Passers-by in Life

When I was four years old, my father passed away, and my mother had to take us six children back to the countryside to do farming. At that time, we were very poor. As I grew up, I could feel that life was hard and uneasy to my mother. She became a widow at a young age, and to her, my father was just a passer-by in her life. She had to bring up so many children alone, which was really hard. So, I had a wish in my heart that in the future I would find an ideal Mr. Right as my husband and live a happy life.
At the age of 20, I really met a tall and handsome boy. I was secretly pleased, for I adored him so much that I took him as the man I would marry. Man proposes, but God disposes. Just when we were going to get engaged after one year of dating, he suddenly said that he decided to quit the job and further his education and asked me to wait for him for another several years. Despite my reluctance, I still agreed to wait. Two months later, in order to help our family financially, my mother asked me to work in my relative’s family business. So, I left my hometown and went there in another province. My relative arranged for me to go to a factory to purchase goods, and during the period I knew the boss of that factory. He asked me to work in his factory and promised me a high salary, so I accepted the work there. That boss, with a rather unimpressive face and a shorter stature than mine, simply couldn’t match with my boyfriend. However, he tried every possible means to court me. Although I told the boss plainly many times that I had a boyfriend already and I didn’t like him at all, he still insisted that he would marry no one but me. Several months passed, and my mother was seriously ill. So, I left my relative’s home and went back to my hometown. I thought that by leaving him, I could get rid of his entanglement. But unexpectedly, not long after I arrived home, he somehow got my home address, made a 27-hour train journey, and eventually reached my home. He even knelt before me and refused to rise up unless I accepted his proposal, saying that if I didn’t marry him, he would never marry anyone else this life and would rather be a monk. At that point, my heart melted. I knew he was the only child in his family. If he really became a monk, his mother would be very grieved. The elders told me that a man never kneels to anyone easily because “A man’s kneel is as precious as gold.” It seemed he was serious about me. At that time, my seriously-ill mother who was confined to her bed considered that he was quite kind and good to me, so she hoped that I could marry him and thus I would live a carefree life in future. Then, I had no choice but to say yes, thinking that my mother’s hope for me was realized. Half a year later, my mother passed away and I lost the reliance, so I really married him. And my first boyfriend, Mr. Right in my heart, became a passer-by in my life. That year, I was just 23 years old.
Because I didn’t love my husband and always found him disagreeable in my eyes, I quarreled with him frequently. In the second year of our marriage, I asked for a divorce, but he refused. So, we managed such life all along. Five years later, in order to afford a better education to our children, he went abroad to do business, whereas I brought up our two children alone at home and lived a separate life with him. Such a life lasted twelve years. Later, because our children were studying abroad, I also went there. But two months after I arrived there, he returned homeland for some reason. Because I always disliked and rejected him, I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t visit him until seven years after my stay abroad. Against my expectation, less than two months after I stayed with him, he decided to go to another country to make money. As our two children gradually grew up and could live independently, he always asked me to go to his place and live with him, but I just didn’t want that. Just like that, we separated with each other for twenty years; he was also a passer-by in my life. During those years, I asked for a divorce for many times, but he refused every time. Although he loved me all the time and provided me with a rich life after we married, I always felt lonely and sad in my heart and was always dissatisfied with our marriage. I often thought back to my past and complained about my being born into such a poor family and knowing my husband. I also complained that I had been too young, too ignorant, too weak, too unstable in stand, with the result that I had made a wrong choice, married someone whom I didn’t like, and built a wrong family with him. For this reason, I always felt sorrowful, perplexed, and confused about my marriage.
Later on, one of my best friends preached the end-time gospel of Almighty God to me. I read these words of Almighty God, “Marriage is a key event in any person’s life; it is the time when one starts truly to assume various kinds of responsibilities, and gradually to complete various kinds of missions. 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” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Yes, before I got married, I indeed had a lot of fantasies about marriage and had my standard for an ideal spouse. I hoped that my Mr. was a tall, handsome, and rich man. But the reality was: The man I liked passed by me, yet the man I disliked became my husband. Just like Almighty God says, “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. And so, 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; so many arouse the envy of others, so many are misunderstood and frowned upon; so many are full of joy, so many are awash with tears and bring despair…. 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; 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” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
Look back to the years of my marriage. I expected to marry my boyfriend, the Prince Charming in my heart, yet he became a passer-by in my life like an episode. What shook me more was that the “unimpressive” man whom I was never attracted to became my other half in my life. Although my husband fulfilled my material needs, I was reluctant to live with him, a man who I disliked all day along. So, I always missed my “former boyfriend” and always felt remorse for my choice. I sank deeper and deeper, was more and more distressed, and increasingly felt I could hardly withstand such a marriage and even wanted to get divorced to escape from such a bondage, but my husband “declined” and never wanted to divorce me. Not until I accepted Almighty God’s end-time work and read God’s word did I realize that the reason I lived in misery and was dissatisfied with this marriage was that I had no knowledge of the Creator’s sovereignty and arrangement. I wanted to choose a good-looking man as my husband according to my own viewpoint of a happy marriage and never accepted my unimpressive husband. Thus I always lived in the bitterness caused by myself and couldn’t get free from it. All the sorrow, confusion, and perplexity are caused by myself. Today, Almighty God uses His words to remove my confusion and correct my viewpoint. Because of the sovereignty and arrangement of the Creator, we two irrelative persons got together and became a family, affecting each other’s destinies. Because of such a marriage, I changed from leading a poor life without parents and without reliance to leading a rich life with sufficient supply. Because of such a marriage, I had the chances to contact some people, occurrences, and things that related with it and had the chance to receive salvation and come before God. I not only didn’t know how to appreciate God’s grace and feel satisfied with it, but instead wanted to escape from the Creator’s sovereignty and arrangement and always acted in opposition to destiny stiff-necked. Little did I realize that everything the Creator arranges is perfect for man and there is God’s good purpose in it. In the Creator’s eyes, every created being has its special mission and has the value of its existence. Marriage is only a procedure for men to accomplish their missions. As a created being, I should obey the sovereignty and arrangement of the Creator, should properly perform my responsibility of a created being to manifest the Creator’s authority, and take a proper attitude toward my mission in my marriage. After this realization, I get unprecedentedly released in my heart, have a right viewpoint and direction of my future life, and can take a proper attitude toward this marriage and toward this “passer-by” in my life. Thank Almighty God for leading me out of the bitter sea with His word!