우리들교회

At last Wednesday s worship service,
I experienced a healing during Mrs. Hwang s news of her uterus cancer. My healing concerned my denial of my wife s alcoholism during our marriage. She died of alcohol related problems seven years ago.

A few months before her death I had to admit her alcoholism because I had no choice in the face of medical reports. Because of my long denial, facing her alcoholism was a moment of shock and great shame for me.
I felt ashamed and guilty that I had not protected my children from the negative effects of their mother s alcoholism, of her abuse of them. For all these years I did not understand why I denied what was obvious to others.

Last Wednesday, God let me see why. It was my pride and my fear. Why pride? Because my parents had an unhappy marriage filled with bitter argument.
My childhood memories are their arguments. They never stopped. I went to sleep each night listening to them argue. When I was 17 they divorced and I felt relief.

But I didn t know the damage they had done. I married when I was 23. I married a divorced woman with a small daughter. Why? Because I had an unconscious desire for a beautiful family that I never had.

I wanted a perfect family of perfect harmony. We had two more children. It became a matter of pride that I would have a family so much better than the one I grew up in. I wouldn t argue with my wife and my children would be happy.
So when I saw my wife s alcoholism, I blinded myself to it so forcefully that I could never admit it until the doctors forced me to see it.

So after almost 40 years since my parents divorce, I finally understood that my prideful reaction to their bad relationship sowed the seed for my own poor marriage and the damage I did to my own children.

I am looking forward to talking to my grown children about this. I hope that my confession to them can help their lives. Maybe they have unconscious sins because of my sin.

Maybe my confession to them and my asking for forgiveness will help them heal.