By Zhuiqiu
I’m a cosmetologist and my husband is a farmer. We got to know each other during a Chinese Valentine’s Day activity found in Malaysia: throwing mandarin oranges. One year later, we had a church wedding in the presence of a priest as our witness. When I heard the priest praying for our marriage, my eyes became moist, and I prayed to God silently, “I hope this man can look after and take care of me without change or pause and can accompany me through my whole life.” At that moment, I was deeply moved; I even felt my heart was weeping unceasingly.
But once our marriage actually started, the conflicts between us began to appear. Every day, my husband went out to sell vegetables at 4 a.m. or so, and came back after 7 p.m., but when I got off work, it was already after 10 p.m., so we seldom had time for each other. When I dragged my exhausted body home, I wanted his concern, care and understanding, such as asking me how my work was going or whether I felt happy or not. However, almost every time when I got back home, I saw him either watching TV or playing with his phone, and sometimes he even didn’t greet me, as if I didn’t exist. All this made me very depressed.
Sometimes, when I experienced some friction with my colleagues or customers, I would complain about it to him. Once, there were some conflicts between a customer and me at work. I felt very troubled, so I complained about it to him after getting back home, but he just responded “Oh” as he played with his phone. Seeing him giving me the cold shoulder, I said in a tone of anger: “Did you hear what I said?” He looked up at me and said, “Yes!” Then he bowed his head and continued playing with his phone. His indifferent attitude toward me made me feel very hurt. So I shouted at him, “Can’t you reply since you’ve heard? Are you a wooden puppet? Can’t you chat? Do I also need to speak with you on the phone?” Seeing that I was starting to nag, he didn’t pay any attention to me anymore. But the more he didn’t speak, the angrier I became in my heart, insisting on forcing him to speak, so I kept speaking. Then, he suddenly yelled, “You’ve said enough!” I was so frightened that I suddenly stopped speaking. But right after that, I continued quarreling with him and my voice was louder than his. Finally, not until he stopped speaking first did our quarrel come to an end. On another occasion, I spoke about my grievances at work to him. I thought he would comfort me, but to my surprise, he actually said, “All you have seen are problems with others, but you are unable to look for fault within yourself. It takes two to tango.” His words made me mad. I thought: “What type of person is he? He even doesn’t know how to comfort his own wife. He’s just like a fool.” Afterward, I seldom told him about the issues I encountered in my company because I thought even if I told him, he wouldn’t be understanding of my feelings. Later, he did try to ask about my job, but I was already in no mood to respond him. Gradually, he asked me no further questions, and the things we could talk about became less and less. When I encountered troublesome matters again, I would go out to drink with my friends and complain then, and sometimes I didn’t go back home until dawn. Seeing I often got home so late, my husband said I treated our house as a hotel, and even my mother-in-law and brother-in-law also put the blame onto me, which made me feel quite unbalanced inside. Hence, I was even more resentful of my husband, feeling he didn’t have the ability to protect me. As a result, we constantly quarreled with each other. Sometimes, after quarreling, he didn’t talk with me for several days or even a week. I was angered even more by this, feeling that he must have grown weary of me.
One night, after supper, I was playing with our child in my arms on the sofa. My husband was playing with his stuff. I asked him, “Do you hate me? Why do you always give me the cold shoulder? If you have some thoughts about me, just speak straight!” He didn’t utter a word, so I continued asking until he really became impatient and then he yelled at me, “Don’t ask anymore. Every day you have so many questions. I’m bored stiff of it!” Seeing his reaction, my anger rose immediately: “You blew your top but you didn’t answer my question. What on earth do you want? How could I have married somebody like you?!” Then, we started to quarrel with each other. While quarreling, he stood up and gave me a push, and I fell onto the sofa. When he actually got violent with me, I couldn’t bear it anymore. I felt there was no way I could continue to live with him anymore, so I put our child down and ran into the bedroom in tears to find our marriage certificate. Upon seeing that I’d found it, he came to grab it off me, but as he tried to do so his body pressed down hard on my wrist. Immediately, I felt a heart-piercing pain—my wrist had fractured. At that moment, my heart almost broke: Was he really the husband I’d selected carefully? Was this the marriage I deserved? I’m his wife! How could he do that to me? From then on, I didn’t hold onto any hope for our relationship.
In April, 2016, by chance, a sister preached the Lord Jesus’ gospel to me and said, “The Lord loves us and for the sake of saving us, he was nailed to the cross.” I was moved by the Lord’s love, so I accepted His gospel. Afterward, I told the pastors of our church about the problems between my husband and me. They told me, “Only when we change ourselves first can we change others. We should love our neighbors as ourselves and love our enemies, just like the Lord.” So I tried to change myself: After work, I no longer went out with my friends to drink; when I saw my husband ignoring me and I wanted to lose my temper, I would pray to the Lord and ask Him to grant me a forgiving heart; sometimes, even if I quarreled with him, later on I would try to get through the impasse. Seeing my changes, my husband also started believing in the Lord with me. After believing in the Lord, the quarrels between us became fewer for a while. Seeing the Lord’s salvation of us, I was moved very much.
However, as time passed, I found that we still couldn’t control our emotions, and fights often broke out between us. Especially when one of us was not in a good mood, we would both have no patience or tolerance. Consequently, we quarreled more bitterly. After every quarrel, I would feel great pain within my heart. So I prayed to the Lord, “O Lord, You taught us to love our enemies, but I really can’t do it. When something that my husband does doesn’t accord with my will, I am full of defiance and dissatisfaction. O Lord, what should I do?” Later, I actively attended all the courses organized by our church, hoping to find a solution, but I failed. Then I asked the group leader for help. But he just replied, “I also often quarrel with my wife. Even Paul also said, ‘For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwells no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not’ (Romans 7:18). None of us can do anything about it.” For a moment, I felt dazed: Could it be that we have to go through our whole lifetime quarrelling?
In March, 2017, my husband, who had always been quiet, suddenly came to life and he began communicating the understanding of some verses with me. What was more unbelievable, his sharing allowed me to feel very enlightened. I was somewhat puzzled: How could he suddenly seem to have changed into another person? By accident, I found that he had joined a group on LINE. Because it was already deep in the night, I had to ask him about it the next day. The next morning, we went to our church together. Walking down the street, I asked him what he chatted about with others on the Internet. He told me seriously that he was investigating God’s work of the last days and said: “The Lord Jesus has returned and His name is Almighty God. He is expressing words and doing the work of judging and purifying mankind in the last days. This precisely fulfills the Bible’s words: ‘For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God’ (1 Peter 4:17). When we seek God’s work, we should pay attention to listening to God’s voice. If we blindly cling to our own conceptions and imaginings, if we do not seek the truth or pay attention to hearing the voice of God, and merely await the revelation of God, then we won’t welcome the return of the Lord.” Hearing this news, I was shocked, because it was so inconceivable. I recalled an Indian pastor once told us that we should humbly seek everything about the Lord, so I prayed to the Lord: “Abba, heavenly Father, if Almighty God is Your return, may You point out a clear way to me. If not, may You protect my heart so that I won’t abandon You. Amen!”
After the prayer, I opened the Bible and began to read. When I read the words in the Book of Revelation: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20), I was suddenly moved somewhat, feeling as if the Lord was speaking to me face to face. I thought: “Has the Lord really returned?” Then I also thought of the verses that the pastor explained on the Lord’s day a few days before. So I turned to John 16:12-13: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come.” I was very excited: If the Lord really has returned, then does it mean that the problems about my marriage will be resolved? Hence, I hurriedly asked my husband to help me contact the brothers and sisters of The Church of Almighty God, because I wanted to study Almighty God’s work of the last days, too.
To Be Continued …
Part Two: Testimony in Marriage: Who Resolved My Family’s Conflicts? (II)