By Mengya
In the journey of our lives, each of us has suffered frustrations and sorrow, adversities and pain. We have felt desperate and helpless. But please don’t give up, because there is love and concern always accompanying you. And I have tasted such love …
My wife and I had a little business selling green bean pies with our relatives. Every day, we had to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning and work until about 11 o’clock at night. Although it was a little tough and tiring, I was comforted that my family life was harmonious and felt that my efforts were worthwhile. However, my harmonious life didn’t last long, and a miserable and sorrowful life ensued.
My wife and mother often quarreled with each other over trifles. I was caught between them, like the filling of a sandwich biscuit. When I advised my mother not to quarrel with my wife, my mother said that I had begun to neglect her once I had a wife; when I advised my wife not to quarrel with my mother, my wife said that I was showing partiality toward my mother. After my wife got into angry arguments with my mother, she would vent her anger on me, and say some harsh words about me. I always let things slide, and refrained from quarreling with her. I thought that as long as she didn’t go too far, it was okay, and that even when quarrelling we were still a family. So I had spent most of my time in family “wars” but without the smoke of gunpowder.
In the blink of an eye, seven or eight years passed, but I never thought that the family conflicts would become more and more intense, and even caused a tragedy.
One night, I heard my mother coughing continuously in her room, and I felt something was wrong. Although my mother sometimes coughed, she didn’t keep coughing like she was that night. Then, my eldest sister came to me with two bowls of water and anxiously asked, “How is it that the water in my house is different from your elder brother’s?” I quickly smelled it and cried in fear, “Oh, no! Sister, why is there a smell of pesticide in the water from your house?” I suddenly remembered that tonight my mother had had dinner at my eldest sister’s home. Now she was coughing terribly, so wasn’t it related to the water? Not wasting time to think, I hurriedly sent my mother to a town hospital. The examination showed that my mother had been poisoned by pesticide. Luckily, due to the timely treatment my mother was not in danger. But before I was able to recover my senses, I heard that my eldest sister’s husband was also sent to a hospital for emergency treatment because he also ate the meal cooked that night. He was hospitalized about a week before he was out of danger
Inquiries were instituted after the event, and the culprit who poisoned the water in the tank with pesticide turned out to be my wife. This shocked and saddened me so much that it felt like my heart was being cut by a knife. I couldn’t help but cry to myself: “Why? I have been going out early and returning late every day to work hard for our family, rain or shine. I hate spending the money I earn on unnecessary trifles, and try my best to give my wife and children a better life, and never let them feel wronged. I always treat my wife genuinely, so how could she be so cruel and do such a wicked thing to me? …”
Afterward, my wife paid the price for what she did: She admitted criminal responsibility and was sentenced to four years in prison. Seeing I was always sad because of my family being broken up, my mother said to me: “Don’t be sad for such a woman as her. She isn’t worth it. In fact, I know that she’d long ago had an affair with another man. I just didn’t dare to tell you. But I never thought that she should do such an evil thing as poisoning us because she was afraid that I would speak out.”
My mother’s words, like a hammer, struck my heart like a hammer and made me extremely sad. I thought: If I had found out about this thing earlier, I could have divorced her earlier and it wouldn’t have come to this. Now I really couldn’t hold my head up high. My nephew scolded me angrily because of his father being poisoned: “You couldn’t even control your wife. Are you a man?” At that time, anger, hatred and shame all welled up into my mind. These attacks made me feel that I was a failure and I thought it was meaningless to carry on living like this.
In a fit of pique, I rode my motorcycle to the seaside. There were dark clouds in the sky, and the wind was blowing. It seemed that a heavy rain would come. I plodded along the boundless sea, wanting to end my life. At that moment, I suddenly thought of my aged parents and two young daughters. I couldn’t help but feel culpable: Do I have the heart to let my parents suffer the pain of dealing with my death? My children have had no motherly love, do I have the heart to let them suffer the pain of losing their father and becoming orphans as well?
Thinking of this, I halted and squatted on the beach. At that moment, I felt I was like a lonely boat on the sea without anything to guide it. I was helpless, the tears streamed down my face unceasingly, and I screamed in my heart: “Oh! Heaven! What’s happening to me? It should never have come to this …”
In the following days, I inwardly encouraged myself: “Cheer up! Don’t give up on yourself! For the sake of your children and parents, you have to earn money to support the family.” At that time, although I didn’t want to die anymore, whenever I was quiet and started thinking of the thing that had happened to me, I would get a dull pain in my heart and grievances and distress would well up so much that I was unable to breathe.
In order not to make myself think these troubling things, during my free time at work, I started drinking with my friends. I, who originally didn’t know how to smoke, also got this bad habit. I wanted to use these things to numb myself. However, no matter how I escaped from the worry, in the dead of night my heart was still enveloped by grievances and pain. For a long time, I could hardly get to sleep at night.
Just when I was most miserable and helpless, God’s salvation came upon me. I saw God’s words say, “Humanity, having strayed from the Almighty’s provision of life, is ignorant of the purpose of existence, but fears death nonetheless. They are without help or support, yet still reluctant to close their eyes, and they steel themselves to drag out an ignoble existence in this world, sacks of flesh with no sense of their own souls. You live in this way, without hope, as do others, without aim. Only the Holy One of legend will save the people who, moaning in the midst of their suffering, long desperately for His arrival. So far, such belief has not been realized in those who lack consciousness. Nevertheless, the people still yearn for it so. 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. He is keeping watch by your side, waiting for you to turn back around. He is waiting for the day you suddenly recover your memory: when you realize that you came from God, that, at some unknown time you lost your direction, at some unknown time you lost consciousness on the road, and at some unknown time acquired a ‘father’; when you realize, furthermore, that the Almighty has always been keeping watch, waiting there a very, very long time for your return.”
God’s words, like a warm current, consoled my heart that had hurt for so long. At the time, I was like an orphan who had wandered outside for a long time and then returned to his mother’s warm bosom. There was an unspeakable feeling that moved my heart. I thought back to the past: The frustrations of my family life had made me lose face completely. Not wanting to face the cruelty of reality, I wanted to die to escape the suffering. On the point of death, I suddenly thought of my aged parents and young daughters and so avoided death. When I was sad and miserable, sleepwalking through life like a walking corpse, God didn’t abandon me. He was and is always at my side, silently protecting and caring for me. Now He was using His words to call me, which made my numb heart gradually become aware again. I felt God’s love and salvation for me. Later, I started living a church life and often attended gatherings and read God’s words.
However, in the bottom of my heart, there was a knot that hadn’t untied. Sometimes when I thought of the past, I still had a grievance against my wife, thinking that all my pain was caused by her. Until one day, I saw God’s words say, “In truth, out of the myriad things in God’s creation, man is the lowest. Though he is the master of all things, man is the only one among them that is subject to Satan’s trickery, the only one that falls prey in endless ways to its corruption. Man has never had sovereignty over himself. Most people live in the foul place of Satan and suffer its derision; it teases them this way and that until they are only half alive, enduring every vicissitude, every hardship in the human world. After toying with them, Satan puts an end to their destiny. And so people go through their whole lives in a daze of confusion, never once enjoying the good things that God has prepared for them, but instead being damaged by Satan and left in tatters. Today they have become so enervated and listless that they simply have no inclination to take notice of God’s work.”
God’s words made me suddenly see the light. It turns out that all kinds of miseries and pains in the world are caused by Satan. At the very beginning, the ancestors of mankind that God created, Adam and Eve, were pure and vibrant, living in God’s care and protection without care or worry. Later, they were tempted by Satan, listened to Satan’s nonsense and betrayed God. After that, we humans began to keep away from God, living in Satan’s deception and affliction. Leaving God’s care and protection, we humans now all live by satanic philosophies and principles, such as: “Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost.” We have become selfish and mean, mercenary, and fight and harm each other for fame and gain. I thought: Didn’t my wife and my mother quarrel for their own interests? When my wife had an affair with another man, because she was afraid that my mother would expose the scandal, she wanted to silence us. Isn’t this all due to Satan’s harmful ways? Meanwhile, I’ve had a grievance against my wife, thinking that my wife had gone too far. She even cuckolded me, making me completely lose face and dignity. Even if she paid the due price for what she did, it wouldn’t get rid of my hatred for her. It is all because she made me lose out, and made me lose face and not be able to hold my head high, that I haven’t relented at all. I was unwilling to put aside the hatred in my heart and have lived with the torment of the pain. I saw that I was also being teased and tormented by Satan like this. Through the enlightenment and guidance of God’s words, I gradually put aside my hatred toward my wife. My spirit then relaxed and became a lot freer.
Later, I saw God’s words say, “Because the essence of God is holy, that means that only through God can you walk through life on the righteous path of light; only through God can you know the meaning of life; only through God can you live out real humanity and both possess and know the truth. Only through God can you obtain life from the truth. Only God Himself can help you shun evil and deliver you from the harm and control of Satan. Besides God, no one and nothing can save you from the sea of suffering so that you suffer no longer. This is determined by the essence of God. Only God Himself saves you so selflessly; only God is ultimately responsible for your future, for your destiny and for your life, and He arranges all things for you. This is something that nothing created or non-created can achieve.”
Yes! God really is the Ruler and Master of all things! Only God can save us and bring us light. Only if we accept God’s salvation and pursue the truth can we achieve fearing God and shunning evil, walk on the right path of life, and live a valuable and meaningful life. Thinking back to the past, if it were not for God’s salvation, I would never have known God’s earnest intentions and eager desire for mankind, and I would never have discerned the means by which Satan corrupts and harms mankind. I would have fallen into the trap of hatred and wouldn’t have extricated myself, and maybe would even have lost my life. It was God’s salvation that made me walk out of the confusion, pain and hatred, made me, who has drifted so many years, finally find a haven to berth at. Thinking of all this, I couldn’t help but offer a grateful prayer to God: “Oh, God! I thank You and praise You. Thank You for selecting me and saving me, ridding me of pain and hatred and giving me a direction and goal in my life. I’m willing to follow You forever, to walk the correct path of life, which is believing in You and pursuing the truth, and to fulfill my duty well as a created being to repay Your love.”
May all the glory be to God!
