13. Tears of Forgiveness

Raymond Eng

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, As God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32.)

In 2018, though Alex was sick, his health was still good. At that time, he and my daughter helped me to open the first ‘Sonic’. Sonic is a hamburger chain store. At the time, we differed in how we saw things, and his being non-Chinese, our cultural backgrounds differed. On top of it, he had no experience in doing business, so we differed in our opinions on to how to handle things.  To top it off, we had a communication and generational gaps, the family relationship wasn’t at its finest. At the end, we went our separate ways and they quit their work at Sonic. We did not see one another, no communication, not even a ‘hi’. For more than three months, we had not exchanged a single word and my heart was very sad. All I could do was to wait quietly, to pray for them quietly, hoping one day they could truly grasp how much we really loved them.

One day as my wife and I were ready to take a plane to Hong Kong, we got a call from our oldest daughter. She said, “Dad, can we come see you?” I said immediately, “Of course!” They arrived at our home soon after. At the time Alex was sick, and he wasn’t well. Seeing his weakened frame, my heart wrenched, as he took his steps, his whole frame twisted with unstable and wobbly steps. It was so painful to watch. We hugged and cried, forgave each other, to resolve prior misunderstandings and biases. We forgave one another in God’s love. “As the Lord has forgiven us, let us forgive one another.” We shed ‘tears of forgiveness’ and had reconciled since then, and our relationship was better than before. Our love for one another deepened, thank God for that!

Credit: Eng, Raymond. Edited by Angelyn Loh. Translated by Abraham Koo, Raymond Eng, 2020.