faith – Page 2 – Writing for Sophia

Saying goodbye to my parents

Published on March 14, 2025March 14, 2025 by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

On February 28, 2025, I dropped my parents off at Hell on Earth, aka LAX, early in the morning. I’ve dropped them off at this airport numerous times. But this time, they weren’t flying back home to Virginia. They flew back to their mother home, South Korea.

They had four luggages and one backpack. For people who had lived so economically and simply, they were shocked by how much stuff they had accumulated over the 24 years they had lived in the United States– mountains and mountains of stuff that they threw out and donated and gave away.

I remember the story my father used to repeat to us, the way patriarchs retell family legends, of them packing all their belongings in Korea into two luggages, and landing in Singapore as fresh missionaries with a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old. My father was filled with ambition; my mother filled with apprehension. Now they return home with twice the luggage, five times the wrinkles, 34 times the lived experience of full-time ministry, and infinite times the joy and gratitude.

Woori was wailing as we drove to the airport that day. She hates being in the car seat, and no matter how many tongue-clucking and funny faces my omma made, she made her displeasure known. So by the time I pulled the Mazda SUV up to the curb of Tom Bradley International Terminal, I was a little frazzled, my overstimulated senses as messy and stuffy as my heart.

We pulled the heavy luggages out to the curb. Then we embraced. Once, twice. I had to let go quickly as I wasn’t technically allowed to park there, but my hugs were also hasty because once I enfolded my arms around my omma and abba, breathing in their familiar scents, touching the bodies that cradled me skin-to-skin from the moment I was born, I didn’t want to let go.

They waved. I waved. Then I hopped into the SUV and pulled out, back into the smoky tunnel of LA morning traffic. And as I drove away, Woori cried, and I too cried.

It is an end to an era.

It is silly, I tell myself, to be this sad. It’s not like my parents are dying, or unreachable. They are simply moving an ocean away, and with technology, I need only tap my screen to see their faces and chat with them. It’s not like I got to see them that often even when they were stateside, since we lived in opposite coasts.

But it does feel, in a way, like death. Or at least, an ending. They have closed down their church of 24 years, the church I grew up in, served in. The church that sent me off to college and then welcomed me back when I dropped out after being hospitalized, and then sent me back off again. The church about which I have complex feelings, the way anyone does with family members squeezed under one roof. The ministry my parents gave more than half their life to is changing. I can no longer go back “home” to Virginia, and that feels sad, even though Virginia hasn’t felt like home in years.

It also feels like a death to my hope that my children will be close to their grandparents. Living overseas, I grew up seeing my own grandparents once every three years, at most, and whenever we visited them, I felt awkward. Each visit was like meeting strangers for the first time. We had almost zero history and shared very little memories and experiences. They didn’t have much to say to me, and I didn’t have much to say to them. I really don’t want that for my own children. The thought of them not knowing their grandparents, not receiving their affection and admonishments and doting, pains me.

But more than anything, this closing of an era is a jolting reminder to me that my parents are aging. During the two weeks they spent with us here in LA before they flew to Korea, I saw my parents get more easily tired. Omma has lost more than 15 pounds and is dealing with health issues, while abba needs a few naps a day to push on. Omma has always been more physically fragile, but Abba to me has always been like an oak tree– thick, strong, unwavering, abounding. Even his voice was like oak– a rich, loud baritone. To see his sparse gray hairs, to hear his cracking voice, I felt fear and anxiety, knowing the thing that most human beings face at some point in their lives– the passing of their parents– is drawing near.

Death was a regular topic while my parents were in LA. For the first time, they told me what they wanted when they died. Both told me they want us to pull the plug should they be in a coma. They want us to scatter their ashes in the mountains. We also talked about what to do if one of them dies before the other. It’s terrible talk, but it needed to be said.

Being a 37-year-old wife and mother is to be sandwiched between two duties– one to the family I’m raising, and the other to the family that raised me. One family is fresh and new, still knobly and plump like buds about to bloom. The other is wilting, the peak season long passed. I myself am in full bloom, but I’m noticing a few petals starting to droop, and I know my peak is over, particularly as I feel the growing aches and creaks of aging. It is a very odd, uncomfortable, conflicting season in life, to be worrying about your kids at the same time you worry about your parents.

I knew my parents would have financial issues. Now that they are no longer receiving an income from the church, they had to figure out a new living situation. They didn’t have anything planned for retirement other than social security. They have no property, no assets. When they applied for a new credit card, the company gave them a $1,000 credit line. They couldn’t even afford to continue staying where they’ve been living for 22 years– a townhouse that’s 40 years outdated, with tiny rooms and laminated kitchen cabinets that are literally falling apart.

That’s how my parents had been living all these years. They tithed about a third of their income to the church. They never considered building wealth, at least not the earthly kind. My mother didn’t once own a designer handbag. My father wore the same suit he bought in Korea decades ago, and his ties were gifted by others. They lived simply and trusted that the Lord will provide.

I have less faith, I suppose. I got a little angry when they refused, several years ago, David’s offer to buy their townhome for them so they didn’t have to worry about housing. I got irritated thinking about this again after they told me they shut down the church. “You should have said yes to David’s offer when you had the chance!” I said to omma.

And that’s when they decided to return to South Korea and apply for dual-citizenship. It was the most practical decision– Korea has great benefits for the elderly so they don’t have to worry about health care; they could comfortably live on their social security there, since housing is cheaper, as long as it’s not in major cities such as Seoul. But they underestimated the cost of housing even in smaller towns. Their budget could only afford old, rundown places in rural villages.

Meanwhile, David and I are renovating our new house. What was originally going to be a bit of a fix-up here and there turned into a full gutting. Basically, we are building a new customized house. Our renovation budget has blown out of proportion and I’m embarrassed to share it. While my parents were here, I was deciding on wall paint colors, and omma accompanied me to get some paint samples, which cost me about $160– for freaking paint SAMPLES! The money we are spending on this house is insane. Three exterior doors cost us $15,000!!!

It just didn’t feel right, that we are building our dream house while my parents look for crappy, bug-infested housing in the countryside. I felt a pang to see how excited my mother was for us. She wanted to know what we’re doing for the kitchen, the bathrooms, the exterior paint, and had plenty of opinions. She told me she enjoys watching home renovation videos on YouTube, something I learned for the first time, and it wrung my heart to realize that she admires a tastefully decorated and designed home but never had the chance to live in one, and in fact, never imagined she could.

So one evening, while my parents watched Tov and Woori, and David and I were on a date, I proposed to David that we help my parents buy a house in Korea. Years ago, David had loaned his brother money for a business project, and his brother was finally returning that sum back to us. Perhaps we could direct those funds to my parents’ housing instead?

I was a little nervous suggesting this to David, not because I thought he’d refuse, but because it puts me in a vulnerable position, and I pride myself for being self-sufficient and independent. And though technically this money belongs to both of us, it’s still a lot of money, and it’s money that came from David’s earning, not mine. So it took a lot of swallows for me to ask David.

I wasn’t surprised when he agreed. I knew he would. But I was still touched beyond words when he did. Turns out, a day ago, he had been listening to a devotion about not storing your treasures on earth but on heaven, and that had made him ponder. Then that Sunday, our pastor preached on the Ten Commandments. To honor your parents, the pastor said, includes providing for them financially in their later years.

What’s more, both of us had been praying about money this year. I’m praying about generosity, and David’s praying about wise stewardship of our finances. The Lord has blessed us financially with a new house, and we want to use it for the glory of Him and the good of others.

All of this didn’t feel like a coincidence. It felt like God was blessing us to bless our parents.

David and I agreed to broach the subject on the last night with my parents before they left LA. I told David I was nervous about bringing it up, because historically, abba has been strongly against receiving any help from us. I had no idea how he would react, and I braced myself for a five-point argument on why he should accept our help. I told David he had to be the one to offer it; it couldn’t come from me. And I told him to emphasize how this conviction came from God.

That night, after dinner, David and I exchanged glances. It’s time, I said with my eyes. David turned on a show on TV so Tov won’t bug us, while I took Woori off her high chair and held her on my lap so she’d be quiet.

“So,” David began. “Sophia and I have been praying about being generous with what God gave us. And I’ve been thinking about how we want to invest with what we have…”

“Oh?” Abba said, having no idea where his son-in-law was going with this.

Well, I was really proud of David that night. He mentioned everything I had hoped he would, and when he was done, my father grasped his hand, nodded, and said, “I receive.” And then he choked up, and said again, “Thank you. Thank you Lord. I receive.”

I was so shocked that I couldn’t believe my ears. Omma was just as incredulous, so she asked him, “Wait, so what do you mean. Does this mean you will accept the money?”

Yes, Abba said. He sees how much the Lord has blessed us, and by accepting it, He too is receiving God’s blessings, and because God blesses those who give, he believes he is also blessing us by receiving it.

I felt my heart release with relief and gladness. Before David and I got engaged, I had actually asked him to use whatever he would have spent on my engagement ring, and donate it instead to my parents’ ministry. That didn’t end up happening, but now that I had more than I could have ever imagined– I, who once couldn’t afford laundry detergent and had to make my own!– it made my heart feel so full that I was able to present this one gift for my parents in their older age, in this new season of their life. This was the first significant financial support I’d ever given my parents. It was also the first step in tilting the balance towards me supporting my parents, rather than them supporting me– an end to an era, indeed.

What made my heart just as full, however, was that David was doing this with me. As I pray about generosity this year, my own husband is showing me how to be generous not just with his finances, but with his heart.

It is easy for me to be generous with my own parents; I would give them part of my liver if they needed it. But it’s not as easy for a son-in-law to be as generous, to treat his wife’s parents as his own. He wasn’t just giving my parents a better house; he was giving them his love, and in there is his love for me. And I think in that moment, my father recognized that too– he was moved not just by the unexpected gift of a house, but by the clear display of a husband’s care and love for his daughter. In this, he saw God’s grace, His love and providence and goodness and faithfulness that have never failed him in his almost 35 years of ministry.

After my parents left to pack up for the next day’s travels, and after David and I had put the kids to bed, I gave my husband a hug.

“Thank you,” I said, tearing up.

“For what?” he said, acting all cool.

“For everything,” I said, and I meant it.

David made a “huh” noise, a sound he makes when he’s pleased but also trying not to sound too pleased about it. Then we talked about the show he’s watching.

We’ve never been a couple who talks all sweet and cooey and sentimental. We reserve nice sappy words for birthday cards, where we don’t have to make eye contact and hear those words out loud, so awkward and unnatural to our ears; we don’t kiss goodnight, we knock heads.

But within that brief exchange was a lifetime of card sentiments– I felt seen, valued, cherished, respected. David’s act of generosity had so many layers of blessings in it, like a mille crepe. He blessed my parents. He blessed me. He blessed our children by showing them what it looks like to honor one’s parents. He blessed my brother, who now can worry less about our parents. He blessed my relatives in Korea, who no doubt will hear from my father how the Lord has blessed him through his son-in-law. This is how true generosity works– it just keeps on giving and giving.

Saying goodbye to my parents felt strange. I felt a little like I was the parent, sending my kid to school for the first time. As the last person to hug them goodbye before they left the U.S., I felt like I was sending them out into the next chapter of their lives. I was a little worried, a little anxious, but also excited and proud. I wanted to cling on, but I had to let go. And I heard God usher them away, saying, “Well done, good and faithful servants.”

And off they go.

These are the best days of my life

Published on January 28, 2025January 28, 2025 by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

Woori has been going through a sleep regression the past three weeks or so, exacerbated by teething. Like clockwork, at about 12:30 am, she wakes up screaming. And from then on, she wakes up every hour or two hours.

In the past month, she also stopped napping in her bassinet. She doesn’t even last 5 minutes before screaming and flailing so hard she’s breathless and hyperventilating.

All that to say, I am a walking zombie. I wake up in the morning groggy, with that deep-in-the-brain ache because my brain has barely been able to shut off all night. My body and hormones are off, because I’m night-sweating again, waking in a soaked T-shirt. I’m almost falling asleep as I drive Tov to school. Often, I pass out half-dead with lurid dreams while holding Woori in the nursing chair. (Somehow, I still have energy to read novels late at night, but that’s the kind of nonsensical superpower parents have when we are liberated after putting the kids to bed.)

It’s been hard, but honestly I don’t really have the mental and physical energy to even think about how it’s hard. I just go on, putting one foot before the other, day by day, dragging my weary body through the mire of parenthood.

There have been moments of lucidity though. I remember one morning, as I heard Tov having a tantrum with David in his room, and Woori starting to fuss in bed with me (we co-sleep now— it just keeps everyone sane), and felt the bunched-up clammy sheets under me, and raked my hand through my damp, disgusting postpartum hair, probably pulling out 237 strands of hair that I don’t have to lose, all of a sudden, this thought came to me: “These are the best days of my life.”

It’s cathartic to complain about parenthood, especially those early childhood years, when everything is a struggle, from shoving a sweatshirt over a screaming, snotty toddler’s head, to driving stressed because the baby’s shrieking like a banshee in her car seat and there’s nothing you can do about it. Complaining about the hard moments of parenthood is viral content on social media— I enjoy them; I enjoy commiserating and sharing them with my fellow moms and dads. It brings much-needed comic relief to a period that feels so long and consuming.

But still. These will be the best moments in our life.

When I was young, I could not wait to grow up. I wanted to be independent, to earn my own money, choose what I want to eat, where I want to go, without asking my parents for permission.

Meanwhile, my childhood best friend dreaded growing up. “I want to stay a child forever,” she told me. She liked her cocoon of innocence and lack of responsibilities, liked the assurance that someone bigger and wiser is taking care of her.

“You’re stupid,” I told her, with all the eloquence of a 9-year-old. “Or crazy. Why would anyone ever want to stay a child?”

She gazed with longing into the past. I gazed with impatience into the future.

And I’ve lived like that since. I’ve always been impatient for what’s next, what’s new. When we immigrated to the United States, I eagerly kissed everything and everyone in Singapore goodbye. Next! In high school, my actions and thoughts were all set towards preparing myself for college. Next! Once in college, I couldn’t wait to graduate and be done with school forever, and kickstart my career. Next! Then once I got a job, I was never content in my career. I wanted to work in someplace more prestigious, and lived in constant frustration of feeling stuck in my job, watching with envy when my peers seemed to hop on to shinier opportunities. Next. Next. Next!

What’s next? What’s new? Is this it? To what end I was working towards, I did not know. What was the achievement that would finally satisfy me, to make me relax and say, “This is it,” what was the accomplishment that would allow me to start enjoying what I have, I do not know. I was just perpetually restless, rootless, reaching out and out.

And now. As a parent, as a mother of a 2.5-year-old and a 5-month-old, I seem to do both, looking both forward and backward. I look at old pictures of Tov and my heart aches. Sometimes he looks up at me a certain way and I lose my breath; I’m so shocked at how boyish, how non-toddler his expression is. My boy is growing up before my very eyes, and I am still caught off guard by how fast.

Even as I hold Woori, who blessedly still fits in my arms and stays where I put her, I am already mourning, looking into to the near future when she’s 2 like Tov and Tov is almost 5, and I feel nostalgic for the very period I’m currently in.

Parents have talked about the importance of “soaking in” every moment, but I feel like every moment, even as I’m living right in it, keeps slipping through my fingers like water. Rather than soaking, the moments seem to flow out like a stream, and all I have are pictures and reels on my iPhone as memories that are memories because they are already in the past.

Yet at the same time, I’m still planning my future, wondering what’s next. When are my kids going to be independent? When can I start having my time back, my body back? When can I restart my career? When I can have my mind and creativity back? When can I start writing again? And because motherhood makes you insane, I also wonder: When can we have a third baby?

Perhaps the present moments keep slipping me by because I keep looking back to the past and out into the future, but rarely stay still to enjoy the present. Honestly, I don’t know how. I haven’t practiced that enough to suddenly do it now.

Which brings me to that morning when I woke up feeling that heaviness of trying to swim upstream, facing the new day with exhaustion, and that seemingly random thought came to me— that these are the best days of my life. I was startled by how strongly this sentence entered my mind, so I took it as a conviction from the Lord, and I thought of Ecclesiastes: “Hevel, hevel, all under the sun is hevel.”

Working hard on a career is hevel, or meaningless, or vanity. Marriage is hevel. Raising kids is hevel. All in life is hevel, unpredictable and fleeting, impossible to grasp and control. So I was right: It is hard to “stay in the moment” because time keeps moving, tick tick ticking along even as we practice meditation to “be still.”

But there’s still joy found in the hevel, Ecclesiastes tells us: “Light is sweet, and it is pleasing for the eyes to see the sun. Indeed, if someone lives many years, let him rejoice in them all, and let him remember the days of darkness, since they will be many.”

I love how realistic and grounded Ecclesiastes is, at once exhorting us to enjoy what we have while also acknowledging that life feels futile and hard. Yes, we are all drawing one day closer to death every day. We all die, including powerful filthy-rich smart-alec jerks like Elon Musk and saints like Mother Teresa. Death is the ultimate equalizer; as terrible as it is, it is fair.

Accept the hevel, accept that time is passing us by, accept that a lot of things that mean so much to us will not mean much after we’re gone. Enjoy our remaining youth while we can. Work hard while we can. Enjoy our bread while we can, and enjoy the sun when it’s out.

And always remember: “Fear God and keep his commands, because this is all humanity. For God will bring every act to judgment, every hidden thing, whether good or evil.”

“Judgement” sounds so ominous, but not when the judge is God, who is perfect in every way. This perfect God sees it all. He sees me nursing Woori at 4 am. He sees me packing Tov’s lunch in the morning before my first cup of coffee. He sees me holding back my temper when Tov is having a tantrum. My kids will not remember all these little acts of service, and if I’m banking on my husband or society to acknowledge everything I do, I’ll become bitter and petty. But God does. He sees what I do, and He also sees right into my heart as I do these daily domestic duties.

As I slide into the early stage of middle age, as the rosiness of youth wilts, as I gain hard-lived experience and knowledge with every fine line and wrinkle, I want to remind myself that I’m living the best days of my life.

One day I’ll look back and miss these days when I can still carry Woori on one hip, when I can cuddle and smother Tov in kisses while he giggles, and hopefully, hopefully, by then I would have gained enough wisdom and contentment to be able to miss the past yet also wake up every morning declaring, “Today is the best days of my life.”

To have and to lose

Published on January 9, 2025January 9, 2025 by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

I remember the first morning after our wedding, the first time I woke up as a wife. I don’t know why, but that few seconds of a single moment is like a neon painting in the gallery of my memories, impressionable and unforgettable.

I remember opening my eyes and turning right to see the profile of my husband— husband!— sleeping on his side, breathing softly, a slight crease on his neck where his shoulder almost touches the side of his face. This is my husband, I marveled.

And then just as quickly, I thought, He could die. And just like that, I could lose him. In becoming a wife, I’d suddenly also gained the very real possibility of becoming a widow.

Besides for my parents and brother, that was the first time I had something as precious, yet also as fragile, as life. A husband. Someone who belongs to me, yet is so out of my control, someone who brings me immense joy, yet also capable of bringing me immense sorrow, anguish, fear, anxiety.

I never thought of myself as a fearful, anxious person, until one day my parents got old, I married a man, birthed two children, and bought a new house. And then I realized: It’s not that I had no fear. It’s that I didn’t have enough to lose. And now I do.

As I write this on my iPhone, Woori sleeps in my arms, because she’s been refusing to nap in her bassinet. Tov is in school, kept indoors because of the terrible fires currently still raging in Los Angeles. David is gone to a work meeting. And outside, the sky is sludgy and smoldering, as ashes dot the air above this great, terrible city like snow flurries. The light that streams through our window is a soft, glowing orange-gold, lovely but eerie because it’s not normal.

LA is burning. The photos and videos streaming through my screen are like snapshots of an apocalyptic movie— houses and buildings razed into black skeletal frames, memories and keepsakes and well-worn furniture all disintegrated into white and black flakes.

When I first heard about the Pacific Palisades fire, the news barely made a dent in my attention, because there are always some kind of wildfires in Southern California during this drought season. But then the news got more frantic, more high-pitched. And then I got news that Altadena is burning as well, a small town-vibe city where one of my best friends live, and the news drilled from my mind to my heart.

This is real now. It is so real it’s surreal. I didn’t believe my friend would lose her home. I couldn’t believe it. I was willfully optimistic out of desperation. I felt heartsick, thinking of all the happy times we had shared in her humongous, well-maintained, well-lived backyard. Of all the BBQ parties and playdates and picnics on her lawn, underneath the prosperous orange trees. As of now, it seems my friend was able to save her house from burning down, but overnight, her entire neighborhood has exploded and crumbled into rubble, and the fire is still not contained. It’s insane. It’s like a nightmare from which we cannot wake.

All this is happening while David and I are building our new house. For the last two months, I’d been watching countless YouTube clips on how to design a kitchen, how to decorate the living room, etc. I’d been overwhelmed with the decisions I had to make: What paint colors to choose for the bedroom walls— rose bisque or allspice? Upholstered bed or metal bed frame? Brass or bronze tones for hardware? And now it’s laughable and embarrassing that those decisions seemed so important or intimidating, while thousands of people have lost their house, their investment, their belongings.

This tragedy, hit so close to home, is terrifying and sobering. It reminds me yet again that the more I have, the more I have to lose. And I can lose them in an instant, just as a neighbor’s truck took David’s mom away in an instant, and an ember took away more than 2,000 homes and businesses in an instant. Every day when I drop Tov off to school is a gamble, but every day I keep Tov at home is also a gamble. Every day, every moment is a gamble in life. Life is a roulette of gain and loss, pain and joy, success and failure, and we are all just helplessly watching as the wheel spins and spins, wondering on which pocket the ball will land.

This sounds incredibly, horribly depressing and fatalistic. Unless you have the gospel. Unless you still see a reason for hope.

On New Year’s Day, I sat at our local Starbucks and asked God what to pray for the new year. I do this every year. Last year, I prayed for community, and God answered and continues to answer that prayer. This year, 2025, I considered various prayers and kept coming back to the word “generosity.”

It seemed fitting, at a time when we are building a new house with the idea of opening it up to our slowly forming community. I also thought of “generosity” not just materially but in spirit, as God revealed to me in 2024 how petty, small-minded, and selfish I am in my thoughts and actions towards others, especially those whom I love the most, those who I’m most afraid to lose. I want to be generous in my thoughts towards people in my life, to see the best in them and delight in them, to not judge and compare and scorn. I want to be generous with my time and attention with others, to be quick to give my ear and shoulder to those who need it.

As I thought about what it meant to be generous, I listened to a podcast that pointed out that true generosity comes from a deep acknowledgment and understanding that everything that I have belongs to the Lord. That this is not “my” house but God’s. This is not “my” money but God’s. This is not “my” husband and “my” children but God’s. Everything that I have is a gift generously shared by God, and generosity is simply good stewardship of that. Generosity demands a radical change of mindset towards what I have in life. It’s not: Here I have this much, so I can give you that much of what I have. It’s: Everything that I have is the Lord’s. Nothing belongs to me.

Even as I write this, I am frightened of what this means. That maybe I didn’t know what I was really asking for when I pray about generosity, that God might ask me to open up my hands and let go of more than I am willing to share.

As I pray about this LA fire, currently already the most destructive in history, and I pray that the winds and fires will cease and houses and lives be spared, I also pray: The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Praise be His name. And though I don’t always feel this in my emotions, which tremble and quiver, I know it to be true. And there’s hope in that.