and the room to build these ideal families that we have been talking about.

One of the reasons I stressed the re-branding of our movement, making our image over, doing lots of public relations work, is to help people realize that we are not that crazy. Yes, we're crazy in a good way, but not crazy in the way that people thought we were. We are very logical people. We know what we know, and we believe in what we believe, because we feel and we know that it's the truth. We just need to somehow apply the truth in our daily lives so that we become the living Principle. Each one of us, walking around, is representing our True Parents to the world. It's not that we just become teachers of the Divine Principle, but that we become a living Divine Principle, so that naturally, when people look at you, they will want to ask questions: Your family is so beautiful! Your children are so respectful. What is your secret?"

In Jin nim enjoys the entertainment at a meeting for international blessed families at the training center in Urayasu (just outside Tokyo), on June 9.

This is the perfect position for natural witnessing, because you can naturally testify about God. We can naturally testify about True Parents. We can naturally testify about our entire community. I always say to my friends, "You know the beautiful thing about our community is that we are an international community. It doesn't matter if you are Korean or Japanese or German or French or African. Everybody is a child of God."...

In a way, when we are young adults truly appreciating our parents, liberating our parents, means that we, as the children, become responsible for our lives, that we take ownership of our lives, and tell our parents, "Please rest!" When Father says this is the year when True Parents need to be liberated, Father is hinting that this is the time when he wants his children to be responsible. During the wilderness era we were eternal children -- following, following, following, always saying, "Father, please tell us what to do. Please direct us. Mother, please direct us, please guide us. " But in this time, when True Parents are saying it's time for True Parents to be liberated, they're asking all of us to be responsible. Be owners. Take ownership of your lives. Take care of your families. Do incredible public missions, and at the same time, say, "True Parents, please, please rest. Please take a little time off and we will take care of things."

The 130-strong Chiba Sunhak Choir performing in Tokyo on June 8.

This is what all parents want from their children. I have five children -- I don't want my five children to follow me forever! I love them very much, but I don't want them to always call me and say, Tell me what to do, Mother. Guide me." As a mother, when I think about my children, I want them to grow up, to be owners of their own destinies, to able to say, "Mother, I feel a strong calling to perhaps study political science and perhaps go into government." You want your child to have clear goals. You want your child to understand their own passions, and to be able to set short-term and long-term goals, and accomplish them. We want to love our children forever, but we also want to cut the umbilical cord, so that they can walk and love and thrive and grow independent of us. They will be a part of us forever, but we want them to be healthy, independent beings that can grow into families of their own. This is what we wish for all our children.

True Parents are no different. In some respects, we've done an incredible job. We've laid an incredible foundation of unity and of following, but this is the time, this time of settlement when our True Parents are saying, "You know, you did a really good job being a student. Now you have graduated -- you went to elementary school, you went to high school, you went to college, you got your masters' degree, and you got your Ph.D. -- now start sharing with the rest of the world the truth that God wants to share with everybody."

In Jin nim presents a scholarship to a promising young musician; raising money for these scholarships is one purpose of the annual concerts.

We, as parents, have tent to twenty years when we can really invest and make a difference in our children's lives, to help them feel inspired and empowered to feel as if they can accomplish anything. I think if we can do that as a movement, our movement will be unstoppable. There is nobody more pure and kindhearted than the people we find in the Unification Church. All of us are precious. We are, in a way, growing with the providence and are in the transitioning mode of preparing for the next phase of life. It's just like a rocket. Rockets come in three stages; the first stage of the rocket is always the most brutal and difficult -- you have to break through the atmosphere. But once you break through the atmosphere, the rocket prepares for the next leg of the journey. Then you have the second-stage booster that takes the rocket to a different place, one that the first generation never experienced.

If we continue to be united and work one in heart with our True Parents, the second generation will prepare for the third generation, and the third generation will take our movement to a place that we've only dreamed about. We need to understand that life is a series of cycles and stages.

Instead of thinking that we have no hope because of the difficult past, we have to realize that God has prepared the foundation for the next boost of the rocket. If we remain united, committed and loyal to our True Parents, our True Parents will take this movement and this world to a place that we've only dreamed about. Instead of dreaming about the kingdom of heaven on earth and ideal families, they want us to experience it in our lives by becoming the living Principle ourselves.