Contributed by Jean Metz, Aberdeen, Scotland
Articles from Heartwing Magazine
This summer my husband and I visited his relatives in Switzerland on the occasion of my father-in-law's birthday. My previous two visits (with gaps of five and six years) had been quite difficult. It was a tremendous challenge to make a deep connection with my Swiss relatives because of language barriers and the fact that our visits were short.
Secretly I was dreading the frustrating feeling of being "left out" of the conversation and wanting to say so much. I was not too confident in trying out my schoolgirl German on previous visits and I hadn't been practicing it at all!
However, I was amazed to find there was an extra dimension to my experience this time. I felt it was due to the power of our Blessing relationship which has developed more in the years we've been together.
When I met again each one of my in-laws, I felt such a deep desire to communicate with them. I'm sure I received spiritual help to draw out the long-forgotten words of my German lessons. I was amazed at how much I could understand and express this time!
This dimension of heart gave me the impetus to have a very warm experience with each person. So much love came back on the strength of my effort. On returning home, I remembered the testimony of our National Leader, Mr. Mark Brann, who spent three years in Korea. He explained his struggle in learning Korean and how he had to pray deeply to find the blockage in his heart. He said, "The core reason True Parents want us to learn Korean is that they want to have the closest and most intimate relationship with us. The last frontier of relating to True Parents is to learn the Korean language."
I think that my experience in Switzerland is a little taste, an indication of how our heartistic desire can help us to communicate. It takes a lot of effort, but I know that I need to apply this same principle in learning Korean. If I feel desperate to talk to my relatives, how much more could I feel towards True Parents? This is the challenge . . . I'm working on it! Good luck and God bless everyone in learning Korean.