"Well, aren't you going to write about your mom Kimiko, the one Kiyo 'stepped in for'?"
Well. actually, I already have. I published my Mom's testimony online in 2007, way before I wrote about my grandfather or Dad or stepmother...or even thought about writing about them, because my Mom had such a big part in making me the person I am.
(If you want to hear about how Mommy was born and raised in Hawaii; her encounter with the foreign missionary; her incredible journey across the U.S. continent during the war; the frog dissection prank; and 3 desires; please read "Kimiko's Travel Agent", https://hopeassured.blogspot.com.)
But I guess in this post, I'll mention 3 negatives I remember about Mommy.
Negatives? Yup, negatives.
The first time was when I was 5 years' old and squirming at Mommy's side in her junior high girls' Sunday School class. She'd just asked her girls what was necessary to be saved. They'd answered to know you were a sinner. She nodded but told them that wasn't enough. Another ventured you had to know Jesus died for your sins? She smiled and said that was true but there was more. The class thought for a while, and someone piped up, you had to know you have to receive Him as your Savior!
Did Mommy look like she would cry? The girls seemed to really listen. "Everything you said is good and true. But just knowing those things alone will not save you. Even knowing you need to receive Him will NOT save you. You have to actually do it."
I was only 5. But I knew I had to receive Jesus as my Savior to be saved. It was after that I actually did.
But being part of God's Family didn't mean I was always an angel. Far from it. During my teen years, I was so much trouble--I posted about this earlier, so I'll abbreviate--I'd gotten so depressed once when I was 15, I told Mommy I felt I didn't deserve to belong in the family. That was the second time I remember Mommy's negative, and her answer was what I needed
"Maybe you DON'T," she'd said; "but can any of us ever say we deserve to belong in the Family of God?" That night she taught me the secret of personal joy in God's Love and Grace completely free of all else.
Which is why, several years after that incident, in the backyard while hanging up laundry on the clotheline, I told Mommy I wanted to follow God with all my heart the way she had.
If He called me back out to the mission field, I decided I wanted to follow Him here. This was the third time Mommy spoke to me using a negative. She put down the clothes in the basket and said slowly, "June, if you don't want disappointment, if you don't want heartache, if you don't want to ever shed tears, DON'T become a missionary." But she followed that up with: "But if you want the greatest joys, if you want real satisfaction, if you want to know what it is to say, 'God has worked,' then do become a missionary."
I guess Mommy had been "following up" each negative with a positive: So receive Christ, don't just know about Him; realize God's Love has nothing to do with being deserving of it
The "Missionary's Mundane Footwork" photo? That's one of my sisters helping canvass the new neighborhood with introductory brochures.
