two people that have rocked me in the past month, part 2

"Binna Kim remembers waking up in a pool of blood. She was on the floor of her bedroom, it was dark--perhaps the middle of the night--and her head was throbbing...Her head was feeling it was about to split open, she had an idea: She would crawl to the bathroom tub. It was low and sturdy enough to support her. She would use it to stand up, then she could figure out the next step. 

She reached the bathroom and passed out.  

On April 6, 2006, Binna's father, Sang In Kim, wrote a suicide letter to his church pastor, explaining he was killing himself because he owed people tens of thousands of dollars he could not repay. The 55-year-old asked the pastor to take care of his family. But that night, he changed his mind; he would take his entire family with him..."

This is how the KoreAm article about Binna Kim begins. You can find the entire story here. Yet although the story begins tragically with her father killing her mother and brother and attempting to murder her, it ends with an immense ray of hope.

You see, not only does Binna miraculously survive that horrific night, she, through the help of close family friends, amazing doctors, and, ultimately, God, ends up being able to reconstruct her life, move forward, and find hope.

You can find this on her facebook page: "...we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. (Romans 5:3-4)".

If anyone can talk about hope after suffering, Binna Kim can.

There's a lot in Binna's story that rocked me, and I encourage you to read the whole thing. I think I'll just mention a couple of things here though:

1. Later in the article the writer shares that Binna is eventually able to forgive her father. In fact, it sounds from the article as if this is a pretty big part of why she is able to have hope and look forward to the future. This is amazing. 
2. Murder suicides among the Korean adult community are sadly far more common than we think. That spring in 2006, there were 14 lives claimed in Korean murder-suicides, all in Southern California, all perpetrated by the fathers of the families. 

This Friday night at United Life we're inviting Dr. Doni Kwak, a local Edmonds-based Korean American psychologist to share with us about the relationship between mental health and following Jesus Christ. If anyone needs to hear this, it's the Korean American community. I think we tend to believe that if we're going to church, praying, and doing the whole American Dream thing, we're doing fine. But the truth is that often masks deeper issues and keeps us from addressing them. 

I encourage you to join us this Friday night. You can find the event information here.