Little Wisdoms

I love my guitar. My husband gave it to me twelve years ago—a $200 mini acoustic for Christmas.

I tried learning the guitar in high school and gave up. It wasn’t until I spent a year teaching in Mexico that it stuck. In the evenings, with no internet and nowhere to go, my husband taught me guitar, and we’d sing Christian songs late into the night. And when I went back to Korea to finish my undergraduate studies, he showed up to my dorm with the guitar, fresh from Nagwon Sanga, Korea’s largest instrument market.

When I moved to the U.S. from Korea, I boarded the plane, tenderly carrying my mini guitar on my back. Whether it was in Korea or the U.S., I used my guitar to praise God, pray in the Spirit, and recite Psalms out loud. Night after night, eyes closed, fingers on the same chords, I’d sense the Spirit’s presence.

“Mom, why are you crying?” my daughter asked last night.

My three-year-old daughter was building yet another Magna-Tiles tower while I played the guitar nearby. The same chords, songs, and fingerpicking patterns. My fingers started hurting, so I used a guitar pick to strum instead. The familiar tune vibrated louder and cut through the room. My daughter stopped building and started dancing around the living room. She threw her hands up, and then her legs one by one. Her uncoordinated little body spun in circles, unashamed, right in front of me.

When I was younger, I longed to go to heaven. As a missionary kid, heaven felt like the one place I’d finally belong. What would I do once I got there? Wear a flowery dress and dance in circles before the throne of God.

And here was my daughter, dancing round and round the living room, like I pictured myself dancing (with the same uncoordinated movements) before the King of Kings. My chords hadn’t changed in twelve years. The songs were the same ones I’d sung to God since I was a girl. But I was different. I had a daughter. And in my belly, a second child was kicking like crazy to the sound of the pick against the strings.

I was a mom. I had never, in a million years, imagined myself to be here. A mom. I’d had plans to change the world. I was upset when my mother gave me a quote from a book: “때로는 세상을 보듬는 것보다 한 사람을 보듬는 것이 더 소중한 일이다.” “Sometimes, embracing a single person is more precious than embracing the whole world.” She made the calligraphy four months before I got pregnant with my daughter.

I wish that I could say that I framed my mother’s calligraphy four months later when my baby came. I didn’t. I stuck it in an envelope and stayed upset about it for months. Why couldn’t I save the world and care for my child?

“Mom, you’re crying again!” my daughter exclaimed. I smiled and shook my head.

When she went back to dancing around the living room, I closed my eyes, still strumming the guitar, and thanked God for my home. This was the place I finally belonged. Before becoming a mother, I went to many parts of the world, yearning for a place, for a people, to call home. I constantly needed to define and prove myself, to myself and others.

This home, in motherhood, feels different. Watching my daughter dance, I loved her with a fierceness I’d never felt before. This new capacity to love a single person has changed me completely. The way I view God and His love for His children has changed. So has the way I see the world, and my calling in it. When I was younger, I wanted to embrace the whole world, not just one person. As I strummed my guitar, I understood: you embrace the whole world by first learning to embrace one person.

P.S. I did finally frame my mother’s calligraphy a year after my daughter was born.