By Yifan
Thinking Happiness Could Come True as She Wished.
The beginning of Lianxin’s married life was comparatively more peaceful. Although not until late did she and her husband go off work every day, her husband always took on all housework such as cooking, washing clothes and so on after getting home. Looking at the figure of her husband who was busy with housework, she felt pretty happy. Because her work was more tiring than that of him and the economic income was also more than that of him, thus before they married, he promised that he would do all housework and said he didn’t want the health of his good wife getting worse. Hearing such words, she felt it was right that she chose to entrust her whole life to this man.
It made her full of hope for the future life having a stable job and income and also a husband who was fond of her. She encouraged herself in her heart to redouble her efforts to make money. And she planned to buy a good house in five years.
Several years had passed in a flash. Just when she thought she was not far from the happy plan, however, an unexpected thing broke her beautiful dream …
Only When Awake Did She Feel the Freezing Cold of the Reality
Lianxin, who was always healthy, suddenly didn’t feel good in the fifth year after she got married: Her legs were weak and hurt. In the beginning, she thought it was because of the exhausting work and that she would feel well after a while. But later her condition worsened so that she had to ask for leave frequently in order to reduce the tiredness brought by working too long.
One day, she really couldn’t stand the pain, so she wanted her husband to take her to hospital to have a health check. But beyond all expectations her husband said with a stern face: “There is no need to go. The reason why you feel bad is because you are old.” After hearing these words, she cried out within: “Oh, my gosh! I am just more than thirty. But in your eyes am I already old?!” Suddenly, she felt that her husband before her eyes became very strange.
As a consequence of not getting the care of her husband, she was quite depressed. But she had no place to say, and she could only bottle her worries up. She fancied maybe when her illness got better, her husband would change the attitude to her. Yet, how could she know that it was just the beginning of her pain.
Two years later, her illness was more and more serious, and even taking every step was very difficult for her. Although she was in such a plight, she still didn’t stop working because she didn’t want to be the burden of the family. But her husband didn’t express much care to her, nor did he have the slightest desire to let her stop the work and recuperate at home. He would rather ride a motorbike to take her to go to work and pick her up home every day.
She felt that their marriage which was originally sweet was gradually approaching the worst. There is a saying “Husband and wife are like birds sharing the same grove, who each fly away at the time of death.” In the past she disapproved of it while at that time she had experienced to some extent. She and her husband hadn’t faced the point of life and death, yet her husband had revealed the heartlessness. She really didn’t dare to think about what her future life would be. As she was in declining health, she was somewhat scared and worried, feeling the future was dark and bleak.
The Affection in the Past Disappeared Completely
One day in June of 2014, Lianxin went to hospital to have a check because of a serious gynecological disease. She was diagnosed as having encephalatrophy, cerebral arteriosclerosis, and uterine fibroid. The doctor told her the serious encephalatrophy would lead to paralysis; cerebral arteriosclerosis would cause cerebral haemorrhage. Such a result, like a thunderbolt, made her unable to accept it. How could her condition have deteriorated to such an extent? Holding the laboratory test reports, sorrowful and hopeless, she really wanted to get the comfort of her family at that time.
She called her husband and told him the result. Unexpectedly, before she could finish her words, he shouted on the phone: “You will use up our money if you treat the disease like this. How could we survive later?” And then he hung up the phone with a loud snap. At that moment, she immediately felt entirely dark before her eyes as if she suffered a head-on blow. She didn’t know why her husband had become so hard-hearted. The marital affection of seven years was actually so untenable!
It’s said that the happy marriage is that the husband and wife can live together till old age inseparability. She had never thought that when she suffered diseases, which would bring a heavy economic burden to the family, the previous affection was as transient as fleeting clouds. If the marriage was just a deal which aimed to fulfill each other’s interest, at that time she, held up by illness and badly needing a treatment, already had no bargaining chips to trade. At the corner of the corridor in hospital, she gradually squatted down and huddled to herself, shedding the desperate tears.
She thought: What will the future life be? What extent will my condition deteriorate to? Will I face the death? … Facing such plights, she felt very helpless. What she could do was just to resign to the fate and take one day at a time.
In Despair, She Heard God’s Calls
The torment of illness and her husband’s heartlessness left Lianxin in constant agony and she felt that living in such a family was like living in hell on earth, so she had to divorce. After divorce, Lianxin recuperated at her younger sister’s home. She needed to sleep for 20 hours every day and even couldn’t open her eyes if she slept less thirty minutes than 20 hours. One day, her sister read a passage of God’s word to her when she was awake: “Almighty God, the Head of all things, wields His kingly power from His throne. He rules over the universe and all things, and He is in the act of guiding us on the whole earth. … Almighty God is an all-powerful physician! To dwell in sickness is to be sick, but to dwell in the spirit is to be well. So long as you still have one breath, God will not let you die” (“Chapter 6” of Utterances of Christ in the Beginning).
God’s words inspired her. She had been treated by doctors for so long, but there was not one who dared to promise that he could cure her illness and even no one could determine her life and death. But God’s word just bears witness that God possesses the authority and power of saving man. Hearing God’s word was like grasping the opportunity of a lifetime, and she rekindled the hope to survive in her heart. She believed in God’s words and believed that God has the power of commanding mankind’s life and death. She accepted God’s work and entrusted her life into God. She became a Christian.
One day, she heard a hymn of God’s word: “The Almighty has mercy on these people who have suffered deeply; at the same time, He is fed up with these people who lack consciousness, as He has had to wait too long for an answer from humanity. He wishes to seek, to seek your heart and your spirit, to bring you water and food and to awaken you, that you may no longer be thirsty and hungry. When you are weary and when you begin to feel something of the bleak desolation of this world, do not be lost, do not cry. Almighty God, the Watcher, will embrace your arrival at any time” (“Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs”).
Listening to the graceful and melodic singing, she couldn’t help shedding tears. In that instant, she felt the call of God’s love. God is waiting for man’s heart to awaken and turn back, watching the man He wants to save. She, being still in illness, no longer complained about her miserable life and no longer felt worried about the future. It looked as if a traveling wild goose found its habitat—she felt that her heart landed at a place where it could be laid forever, and it was embraced by God’s love.
Finding the Rebirth and Feeling Elated and Tearful
After believing in God, Lianxin often attended meetings with brothers and sisters, read God’s word and sang songs to praise God. From God’s word she knew that God is the Creator who created the heavens and earth and all things, and also the Master of the laws of all things and the fate of mankind. Man’s birth, family and blessings and disaster are all controlled by God’s hands. As long as we always live in God’s presence and submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, God will give us care and protection. So, she prayed to God in her heart: Regardless of whether it was the blessings or the disaster, she would submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements. She believed that God is righteous.
In the following days, she put aside her worries about her condition and had a good rest, just letting nature take its course. Yet she obviously felt her health got better and better, and the pain in her body was also lessening little by little. One day, brothers and sisters came to have a meeting at her sister’s home. She helped cook, and she didn’t feel tired after standing for two hours. Since her condition worsened, she had never stood for so long. This made her feel surprised. Afterward, she even went out to preach the gospel together with brothers and sisters as if she had forgotten that she was a patient.
A year later, she went to the hospital to have a physical check-up. The result was that her encephalatrophy, uterine fibroid, and stomach illness had been all cured without treatment; and all of the norms of her body miraculously returned to normal.
Walking out the gate of the hospital, looking at the bright blue sky, and feeling the bright and beautiful sunshine, she felt that she herself was really reborn. Not everyone could taste such life experience of narrowly escaping with the death. She had felt God’s love in this experience and had a taste of God’s authority and power, which was far more precious than health. She wept tears again, but this time it was the tears of gratefulness toward God and of joys.
The Knot in Her Heart Was Untied, She Gaining the Relief
After recovering, she often recalled the past. She couldn’t figure out why her husband used to be so heartless to her? Until later, she found the answer in God’ words. The word of God says: “For example, if you ask some evildoers why they acted the way they did, they will answer, ‘Because it’s every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.’ This single phrase expresses the very root of the problem. Satan’s logic has become people’s lives. They may do things for this purpose or that, but they are only doing it for themselves. Everyone thinks that since it is every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost, people should live for their own sakes…. These words of Satan are precisely the poison of Satan, and when people internalize it, it becomes their nature. Satan’s nature is exposed through these words; they represent it completely. This poison becomes people’s lives as well as the foundation of their existence, and corrupted humanity has been consistently dominated by this poison for thousands of years” (“How to Walk the Path of Peter” in Records of Christ’s Talks).
She understood: It turns out that we mankind all live by the rules of living “Every man for himself, and the devil takes the hindmost” after we were corrupted by Satan, so we all became selfish and base, and we seek nothing but profit and lose the conscience and sense. Previously, the reason why her husband was kind to her was because she could earn money and make the common interest for each other. So, that kindness was not love but merely a transaction. When she was unable to fulfill the deal any more, her husband’s love instantly turned into coldness and heartlessness. And then he abandoned her. Seeing through the fact that Satan corrupted and afflicted mankind, she freed herself from the resentment which she kept recalling. Although she didn’t obtain the love of man, she luckily received God’s salvation and lived under the care and protection of God’s love. She felt more and more at ease.
Repaying God’s Love Is Her Life Wish
Nowadays, Lianxin throws herself wholeheartedly into the ranks of preaching the gospel and testifying of God. She nearly stays with brothers and sisters every day. They entirely open up to each other and walk the path of an honest person; when encountering difficulties, they will help each other; they are tolerant of and patient with each other. In God’s house all men are equal without the distinction of high and low. She has enjoyed the real happiness and joyfulness in the church.
God says: “God’s treatment of each and every person is earnest and responsible. He treats you more responsibly even than you treat yourself. Is this not so? God does not speak idly, and neither does He flaunt His elevated position or flippantly deceive people. Instead He honestly and silently does the things He Himself needs to do. These things bring blessings, peace and joy to man. They bring man peacefully and happily into God’s sight and into His family; then they live before God and accept God’s salvation with the normal reason and thinking. … There is no deceit in God, no falsity. God is faithful, and He is true in everything He does. He is the only One that people can count on; He is the God to whom people can entrust their lives and everything they have” (“God Himself, the Unique VI”).
Having walked this path, she has tasted that only God loves mankind most. Before, she had thought that her husband loved her most, and she placed all the happiness and hope of life on her husband, dreaming that they could hold each other’s hands and accompany each other until old age. She never thought that their apparent warm affection didn’t stand the test of her diseases and the previous vows of eternal love were replaced by heartlessness and abandonment. Just when she thought her life had already approached the hopeless situation, God reached out His saving hands to her. God’s words gave her the hope to live and led her all the way till today step by step. If it were not for God’s mercy, who could comfort her badly damaged heart? If it were not for God’s salvation, even if she hadn’t been afflicted to death by diseases, she would have died of pain, despair and depression.
Now, she has found where she belongs, and has nothing more to desire in her life. Life comes from God and surviving the diseases is even more God’s grace. Therefore, her life pursuit is doing her best to preach the gospel and testify to God’s salvation and marvelous deeds so as to repay God’s great love.