There is a house that my father dreamed of all his life.
The house, my father told me about since my childhood, was a peaceful place with a murmuring stream and birds chirping around; it’s a kind of house where a loving family can happily live together with a wide vegetable garden.
I’m living in Brazil, and I received a call from my father in Korea a few days ago. He told me he finally got his dream house. He told me that farms and little streams are nearby the house in a quiet village with a wide yard for a vegetable garden. It was the kind of house that my father had dreamed of all his life.
It was something to celebrate, but I couldn’t hold back my tears.
In my father’s past life, he had nothing of his own. He spent his childhood in times of war, and couldn’t receive a decent education; he lived all his life in hardships. Feeling responsible for his family, he sacrificed himself much, and yet he’d always been tolerant towards us, his three children.
My father is over seventy. He has become old with his grey hair and he can hear only with a hearing aid. Since he suffers from Parkinson’s disease, the muscles in his legs have become weak. He often falls over little things and breaks his bones as he cannot support his body. Though he worked hard all his life, he cannot even properly move around because of the disease, but he said to me, “My son! I have finally come to live in my dream house!” It broke my heart.
I replied, “Father, I’ve never said this to you for the past forty-two years, but I love you!” After hearing my love confession for the first time in his life, he shed tears.
I’m sure that God must also be making a house for us to dwell in the kingdom of heaven. I truly want to return to our everlasting home with my father.