💌 420. Our cherished nest harboring precious memories for me and my mother turned into ashes.

At the devastating news that my mother’s house had turned into ashes, my mother and I wailed for a long time without even saying a single word. The long years I had spent in that house swiftly passed through my mind. As memories from childhood emerged one by one, I felt immense pains like my heart was picked and dug out one by one. When we stayed at my second eldest maternal uncle’s house during my elementary school days, my mother used to peddle her wares for days, earning money diligently to raise me well, her only daughter.

Whenever my mother peddled her goods, I was left alone at my uncle’s house. So, I worked diligently, trying my best, with Semchigo as if my father and mother were staying with me. However, as I missed my father so much, I would cry myself to sleep in the cold, cramped back room to the extent where my pillow was wet with tears. Then, my young, widowed mother made up her mind to build a house for the sake of me, her pitiful daughter, but she did not even receive a single penny from my second eldest maternal uncle who took all the money that my mother earned from the peddling. So, how many hardships she experienced from the very beginning of the building of the house!

In this day and age, with cranes and a lot of equipment, building a house has become much easier. However, back in those days, starting from carving out a foothold in the dense mountainside to the building of a house, it was by no means an easy task. Since she had to build a house without any financial backing, she had to do a lot of legwork to obtain all the materials needed for construction. The house, our home, which my mother and I were personally creating with love together, carrying each rock and clay.

As it was, I would go home before school was out and enthusiastically helped my mother with my little hands, never thinking how tough it was. The love and dedication that my mother and I invested in the building of the house was truly remarkable! We built a chicken coop, planted trifoliate orange trees with our own hands, nurturing them with love. My mother and I created a cozy nest just for the two of us. How wonderfully warm it was in the winter!

While building up the earthen walls by pounding yellow soil, how earnestly I pleaded to my father to become a protective barrier for our lives! It felt like my father would come back into our “precious house” at any moment, calling out, "Hong-seon, my child!" Our house, built with the blood, sweat, and tears of my mother and me, had been completely destroyed by the hands of my uncle, who wilfully set fire on the house just simply stealing the slate of the roof to sell for profit. I cried out desperately to God.

Oh God! This incident crushed my heart. It feels like I shall die from heartbreaking. Right now, we are left with nowhere to turn to, facing utter desperation. If I were not in this world, what would happen to my mother who has believed in and relied solely on me? The house, where she would stay if I died, had been burned and gone. What should we do?

Nevertheless, I entrust everything entirely to God with Semchigo as if the house had never existed from the beginning. When the house had been engulfed in flames, please turn the fierce fire into the flames of Your Mercy.

So, please completely burn away all the numerous cancer masses surrounding my soul and body right now. And may you burn away all the negative aspects of our souls and bodies, allowing my mother and our family to be reborn anew.

Endlessly praying, holding onto my torn heart, I tried my best in every possible way to offer up everything with Semchigo as if we received love. If I, her only daughter, became a tomb in my mother's heart(meaning of death), that alone would be staggering for her. Moreover, the house where she would stay alone, the only shelter for her if I were to depart from this world, had vanished. So, considering all of this, it felt too harsh for me to practice Semchigo in this situation as if the house never existed from the beginning.

'O God, how could I possibly meet my death leaving my mother behind? I completely entrust myself, unworthy one, to Your Mercy.' This heartache was more painful than death itself. Despite giving my all in trying to offer up everything, as memories and precious moments from that place flooded back, they shimmered vividly before my eyes as if it were just yesterday.