By Fang Qing
Xinru was on a train, and there was an unpleasant smell pervading the air in her carriage. Some of the other passengers were sleeping soundly, some were listening to music with headphones on, some were talking quietly, and Xinru—with her bag on her legs, her hands on the small table next to the window, and her hair being fanned by the breeze—was looking out of the window. Rows of brick houses and green trees were retreating backward quickly, and so were her thoughts …
Focusing on Making Money but Repeatedly Failing
The day was cold, with a grey sky. Xinru walked homeward with heavy footsteps, hoping to sleep in bed for a while once she got home. Recently, with the bank loan and the money borrowed from her and her husband Jianguo’s relatives, their rice processing mill had finally opened. The biggest problem was to deal with officials from the Industry and Commerce Bureau, Taxation Bureau, Food Inspection Agency, and other related government departments. It took a lot of money to bribe all of them so Xinru had to work day and night. But looking at the high-rise buildings along the roads, Xinru felt inspired, thinking: “As long as I work hard with my two hands, I will definitely own one of them in the future. The hardship and tiredness is just temporary. Come on!” She encouraged herself like this.
In the morning, Xinru had just got up when a sister came with some vegetables. Xinru said, with a bit of embarrassment: “Sis, you’ve come early today.” The sister smiled: “I see that you and Jianguo are so busy making money that you even don’t have time to cook. So I picked some vegetables this morning and brought them for you.” Then Xinru began to cook breakfast, and the sister said to her, while washing the vegetables, “You look tired. You’re thinner than before. You and Jianguo ran that clothing store and lost money not long ago and now you guys are running a rice processing mill and working even harder. I know you want to make money by your own hands to change your fate, but you can’t. Whether we are poor or rich, it’s in God’s hand. Believe in God with me. If you can understand these things, you won’t make yourself so tired!” Xinru said: “Look at many of my classmates. They all work hard and so have made lots of money. I’m as good as them. Sis, I want to make money. I just don’t have the time to believe in God with you!” The sister said: “Sis, we’ve all heard sayings like, ‘You will have it if it belongs to you, but don’t hanker after it if it doesn’t appear in your life,’ and ‘Man’s fate is determined by Heaven.’ So we cannot decide how much money we make in our life. It’s all in God’s hands. …” Xinru didn’t say anything more but thought: “When I was in primary school, my teacher told us ‘One’s fate is in his own hands’ and ‘You build a beautiful home with your own hands.’ I am tired of being poor. If I don’t work hard myself, how can I live the life of the rich? As long as I work hard, there will be food on the table and everything I need.” Then, some people came with rice for sale so and the sister left.
Xinru overheard the rice sellers say, “Looks like Jianguo’s wife is capable of handling a lot of business. Directly after she sold the clothing store, she opened this rice processing mill. What a capable woman!” Hearing this, Xinru was immensely proud of herself and thought, “This is just a start. When I make big money and buy a car and a house, you will all be even more admiring of me.”
But some time later, the government announced a new policy: No private purchasing of husked rice except for registered rice mills with a processing capacity of at least 50 tons and owners with assets of more than CNY 500,000. And only approved mills would be allowed to operate. This made Xinru extremely anxious. She discussed it with her husband and spent money on building connections with officials to grease the wheels. At the same time, they secretly processed rice at night and made around four to five thousand yuan every night by processing one truckload of rice. Such big profits made Xinru and her husband forget their fatigue. They busily worked in the mill, not sleeping most of the night. However, the good times didn’t last long. Officials from the local government, the Industry and Commerce Bureau, the Taxation Bureau, the police, and the Food Inspection Agency all came at the same time. They confiscated all of the husked and milled rice in the warehouse, shut down the mill, and fined Xinru. She was extremely miserable, and couldn’t sleep at night as she was unable to accept the fact that the mill she had devoted her life to operating had been closed down. But she thought: “This time I just had bad luck. I shall not be discouraged. I’m still young and will always find ways to make money.”
Xinru recalled that someone had mentioned that running a restaurant was profitable. “Why not open a restaurant?”, she thought. Then she woke up her husband and told him her idea. Her husband nodded.
After some difficulties, the restaurant opened. Xinru and her husband worked from dawn to dusk every day like robots and didn’t even have time for meals. Even though they were totally exhausted, they still didn’t make much money. Xinru felt thoroughly wretched and began to pick on her husband, saying that he had no ability. She became more and more cranky, often getting angry easily and quarreling with her husband over tiny things. In her pain, she yelled silently over and over again: “Why is my life so hard? I’m neither duller nor lazier than other people. But why do I have so much difficulty making money while other people earn it easily? Why can’t I fulfill my wishes?” In the end, Xinru had no choice but to close the restaurant and go back home. This failure was such a major blow to her that she stayed at home all day, without wanting to see anyone.
Refusing the Gospel and Remaining as a Slave to Money
In the evening, the sister came. Seeing Xinru’s gaunt face, her heart went out to her. She held Xinru’s hand and said, “My sister, listen to me. Don’t contend with fate anymore. Our whole lives have already been decided by God. God says: ‘Whatever your background, and whatever the journey ahead of you, no one can escape the orchestrations and arrangements of the Heaven, and no one is in control of their own destiny, for only He who rules over all things is capable of such work.’ Our fate has been arranged by God and we can’t change it ourselves. Think about it: When other people made money by selling clothes, you lost money. The rice processing mill you worked so hard at was shut down by the government. But you were still not willing to accept defeat, so you ran a restaurant in another town. You worked your fingers to the bone but you still didn’t make much money. Don’t these failures show us that if we don’t rely on God, don’t obey God’s dominion and arrangements, but try to build a beautiful home with our own hands we will live in great suffering?” After some silence, Xinru said: “Sis, I know you are good to me. But as soon as I recall that in my childhood people in the village all looked down on us because we were poor, I feel bad. Others leave home to work elsewhere, and can make money and live a good life. I’m as good as anyone else. I believe I also can make it. Sis, I know it’s good to believe in God. It won’t be too late for me to believe in God after I make enough money.” The sister sighed and said sadly, “My silly sister, it seems that you just won’t let up until you hit a brick wall. All these years you have been trying hard to change your fate by your own hands. All your joys and sorrows are intimately connected with money: More money makes you happy and less money makes you sad. You have become a complete slave to money and haven’t realized that you have been ensnared and fooled by Satan. My sister …” Hearing the sister’s voice choking with emotion, Xinru said: “Let me fight again and earn back all the money I lost. And then I will come and believe in God. How about that?” Xinru’s response left the sister felt disappointed and she didn’t say anymore.
The evening descended and lights were lit. Walking alone on the street and looking at the busy night scene, Xinru recalled the sister’s words: that the fate of every man and woman is controlled by God. She pondered them and thought they made sense. But then she had second thoughts: “People only get opportunities by proactively seeking them out. People who do business in Shenzhen all have made big money. My cousin lives in Shenzhen. I should go there and start with some easy work. Meanwhile, I will see what I can do to make quick money. I believe I can make good money very soon.” Thinking of all this, Xinru walked home fast. At that moment, a strong wind started to blow, as if heavy rain was on the way …
Disease Came and Destroyed Her Dream
Having settled in her cousin’s place, Xinru walked the streets under the scorching sun every day to look for a business that could make good money.
Two weeks passed quickly. One day, her cousin’s family took Xinru out for a ride in their car. In the car Xinru suddenly felt very weak. After being examined in the hospital, Xinru was told that she might have “myasthenia gravis,” which is rare and potentially fatal. On hearing this, Xinru felt dizzy and her heart started racing. Realizing that death was so close to her, Xinru felt very scared and thought: Am I going to die in my 30s? At that point, she couldn’t restrain her tears.
On the same day, Xinru flew back to her nephew’s place in Wuhan. Then she queued up to visit specialists and underwent various examinations in the following days. She got worse and worse day by day, and nearly became paralyzed. After being examined, Xinru was diagnosed with “myasthenia gravis,” which is called “the cancer which can’t be killed” in medical science. It meant that she could only be kept alive by taking medicine for the rest of her life. The doctor said to Xinru’s husband: “Take good care of your wife, young man. She might die at any time!” Feeling ready to die, Xinru was in utter despair. Except for going to the hospital for examinations, she sat at home all day and didn’t even have the strength to pick up a piece of paper or the ability to speak clearly. Gradually she couldn’t even eat or drink or take care of herself. The doctor suggested her esophagus be cut open to make it easier to feed her liquids but she rejected this idea and insisted on going back home.
Every day, Xinru’s family made milk from milk powder and fresh fruit juice to feed her every hour to keep her alive, which made her feel that she was a zombie. From the noisy market downstairs, the sound of bargaining kept coming to her ears…. Xinru looked on totally indifferently, and felt she already didn’t belong to this noisy world. Her previous hard work and excessive fatigue had turned into the pain in her heart. She’d tried in vain to fulfill her beautiful dream with her own hands and her own ability, which was to live a rich life and to be highly thought of by others. But now her dream was shattered and gone with the wind. What a big irony it was! Her husband earned money as a driver every day to pay their debts and her high medical expenses; her daughter worried about her and always asked for leave from school to come back home for her. Seeing herself become a burden to the family, Xinru wanted to jump from the window to finish her miserable and sad life. At the thought of this, a strong feeling of sadness overcame her and Xinru cried heartbrokenly. Suddenly she recalled some of God’s words the sister had once told her, “No one can escape the orchestrations and arrangements of the Heaven.” She also recalled the scenes of the sister sharing the gospel with her, and regretted having rejected it again and again. She longed to see her sister again.
God’s Love Called Out to Her and Woke Her Heart
One day, the sister came over with a big bag. Seeing her, Xinru couldn’t help uncontrollably shedding some tears. Looking at Xinru, the sister’s eyes also moistened with tears. She said, with pity in her voice: “My sister, don’t be upset. Whether we live or die, it’s all in God’s hands. If God doesn’t allow us to die, we will not die. It was the good intention of God that the disease came upon you. It is a grace to make you come to God. Think back to the past. I shared the gospel with you but you always said that you were busy and had to make money. You worked hard day and night and tried to change your fate by making more money, but none of your businesses in those years was a success. Now you’ve hit a wall. It’s time for you to turn back. God says: ‘I am well acquainted with the thoughts of man’s mind and the wishes of man’s heart: Who has never looked for a way out for themselves? Who has never thought of their own prospects? Yet even though man is possessed of a rich and dazzling intellect, who was able to predict that, following the ages, the present would turn out as it has? Is this really the fruit of your own subjective efforts? Is this the payment for your tireless industry? Is this the beautiful tableau envisaged by your mind? … Many people go their whole lives without having their wishes fulfilled. Is this really because of a fault in their thinking? Many people’s lives are filled with unexpected happiness and satisfaction. Is this really because they expect too little? Who of the whole of mankind is not cared for in the eyes of the Almighty? Who does not live in the midst of the Almighty’s predestination? Does man’s life and death happen by his own choice? Does man control his own fate?’ Everyone wants a happy life and keeps fighting for it. Yet how many of us have fulfilled our wishes? Our fate is controlled by God’s hands; we can’t control it ourselves. Just like how much money you earn and whether you are poor or rich—it’s not subject to your own efforts but to God’s sovereignty and predestination.”
Pondering God’s words and the sister’s fellowshiping, Xinru recalled how she had tried to change her fate through her own ability all those years. After the failure of running the clothing store, she didn’t resign herself to it but set about buying a rice processing mill. She travelled to her relatives’ homes with gifts to raise funds, exploited family connections to grease the wheels in various government departments, and took out bank loans. Finally, the mill opened up but was shut down very soon after. But after encountering failure again and again, she still didn’t give up and still wanted to build a beautiful home with her own hands. So her whole family left their hometown to run a restaurant at a university. However, her good efforts still didn’t result in what she wanted, and in the end she had to let someone else take over the restaurant. Feeling terrible, she started to pick faults with her husband and got more and more irritable. Then she collapsed and was diagnosed with a rare disease, becoming a living corpse. … Only in the face of all these facts did Xinru realize that her fate was not controlled by herself, but by God. When she couldn’t understand this fact before, she always tried to make more money to change her fate. As a consequence, she became a complete slave to money, feeling happy because of it and becoming sad because of it, and suffered unspeakable pain. Now she didn’t want to fight with fate anymore and only wanted to give herself to God’s hands. … Reflecting on all this, Xinru finally accepted the gospel happily. Since then, she has started to read God’s words. Sometimes the sister comes and fellowships with her. Xinru enjoys being watered and supplied by God’s words, and no longer lives with the pain of her illness. She is regaining the courage and hope to live. And, surprisingly, her condition is also improving day by day.
God’s Words Led Her to Find the Root of the Pain
In a fellowship meeting, the brothers and sisters read these words of God: “No one actively seeks out God’s footsteps and the appearance of God, and no one is willing to exist in the care and keeping of God. Instead, they wish to rely on the corrosion of Satan, the evil one, in order to adapt to this world, and to the rules of existence that wicked mankind follows. At this point, the heart and spirit of man have become man’s tribute to Satan and become Satan’s foodstuff. Even more, the human heart and spirit have become a place in which Satan can reside and its fitting playground. Thus does man unknowingly lose his understanding of the principles of being human, and of the value and meaning of human existence. The laws of God and the covenant between God and man gradually fade away in man’s heart, and he ceases to seek or pay heed to God. With the passage of time, man no longer understands why God created him, nor does he understand the words from the mouth of God and all that comes from God. Man then begins to resist the laws and decrees of God, and his heart and spirit become deadened…. God loses the man that He originally created, and man loses the root he originally had: This is the sorrow of this human race.”
After reading God’s words, the brothers and sisters fellowshiped: “God created this world for the sake of mankind and allows us to live freely on the earth. But Satan doesn’t want us to go back to God, and so strongly promotes atheism and evolutionism. It influences and misinforms people by means of the heresies and fallacies that we hear from government officials and great and famous people, such as ‘One’s destiny is in his own hand,’ ‘Man can conquer nature’, ‘Man can create a pleasant homeland with his own hands,’ ‘There is no Savior,’ “Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost.” In addition, it fills textbooks with its devilish ideas to indoctrinate us with them from a young age, making us deny God’s words and walk away from God to the point that we even don’t know about the existence of God. Under the influence of these heresies and fallacies, we become very arrogant and always want to create a beautiful future with our own hands. To this end, we have sacrificed everything, only to find that we live in more and more suffering. There are many such examples around us. Many people have made a lot of effort to make money but have suffered one failure after another. They don’t get what they want, so they lose the courage to continue living, and some of them even choose to commit suicide because they can’t withstand the blow. This is the result of man living by Satan’s venom. So, without God’s leadership and blessing, we will end up being harmed by Satan and will eventually be tortured to death.”
Hearing that, Xinru suddenly felt like she was being woken from a dream. She realized that the reason she had been busy in this world was that she’d been governed by the erroneous ideas “One’s destiny is in his own hand,” and “Man can create a pleasant homeland with his own hands.” She had worshiped money, fame, and material desires and wasn’t able to obey God’s rule. If it were not because of her disease, she would have blundered about this world with her own ability and fighting with fate for nothing. When she thought of this, she felt very grateful that God had saved her from dangerous circumstances. This was when Xinru gained some discernment about Satan’s evil substance and also some understanding and experience of God’s beauty and goodness and kind intention to save her.
With God’s Love by Her Side, She Now Lives in the Light
One night, Xinru read another passage of God’s words: “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. He has been watching with desperate longing, waiting for a response without an answer. His watching and waiting are beyond any price, and they are for the sake of the human heart and the human spirit. Perhaps this watching and waiting are indefinite, and perhaps they are at an end. But you should know exactly where your heart and your spirit are right now.” Reading these words, Xinru felt a warm current rushing through her body. In the past few years, in order to live a superior life she had run a clothing store, started a rice processing mill with borrowed money and bank loans, and even ran a restaurant at a university in another province. As a result, she not only didn’t change her fate or live a better life but became totally exhausted, absent-minded, bloodied and bruised. However, God’s love never left her. She thought: “Every time when I felt the agony of failure in business, God stretched out His hands of salvation toward me by arranging for the sister to preach the gospel to me. Even though I was obsessed with making money and refused God’s salvation over and over again, God still didn’t give up on me but called me through the sister and comforted me with His words. Gradually, my heart woken up and I returned before God. God’s love is so practical!” Thinking of all this, Xinru just couldn’t stop the tears from gushing out, and she offered appreciation and praise to God from her heart. Although the dream of building a beautiful home with her own hands nearly led her to hell, God’s loving hands caught her in time. He let her know that everyone’s fate and life is controlled by Him, and that only by worshiping Him can we have a good destiny.
Now, Xinru reads God’s words, prays to God and sings hymns to worship Him every day. She gives everything to God and obeys His arrangements, feeling joy and peace in her spirit. She quarrels no more with her husband, her health is getting better and better, her daughter goes to school without any concerns, and the whole family lives a happy life. Xinru also performs her duties, within her abilities, in the church and lives a full life every day. She realizes that the only right path in life is to believe in God, to worship God, and to pursue the truth. Although her dream of building a beautiful home is shattered, God has led her to find the right path in life and welcome the dawn of life.
