After my children heard that Mokja Sung Jin Kim was called to Heaven, they asked, “Why…”
I answered them after a moment of silence. “Hmm… I don’t fully understand it either. Tomorrow is blocked from our view and there is a limit to what God can reveal to us. Life on this earth is just an ongoing journey. We won’t know how this journey will conclude until we leave this life. We can’t understand everything now. God lets me understand and realize many things but the reason I believe in God is not because I understand everything. On the contrary, I trust God even in the things beyond my understanding because I have faith in Him. When my sister passed away, I had more things that I could not understand. But I just trusted God and moved on thinking that God had a purpose in all these. And when I had looked back after much time had passed, I got to put many more pieces of the puzzle together. I saw the bible verse, ‘When a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it brings forth much fruit’, being fulfilled in my family. But I don’t fully understand everything; I still cannot answer the question of if it would have been better if my sister were still alive. All I can do is just to trust God because God is the only thing that is certain among all the things that I know.”
Then I told him about Tolstoy's novel, ‘What men live by’. The novel is about an angel who had a similar question as us and how he came to realize the will of God as he lived as a human. Tolstoy, who deserved to be called a great writer, wrote this novel with a reasonable answer to our question. However this is just a novel. We still need faith in God at the end. Note that we are not the only ones who asked this question, many characters in the Bible had the same question as well. The palm 73 is a good example of it.
I don’t understand all the reasons why such a good shepherd like Mokja Sung Jin Kim had to leave us so soon. However I have faith in God who, in all things, works for the good of those who love him. In such a God, all the things we are going through now is not how our story will conclude but it is only a part of the journey; the pages are still turning..
JiWon Choi