By Nana, China
Not long after getting married, I got pregnant so I didn’t go out to work. In the daytime, my husband went to work, and my parents-in-law were busy with farm work, but I could only stay home and be bored. Sometimes I watched TV or did some housework, but most times I had nothing to do. Consequently, I felt totally fed up, and I expected that my husband would return straight home after work to be with me. However, when he came home after work he usually went straight out to play mahjong after our evening meal. It wasn’t until midnight that he came back, and I always felt so hard done by. Every time when he arrived home, I had a go at him. What he said always sounded good and he always promised that he would no longer come back home too late. Yet he still did. Seeing he was never obedient to me, I thought: “We just got married not long ago but you treat me like this. Whatever I say doesn’t work. There’s still a long way to go in this marriage, and it looks like you won’t take any notice of me at all in the future. No, I must come up with a plan to make you thoroughly obey me.”
One night, seeing my husband return so late, I said to him angrily: “I’m not asking that you don’t play mahjong. But can’t you spend less time on it? If you go on like this, then I’ll be done with this marriage. Tomorrow I’m going back to my parent’s place.” Seeing I was really angry, he quickly apologized. But I didn’t accept his apology because I’d decided to have it out with him and settle the matter.
The next morning, I didn’t have breakfast and went back to my parents’ house. At night, my husband went to pick me up after work. He said: “This time I’ve truly realized I was wrong. I won’t go home so late any more. Please come back with me.” Hearing his repentance and considering our parents’ concern about us, I went home with him. I thought he would not play mahjong too late after that experience. However, he just kept the promise for several days. After that, I often quarreled with him with tears running down my face. I beat him and kicked up a ruckus. Both the carrot and the stick were used, but all of it was still in vain. We went through several years of quarrelling that way. During those several years, I was in mental agony. I did not know when it would end and why he did not listen to me. Just when our marriage was about to break down, God’s salvation came to my husband and me.
I saw that God’s words say: “Adam and Eve created by God in the beginning were holy people, which is to say, whilst in the Garden of Eden they were holy, untainted with filth. They were also faithful to Jehovah, and knew nothing of the betrayal of Jehovah. This is because they were without the disturbance of the influence of Satan, were without Satan’s poison, and were the purest of all mankind. They lived in the Garden of Eden, undefiled by any filth, unpossessed by the flesh, and in reverence of Jehovah. Later, when they were tempted by Satan, they had the poison of the serpent, and the desire to betray Jehovah, and they lived under the influence of Satan. In the beginning, they were holy and they revered Jehovah; only in this state were they human. Later on, after they were tempted by Satan, they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and lived under the influence of Satan. They were gradually corrupted by Satan, and lost the original image of man.”
From God’s words I understood that the Adam and Eve created by God in the beginning had no corrupt disposition and worshiped God. Later, after being tempted and corrupted by Satan, they began to have various corrupt satanic dispositions. Furthermore, today our corrupt satanic dispositions have become more and more serious, and we humans don’t have any likeness of the man and woman created by God in the beginning. Through a period of fellowshiping about God’s words at the meetings, I knew that God’s work during the last days is to express the truth, judge, chastise and purify deeply corrupt mankind, in order that we, through reading and practicing God’s words, can shed our satanic corrupt disposition, live out the manner of true people, be taken into the kingdom and regain the life that Adam and Eve lived. This is also God’s original intention in creating man. In addition, I realized that the reason I quarreled with my husband in the past was because I had an arrogant, corrupt, satanic disposition, and wanted to take charge of him and make him listen to me. Only by reading God’s words more and practicing God’s words would I be able to achieve a transformation and then escape from the suffering. After realizing these things, I practiced consciously forsaking my corrupt, satanic dispositions by eating and drinking God’s words so that I wouldn’t live such a hard life any more. But because I was deeply corrupted by Satan and there were deep-rooted, satanic poisons inside of me, it was not easy for me to change. So, to purify and change me, God arranged a real-life situation for me.
After believing in God, my husband wanted to read God’s words more and didn’t want to play mahjong any longer. However, often he’d just have gotten home from work when his mahjong friends would call, asking him to go and play. He could not resist the allure, and usually went to play with them for the sake of saving face. Because I didn’t have knowledge of God’s work, I still wanted to change him, even giving him an ultimatum: Not to come back home if he couldn’t get home before 9:00 p.m. I also told him: “Playing mahjong is one of the worldly trends. We believers in God shouldn’t do it….” However, no matter what I said and did, all of it was still in vain.
In agony, I told my brothers and sisters about these difficulties during a gathering. Then a sister let me read a passage in the Fellowship and Preaching: “In the past, God summarized the corrupted nature of man in four words, arrogance, conceit, self-importance, and self-righteousness. This is a summary of the nature of Satan, and it is the exact image of Satan. … If you are wildly arrogant, then you will certainly regard yourself as all important; if you are wildly arrogant, then you are certainly irrational and will not listen to reason; if you are wildly arrogant, then it is certainly difficult for you to obey any person, and it is even harder for you to obey all of God’s work and God incarnate; if you are wildly arrogant, then you are unable to accept the real factual situation, and you are unable to accept the truth; … Since the wildly arrogant man is puffed up with conceit and looks down his nose at others, he is not friendly to others and is unable to treat others as equals, and he can never live in harmony with other people.” It turned out that I was dominated by my own arrogant, satanic nature, and always wanted to preserve my status before my husband and make him obey me and revolve around me. If he didn’t obey me, then I would try every way, and use both carrot and stick to discipline him such as through crying, quarreling and going to my parents’ house. I didn’t even allow him to enter our house if he returned late. Everything I did was in order to make him listen to me and accept my authority so that he wouldn’t dare to play mahjong next time. When my ambitions and desires could not be achieved, I would feel mental pain. It was entirely being harmed by and in the bonds of my corrupt, satanic disposition.
Then the sister fellowshiped this: “After being corrupted by Satan, we all become arrogant and conceited by nature and want to stand in God’s place, controlling and manipulating and changing others. This is unreasonable. God’s work is for the sake of transforming our life disposition. God permits certain situations to come upon us in order that we can rely on Him, look upon Him, pursue the truth, and pay attention to changing our life disposition. When we practice the truth and change, and have a normal relationship with God, then the people, events, and things around us will also change accordingly. Just as God’s words say: ‘Man’s heart and spirit are held in the hand of God, everything of his life is beheld in the eyes of God. Regardless of whether or not you believe this, any and all things, whether living or dead, will shift, change, renew, and disappear in accordance with God’s thoughts. Such is the way in which God presides over all things.’ God’s words are for us to practice and experience. Only by truly experiencing God’s words, can we see God’s wondrous deeds. Your husband has just accepted God’s work. He is busy with work in the daytime and has read few of God’s words. He hasn’t seen thoroughly how Satan uses this social trend, playing mahjong, to harm mankind. We should communicate the truth with your husband more so that he can understand God’s will and break free of the bonds of Satan soon. We shouldn’t continue to teach him according to our own arrogant disposition. You have taught him for so many years but he hasn’t changed. This shows that we can’t change him by ourselves. We must rely on God. Only God’s words can change people.”
Hearing the sister’s fellowshipping, I learned of God’s good intention in saving me. He permitted such a situation to come upon me in order to change my corrupt, satanic disposition and allow me to know His almightiness and sovereignty through the experience. God’s authority is supreme. Only God can transform and purify us. I had to read more of God’s words, rely on God and look up to Him with my husband to seek a change in our dispositions, as this is after God’s heart.
To Be Continued …