A Waltz of Grace

1. Wings "My wings, my wings. Won't you take flight once more?" Like the narrator of the story, “Wings” by Yi Sang, who was struggling to make sense of his identity amongst his troubled life and personality issues, I thought for some time that I might be an angel who had lost her wings. Nothing in the world seemed to go my way and my life, merely one existence among countless others, appeared insignificant and meaningless. I was an aspiring pianist but had grievously injured my fingers. I also failed to achieve my dream of entering S University. No matter how tirelessly I worked and pushed myself, things didn't work out so easily. From the age of six, I started taking piano lessons as a hobby and from that point onward, my lifelong aspiration was to become a pianist. I was quick to learn and talented. In Middle School, I performed Mozart's 14th piano concerto (K.414) alongside a prestigious city orchestra in Korea. Moving to Seoul after graduating from Middle School, I worked towards Music School and, in my final year of High School, applied to the Music Department in S University, the most prestigious university in Korea. Ignoring protests from my father, who insisted that I should study Business Administration, I was determined to study Music. But then, after my hand injury and an unexpected accident on the day of the entrance exam, my childhood dream slipped through my fingertips, and I ended up enrolling in H University instead. Upon entering a university that I had never cared for, I felt no motivation to study. Until third year, I paid little attention in class and practiced the piano just enough to pass my practical exams. Only in my final year did I start paying more attention to my studies and dragged up my pitiful GPA to a B+. However, the fact remained that school life or academics had failed to interest me for most of my university life. I thought of my life as a case of complete failure and because of this, my mind was always spewing with unrest. When others looked at my life, they assumed that I had it all: parents who ran a big business and provided me with every material comfort. When I looked at my life, however, I was full of discontent. I was also bad tempered and prideful -- standing up to my parents and treating people just as I wanted. My obstinacy and temper became so extreme that employees in our house threatened to resign, saying that they couldn't work because I made their jobs so difficult. I still remember Mrs. P. Mrs. P, a divorced woman, was our housekeeper. I would call her through the speaker-phone in my room, asking her to fetch me a glass of water, and if she wasn't fast enough, I would reprimand her. If I found a strand of hair in my food, I would throw a fit. Whenever I couldn't find something after Mrs. P had cleaned my room, I become absolutely enraged. I also got angry with the maid called Eun-ah on a daily basis. I was ill tempered to the point where I couldn't even understand my own anger -- and I hated myself for it. Then the Unexpected struck me like lightening. With questions about life simmering in my mind, I came to reflect upon myself and turn to the Bible. Now, when I look back on my life, I can see that everything happened under God's guidance and grace. When I finished the Bible, I was completely transformed. It wasn't the fragmented story I had heard bits and pieces of during sermons. After reading the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation, I was overwhelmed by a tide of inexplicable emotions. It was an experience that opened up my eyes and ears. The more I started to know of God's infinite and mysterious providence, the more I started to see my true reflection, a microscopic speck of dust in comparison. I saw the true monster that I was, filled with greed, jealousy, avarice, pride, prejudice, selfishness and self-righteousness. A particularly monstrous kind of monster, it took a rather long time for me to transform into a somewhat ordinary human being. God pulled me out from where I had been huddling in the ditch of pride and avarice and lifted my eyes to the heavenly kingdom of humility and self-sacrifice. He bound up the hurt of my heart and healed it. Taking me in as His daughter, He dressed me in the clothes of glory and presented me with gifts of thanksgiving, love, forgiveness and peace. Faced with the forgiveness and love of God who loved me to the point of death on the cross, even while I was in the hideous state of sin, there is no one I could not forgive. I was able to break out of the darkness filled with hatred, prejudice, self-righteousness, arrogance, fear, avarice and ignorance, entering into a world ebullient with God's light. The Bible completely changed my former thoughts and beliefs. I felt as if the wings I had once lost had been restored. Stretching out my wings like a bird, I became a free spirit. God finds delight in giving people the gift of freedom and peace. 5. Warning Signs Job 7:17-18 What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, that you examine him every morning and test him every moment? Engaged at 23 and married at 24, my married life proved to be extremely difficult from the very start. My younger brother had died when he was five years old so my parents who were left without a son pressured me to marry straight out of university so that they would have a son-in-law. From the moment I received my acceptance letter from H University, my father began his series of lectures, pressing me to get engaged in my second year and married in my third. Every other week, I would come home to find a potential suitor sitting in my living room. I marched straight into my room without even looking at them. Then, one day, I met a young man called C in the beginning of my third year. For a year, he pursued me and even wrote me letters while he was in the military. In the beginning, I rejected him flatly but as time went on, my heart opened to him. When I told my father about C, he was overjoyed and asked to see him straight away. As my parents had so fervently desired, I found myself engaged a month before my graduation. However, this whirlwind bliss did not last long into our marriage. A month after the wedding, my husband was out with his friends every other night, going to bars and staying out. Up to this point, my material life had been like Cinderella’s ball filled with riches, buoyance and comfort. However, the promise of married bliss swept away like the wind and the flare I had as a girl flickered out completely. Not to mention, my mother-in-law was a woman who would have put Cinderella’s stepmother to shame. Through my years of marriage, I found myself naked and exposed as everything I had known was torn into rags.