By Qingxin, Burma
When I was in middle school, pop music and various kinds of movies, TV dramas, and novels flourished, which deeply affected me. Especially the romantic fictions written by Qiong Yao, a famous writer in Taiwan, had the biggest influence on me. Famous sentences like “What on earth is love, that makes lovers vow to stick together in life and death?” and “Love is exalted above everything” all became my motto as well as the philosophy that I abided by in my life.
One day in 2004, when I just walked out of my work unit, someone behind me suddenly pulled my clothes. I turned around and saw a young man. He smiled and introduced himself, saying that he came to escort me home. Since then, every day before the day breaks he waited for me in front of my house and brought me to work by motorbike, and when I got off work he would also be right there waiting for me to pick me up. Whether it was winter or summer, he never missed a single day. Even if I refused him or treated him coldly sometimes, his passion for me didn’t abate in the slightest. Having seen the sacrifices he had made for me, I gradually began to believe that he was the one that I could entrust my life to, and that I had found the hero in the love story.
Three years later, we got married in the felicitations of our relatives. Two weeks after our wedding, I decided to sell my wedding ring, bracelet, earrings and necklace and used the money to help my husband start a business. My salary was used to pay the family expenses, and the money he earned could be used to build up his business. When I was enjoying the fruit of love, I also made plans and worked for our future.
However, good times didn’t last long. One and a half years later, my husband was addicted to the golf gambling game. And the more he played, the more he became addicted to it, even to the extent that he left his business in others’ charge. As a result, his business went into a decline and failed in the end. Even so, I never quarreled with him, because I thought: “He’s still young. A failure can serve as a lesson in his life. Forgiveness and forbearance to him are the foundation for maintaining our relationship, understanding and support are the basis of a happy marriage.”
After my eldest son was born, we made a new plan for our future. He promised me that he would not gamble again and would shoulder the responsibility for the family. I believed what he said, and dreamed of a new wonderful life in the future. But some time afterward, he broke his promise. He gambled away more than two million kyats, and the creditor threatened him to repay the debt within twenty days, or he would cut off one of his arms. I was very angry because he let me down again. However, what is done is done. I had no choice but to help him pay off the gambling debts, hoping that he would draw a lesson from it and not take the wrong path again.
My husband lost his job again, and my meager salary alone could hardly support the whole family. In February 2013, on the recommendation of a friend of mine, I went to work in another city for the salary there was higher than that in our local place, leaving my two sons, one four years old and the other only two, at home. It was not easy working away from home, not to mention the pain of being parted with my husband and children, but in order to support the family, I felt that the pain and exhaustion I suffered were worth it.
One day, my husband called me and told me that he wanted to study theology. Actually my income at that time was not sufficient for supporting the family and paying his tuition, but while thinking that he had experienced many failures in business, I felt it might be a protection for him if he devoted himself to the work of evangelizing, for it could keep him from the bad social conducts of the world, so I agreed to his request. During the period when my husband studied theology, I counted the days every day, thinking that when he finished his three years of study, I would also go back home to reunite with my family.
The seminary was on vacation from March to May in 2014, so I called my husband and asked him to bring our two sons to see me. On April 10, I finally saw my husband and children whom I had been pining for, and I was totally immersed in the happiness of a family reunion. However, when my children fell asleep that night, my husband told me, “I came here this time mainly to divorce you.” I was caught unprepared, and he immediately added, “I’m serious. I’ve found the woman I love.” I was overwhelmed with mixed feelings after hearing his words, pain, grievance, and resentment all welled up in my heart. It was a hot summer night, but my hands and feet were as cold as those of the corpse. I pined for a reunion with my family day and night, only to get the betrayal of my husband. Our relationship, which seemed to be stable all these years, changed all of a sudden, making me feel I was dreaming. I lost sleep that night. In the next few days, I deliberately talked with my husband about our past days, and asked our kids to sing and dance for him and kiss him, trying to let him feel the happiness of our family. Nonetheless, half a month later, he still abandoned us and went away resolutely. Seeing his departure, I burst out crying. Throughout these years, a happy marriage had been my major impetus, but suddenly, I lost it. I was perplexed, helpless, and paralyzed completely.
During that period of time, I wished that all the recollections of the past could vanish from my memory, for in that way my anguish would lessen. I feared to hear people speaking of my husband before me. As long as I heard someone mentioning his name, hot blood would pour into my brain. Then my head ached acutely, my face and four limbs became numb, and my breath became rapid, and I felt as if I would break down at any time. This went on for a period of time and my health was declining. To alleviate my pain, I tried to have all my time occupied, so that I would have no time to think about my husband. In spite of this, pain and depression still haunted me like a ghost. Later, I thought that reading famous books might help me alleviate the pain in my heart, so I read more than ten books and over three hundred short essays within several months. However, not only the wound of my heart wasn’t cured, I even became more and more painful in my heart. The heavy blow of the breakup of my marriage pierced my heart all the time. I felt as if I was living in hell.
Just when I almost came to a dead end, God stretched out his saving hand to me. In February 2016, I made the acquaintance of Brother Zheng and Sister Li Hui on the Internet. When I studied the Bible with them, I learned that the Lord Jesus had returned to the flesh and done the work of judgment and chastisement, which made me very excited. I regretted that I only believed in the Lord nominally in the past and didn’t come before Him to seek His will when I encountered difficulties in my life. Although I was indebted to the Lord, He still had mercy on me and arranged for the brothers and sisters to help and support me when I was in pain. Therefore, I made up my mind to follow the Lord wholeheartedly in the future.
Later, after my brothers and sisters learned that I encountered setbacks in my marriage, they helped me with God’s words. In one gathering, Sister Li showed me two passages of God’s words, “People harbor many illusions about marriage before they experience it themselves, and all these illusions are quite beautiful. Women imagine that their other halves will be Prince Charming, and men imagine that they will marry Snow White. These fantasies go to show that every person has certain requirements for marriage, their own set of demands and standards. Though in this evil age people are constantly bombarded with distorted messages about marriage, which create even more additional requirements and give people all sorts of baggage and strange attitudes, any person who has experienced marriage knows that no matter how one understands it, no matter what one’s attitude toward it is, marriage is not a matter of individual choice.” “Though there are millions of marriages in the world, each and every one is different: So many marriages are unsatisfactory, so many are happy; so many span East and West, so many North and South; so many are perfect matches, so many are of equal social rank; so many are happy and harmonious, so many painful and sorrowful; … In these myriad types of marriage, humans reveal loyalty and lifelong commitment toward marriage; they reveal love, attachment, and inseparability, or resignation and incomprehension. Some betray their marriage, or even feel hatred toward it. Whether marriage itself brings happiness or pain, everyone’s mission in marriage is predestined by the Creator and will not change” (“God Himself, the Unique III”).
Sister Li Hui said, “Sister, this is Almighty God’s fellowship about marriage, one of the six junctures in human life. God has said many words on the six junctures in human life, which are birth, growth, independence, marriage, progeny, and death. From God’s words, we get to know that every person has to pass through these six junctures in the course of his or her life, and that marriage is just one of them. Each juncture of life is a phase of one’s journey of fulfilling his mission as a created being; marriage is just one of these phases, not the destination of life, so we should treat our marriage properly. However, as we do not understand God’s sovereignty and His will, when the evil trend of the world instills varied false ideas about marriage into our mind, we harbor many illusions and requirements about marriage and adore a perfect love and marriage, thinking that love is exalted above all things and that marriage is priceless. Then we struggle hard to pursue love and take beautiful love and happy marriage as the only goal of life, which brings a lot of miseries to ourselves. We all forget that we have other paths to walk in our life, which are all the chances for us to experience and know the authority and sovereignty of the Creator. Therefore, we should treat our marriage in a proper way, and only then can we extricate ourselves from the blows and pain caused by the failure of marriage.”
Through God’s words and the sister’s fellowship, I felt brightened in my heart, realizing that I had not the slightest knowledge toward God’s sovereignty over man’s fate, and had never known that each step I took in my life was a chance to know the Creator. I only blindly pursued a perfect marriage, believed that “Love is exalted above all things” and “Love is priceless,” and even took these sayings as the only goal in my pursuit of a happy life. I harbored many illusions about marriage all along, and longed for marrying a fervent prince charming that Qiong Yao portrayed since my school days. So when my husband courted me infatuatedly, I was dazzled by the perfect love, to the extent that when he disappointed me again and again and when I became exhausted physically and mentally for saving our marriage, I still held onto my belief. When my husband betrayed me, I broke down completely and lived in the midst of pain and despair like a walking corpse. Weren’t these all caused by my blind worship of perfect love?
In the subsequent gatherings, the sister fellowshiped more with me, and my pained and depressed heart was greatly released. Besides, because I often had gatherings with my sisters, I also felt the joy and peace of being led by God. The pain caused by my broken marriage gradually lightened. I truly thank God in my heart.
One day, several months later, I happened to see a photo of my husband and the other woman on Facebook, and immediately a burst of ineffable hatred burned in my heart. After that, the desire of revenge took me over. I was haunted by this thought whether when I was sleeping, working, doing laundry or cooking. I became increasingly dark and painful inside, and just couldn’t extricate myself from it.
It was not until my sisters asked about my state that I opened up to them. After hearing that, a sister said, “Sister, it’s just because you have been bound by the illusory philosophy of ‘Love is exalted above all things.’ This is the scheme of Satan. Satan just wants us to sink into pain and live in hatred. We must see through Satan’s scheme according to God’s words. God says, ‘Satan is standing beside you, its eyes constantly fixed on you. When disaster strikes you, Satan revels in this; when calamities befall you, when nothing goes right for you, when you become entangled in Satan’s web, Satan takes great enjoyment from these things’ (‘God Himself, the Unique VI’). Besides, we must be clear that we all became selfish and evil since we mankind were corrupted by Satan. Apart from that, the evil trend of today’s society and varied winds of wickedness have taken hold of people’s mind. As a result, many people are living in evil and corruption, they are inconsistent in their inclinations, regard marriage as child’s play, and base their own happiness on others’ sufferings; there’s no sincerity or true affection among people, and the so-called true love is also based on certain conditions. If we are unable to see through the truth and continue to live in hatred and thirst for revenge, we’ll fall into Satan’s scheme. Moreover, since we have come before God and felt the joy and sureness of living under the guidance of God, we should abandon the wrong goals of life and try our best to pursue to love God, and this is the only meaningful life. As God’s words say, ‘But there is an exceedingly simple way to free oneself from this state, which is to bid farewell to one’s former way of living; to say goodbye to one’s previous goals in life; to summarize and analyze one’s previous lifestyle, view of life, pursuits, desires, and ideals; and then to compare them with God’s will and demands for man, and see whether any of them is consistent with God’s will and demands, whether any of them delivers the right values of life, leads one to a greater understanding of the truth, and allows one to live with humanity and the likeness of a human being. When you repeatedly investigate and carefully dissect the various goals that people pursue in life and their myriad ways of living, you will find not one of them conforms to the Creator’s original intention with which He created humanity. All of them draw people away from the Creator’s sovereignty and care; they are all traps which cause people to become depraved, and which lead them to hell. After you recognize this, your task is to lay aside your old view of life, stay far from various traps, let God take charge of your life and make arrangements for you; it is to try only to submit to God’s orchestrations and guidance, to live without individual choice, and to become a person who worships God’ (‘God Himself, the Unique III’). Satan attempts to use these wrong views of pursuit to firmly control our mind, so that our heart can never be free and released. If we want to free ourselves from such pain, we should, as God says, summarize our previous wrong viewpoints, and see clearly that there’s not the slightest happiness living by the wrong viewpoints of Satan and that we can only have a real life when we come before God. If we wish to change the way we live, we should frequently come before God, pray to God, read God’s words, and live in the state of being led by God, and only in this way can we overcome the temptations of Satan and become more and more released.” After hearing the fellowship of my sister, I came to realize that I had fallen into the scheme of Satan again. Satan used the photo of my husband and the other woman to tempt me, letting me hate my husband and even want to take vengeance on them. Satan is really too detestable!
After understanding God’s will, I often prayed to God and spent some time reading God’s words every day, and attended meetings and fellowshiped with my brothers and sisters. My state improved, and when I saw the photo of my husband and the other woman again, I became much more philosophical about it. Later, when I heard that they had built a family, the jealousy and hatred in my heart were not that strong, for I had had some knowledge of the path I should take in my life.
Now in the family of God, I have experienced the love from God as well as the support and provision of my brothers and sisters. In this family, my broken heart is healing day by day and I feel more and more relieved and joyful in the depths of my soul. I thank God from the bottom of my heart. Had it not been for God’s timely salvation upon me, my life might have come to its end long ago. It is God who saved me from the suffering of a broken marriage and led me onto the bright path of human life.
