By Cheng Lin, China
However, when I experienced friction with my husband, I couldn’t help but miss that person, fantasizing: If he were my husband, he would treat me well. I knew that my such thoughts weren’t right and wouldn’t please God; I also made an effort to forget him and treat my husband a little better. Even if I seemed to be a lot kinder to him than before, I couldn’t entirely take him in inwardly.
One day, I heard some words in The Man’s Fellowship: “It won’t work if you always want to get rid of the environment; it won’t work if you always want to avoid responsibility; it’s more impractical to always want to attain personal desires, and if you do so, you’re even more torturing yourself. Is it clear? (Yes.) Someone always resents that his wife is ugly, or that her husband is unsightly. In the face of the problem, what lessons can we learn? (Obedience.) How should you deal with it? … How should you treat your wife (husband) in accordance with God’s will? Someone always feels like he is wronged, thinking her husband doesn’t match her or his wife doesn’t match him. Who doesn’t match you? Who are you? How much more honorable are you than others? What do you lift yourself up for? Don’t the sort of people have the problem with their disposition? (Yes.) You always view yourselves as good, superb and honorable people as if no one can match you. Does it indicate that you have the truth? … Those who don’t have the truth belong to refuse without any value. It’s right to treat yourselves this way. Don’t think yourselves so noble, so honorable; nor do you think others aren’t even worth a penny. You should treat others correctly, and treat your wife, your husband and your children correctly without personal desires. When you really think that way and view things in this way, you won’t be refined and won’t suffer. Do you understand? (Yes.)” Through the passage of fellowship I understood that the reason why I was unwilling to obey was that I had my own standard in my heart. I was always disdaining my husband; and I compared him with that person, always feeling that man was better than my husband. Actually, all that was from my imagination. I compared an imaginary man with my husband, put him down everywhere, and didn’t see his advantages at all. This was too unfair to my husband. What I had suffered was indeed caused by my imagination and desire, and was the result of my disobedience to what fate had in store. I realized I was indeed too silly and I was torturing myself. Furthermore, I had set up my own family but I couldn’t completely forget the person of my dreams all the time, which meant that I wasn’t loyal and steadfast in marriage. Thinking of these, I realized that it wasn’t that my husband’s performances were poor but that I failed to do my duty as a wife. I thought myself superior and disdained my husband, thinking that he looked ordinary and didn’t know how to care about me. I thought it wronged me to marry him. At this time I felt very ashamed and saw that I was so ugly, unreasonable and hadn’t an ounce of sense. Then I knelt down on the ground and prayed to God: “Oh, God! Thank You for Your guidance to me! You have enabled me to realize that my viewpoints are too absurd, and that my desires are too great, unrealistic. I shouldn’t have asked too much of my husband. Oh, God! In spite of the fact that I didn’t marry the person I was in love with, I have known that Your good intentions are behind it, and that I shouldn’t have had requirements for You. You know my shortcomings and what I need. You are even clearer about what kind of ways to use to save me, while I am ignorant and see through nothing. I believe that Your heart is beautiful and good, and that what You have done is good. In the following days I’m willing to obey Your arrangements, and take in my husband from the bottom of my heart, instead of treating him with cold words or belittling him as before …” After praying I felt a little enlightened in my heart. When I was willing to change my viewpoints, I could have a chat with my husband in a calm tone and we wouldn’t be irritable like before the moment we talked to each other; the distance between us became closer; I felt the transformation of my husband’s attitude toward me, too. Finally my relationship with him became more and more harmonious.
Later, I read God’s word again: “One encounters many people in one’s life, but no one knows who will become one’s partner in marriage. Though everyone has their own ideas and personal stances on the subject of marriage, no one can foresee who will truly, finally become their other half, and one’s own ideas on the matter count for little. After meeting someone you like, you can pursue that person; but whether they are interested in you, whether they are able to become your partner—that is not yours to decide. The object of your affections is not necessarily the person with whom you will be able to share your life; and meanwhile, someone you never expected may quietly enter your life and become your partner, the most important element in your fate, your other half, to whom your fate is inextricably bound. … Whether marriage itself brings happiness or pain, everyone’s mission in marriage is predestined by the Creator and will not change; this mission is something that everyone must complete. The fate of each person that lies behind every marriage is unchanging, determined long in advance by the Creator” (“God Himself, the Unique III”). The passage of God’s word totally undid my knot in my mind which had confused me for many years. Even though I experienced the love that was engraved in my mind, that man wasn’t my other half. It turned out that how God decides our marriage is not based on our own preferences but on the missions God gives us and the roles we play in marriage. Under the domination of the Creator, whether our wishes come true is not up to us.
When I was thinking back to the scene after scene I had experienced all these years, my heart suddenly lit up. Although my husband looked ordinary and didn’t know how to care about other people, yet he supported me in my belief in God and didn’t prevent me from fulfilling my duty as a creation. This is precisely the value of God arranging the marriage for me, containing God’s wisdom, omnipotence and earnest consideration. At that time, I couldn’t help but feel gratitude and praise for God deep in my heart. God is so lovely! I was so blind and had too high requirements, so that I couldn’t understand the meaning and value hidden behind the marriage God arranged for me. I had always been misunderstanding God, complaining that my marriage wasn’t as good as I expected, and longing for the one in my visions. I really was so rebellious! But for the guidance of God’s words to me, the knot in my mind couldn’t have been undone forever. I indeed witnessed God’s good intentions of arranging the marriage for me. Consequently, I offered to God my grateful prayer. Since God’s word undid the knot in my mind, I, who had never spoken my mind to my husband, began to tell him my inner thoughts as well as my previous suffering. It was beyond my expectation that he not only didn’t blame me but also treated me much better than before: He would value my advice in everything at home; when encountering difficulties in life, we would talk them over together; we talked with laughter and were no longer angry with each other. Whoever saw what we were then, they all said we both were completely different from what we used to be.
Once my sister-in-law said to my husband on purpose: “It’s said that Cheng Lin has believed in God.” He said: “She seems to have totally changed to another person since she believed in God. I know that she follow God to be good and I support her. Not only does she believe in God but I’ll believe too.”
There was one time when I was having small talk with my sister. She saw that I was blessed with happiness, and told me: “Luckily you failed to marry so-and-so. He is very dissolute and has got many women. Though he has his own child now, he has divorced his wife. If you had married him, you would be suffering so much!” Hearing my sister’s words, I couldn’t help feeling ashamed. Because originally I didn’t understand God’s will, I lived in suffering and despair for not getting married to him, complaining about my own marriage and being unkind to my husband. Now I got to know that all this was God’s care and protection to me. If I had married him according to my wish, I would be surely in great pain now. In view of my love to him, if he had betrayed me, I didn’t know what kinds of foolish things I would have done. I think of my husband, who isn’t handsome, gentle or thoughtful, but honest and well-behaved and not fickle. He takes good care of our family and gives me his true heart. At this point, I really realize from the bottom of my heart that God’s love and salvation to me is so great: I have the opportunity to come before God and to enjoy the stable environment of believing in God. Seeing God’s love to me, I can’t express my thoughts with any words. It’s God’s word that has changed my life, undone my knot buried in my mind for many years and saved our family as well. God’s word allows our home in danger of being broken to be full of cheerful chatting and laughing and makes us have a happy life. I give my sincere thanks to God because it’s God who has brought us all of these changes. All the glory be to God!
The End.
Part One: The Marriage That God Has Arranged for Me Is the Greatest (I)