Lost for 30 Years, I Have Finally Returned to God’s Family

Lost for 30 Years, I Have Finally Returned to God’s Family

Yanping, Japan

I was born in the 1980s. Because of China’s one-child family policy, my parents were fined after my arrival, so they particularly hated me. And influenced by the Chinese custom of preferring boys to girls, they were unwilling to expend anything on me. Sometimes they even would argue over a dress bought for me which cost more than 10 yuan. So I felt subdued and sad, and thought I was superfluous.

One day, when my parents were not at home, I drank pesticide to end my life. But it tasted so bad that I just took a little sip, so it didn’t kill me. My parents have never known about this. When I was 13, my parents were not willing to pay for my tuition fees anymore, so in order to make the money, I could only spend my summer vacation selling ice creams in a scenic spot, which was scores of miles away from my home. One day after rain, when I was riding on the mountain road, I slid down into the river along with my bicycle, and my mind went blank at once. Not until I came to myself did I find that I was not injured at all, and only my clothes were snagged. When the passers-by saw me climbing out of the water safe and sound, they all said that I was so lucky, because the river was full of stones, and if one fell down into it, he would either die or get seriously injured. And they all tried to persuade me, “You are too young. Don’t come out selling ice creams anymore. It’s too dangerous.” I said nothing, and directly walked my bicycle and left. On the way home, I felt sick at heart: Don’t I know the danger? I have no other choice but to sell ice creams to earn some money to pay my tuition, or I’ll have to abandon my studies. But at last, I still discontinued my schooling after graduation from middle school.

Three years later, some classmates of mine and I found a job in a clothing factory. It was a dirty and heavy job. Sometimes we needed to pull an all-nighter, and I still remembered that the longest time we didn’t have a wink of sleep was three days and two nights. Because of long working hours, one of my workmates was so tired that her hair was accidentally sucked into the machine when she was cutting the clothes. That almost killed her. Later, my classmates all left the factory one after another. Facing all of this, I hesitated for a long time: They have their relatives or friends to help them find another job, but I don’t have anyone to help me. If I leave here, I would have to sell the ice cream again. This job is the only hope for me and I can’t give it up. So I steeled myself to persevere. In the next few years, I changed some jobs. Except for the holidays arranged by the company, I never had a day off. I kept working and working because I knew that there was no guarantee for my future. Later, after a constant struggle, I had earned some money. But when I was living in hopes of a better life, one thing that I had never expected happened.

One day in 2005, I suddenly received the call from my cousin. She told me to go to the hospital immediately. I got there hurriedly, and the moment I walked into the ward, I was petrified by what I saw: My brother was lying in the sick bed, his head was wrapped up in a white cloth, and pipes were being inserted into his mouth and nose. Right then, my tears ran down uncontrollably. My father told me that my brother had fallen off from the upstairs and he had not come round yet. Later, the doctor performed an operation on his head and after a period of treatment, he could move his hands and arms. My parents and I were very excited to see this, and felt that we had finally seen the hope. But the doctor told us that my brother was severely injured, and that once he sat up, the water on his brain would flow, and he advised that my brother should have another operation. When I heard this news, it felt like I had been struck by a lightning bolt. The first operation had almost swallowed up all our savings, we would not be able to afford another one. Watching my brother in the sick bed and my white-haired father, I felt extremely distressed, but I thought: No matter how they treated me in my childhood, I am the only one they can rely on now, and I shall take on this burden. That year, I was only 25 years old.

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Therefore, I exerted myself tirelessly to make money. Every day I only slept four or five hours, and after several years of hard work, I had finally made some money. During the time, my brother had another operation and was gradually able to take care of himself. With my help, he bought a house and got married. At that point, I thought that I could finally live a peaceful life. But it never occurred to me that his wife, who spent only three years with him, got away with tens of thousands yuan of the family. This blow was unbearable for him so that he had a bad turn and lost consciousness. Facing this, I felt as if the sky was going to fall: Why do these misfortunes come one after another? When is all this going to end? Afterward, I continued my life of making money like automatons. Every phone call I received from my parents was either asking for money, or saying my brother got injured and was in hospital, and I had to look after him. Under such pressure, I really wanted to have a good cry: I’m only an ordinary person. There is a limit to my endurance. Later, due to overwork, my mom was out of condition. I was more depressed and began to worry: If my parents passed away, what should I do with my brother? I’m already in my late 20s, but I do not dare to find a partner or get married. With such a family, do I still have my own future? I could not tell my depression in my heart to anyone, feeling that I was on the verge of collapse.

In May, 2015, in order to solve the financial problem of my family, I left for Japan alone with concern for my parents and brother. Here my destiny was changed quietly.

Not long after I came to Japan, I knew Xiaosu. She worked in a company, while I worked at her boss’ home. We often met each other. As both of us are Chinese, we gave our telephone numbers to each other. In the Spring Festival of 2016, I went home to visit my relatives, and Xiaosu and I happened to meet on the same plane. During our chat, she asked me, “Where does man come from?” Without thinking, I answered her, “Man evolved from apes.” She said to me smilingly, “Man was created by God, so were the heaven and earth and all things.” Then she gave me some examples to illustrate the absurdity in the theory of evolution and also told me how God created the heaven and earth and all things, and so on. Because this was the first time that I had heard we were created by God, I felt amazed, and didn’t fully understand it or believe it. But I thought I had always been living in depression and pain, and that it might make me happier to contact more people of faith. So I promised her that I would go to their meetings after I came back.

A week later, I returned to Japan, and Xiaosu invited me to attend their meetings. We listened to a hymn of God’s word “God’s Wondrous Deeds of Governing All Things” together: “For thousands of years, the creek flows in such a quiet, quiet way at the foot of the mountain. Directed by the mountain, the creek returns to its hometown. It merges into a river, and then into a sea, into a sea. Thanks to the watching of the mountain, the creek has never got lost. The creek and the mountain reinforce, neutralize, and depend on each other.” I was deeply attracted by the lyrics. I was so surprised that this song told us the mountain, stream, ocean, and so on, which we seldom paid attention to, have their own value and significance. The song was so heartwarming that my heart gradually relaxed along with it, feeling happy and released. Then we read a piece of God’s word “God Is the Source of Life for All Things.” And through reading this piece of God’s word and listening to the sister’s fellowship, I knew: God spent six days to create the heaven and earth and all things, and created man. In order to nurture man, He gave them a stable environment for survival, and established boundaries for all things. The scope of the desert, grass, ocean, the living environment for birds and beasts, why beasts only stay in the forests while poultry can be reared and so on—it turns out that these common enough phenomena are all controlled by God and predestined by God. The more I listened, the more I felt a thirst for it. Later I often attended meetings, and read God’s words with them. Gradually, I knew more about the miraculous deeds of God’s creation of all things, and began to believe from the bottom of my heart that all things are created and managed by God. And I also began to rely on God.

One day in January 2016, Xiaosu sent me a web link. I clicked it and saw several passages of God’s words about the six junctures in a human life. God said, “The circumstances of one’s birth and death are both predetermined by the Creator; this is a person’s destiny, a person’s fate. Just as much can be said about one’s birth, every person’s death will occur under a different set of special circumstances, hence people’s varying lifespans and the different manners and times of their deaths. Some people are strong and hale and yet die early; others are weak and sickly yet live to an old age, and pass away peacefully. Some perish of unnatural causes, others of natural ones. Some end their lives far from home, others shut their eyes with their loved ones by their side. Some people die in midair, others beneath the earth. Some sink beneath the water, others are lost in disasters. Some die in the morning, others at night. … Everyone wants an illustrious birth, a brilliant life, and a glorious death, but no one can overstep their own destiny, no one can escape the Creator’s sovereignty. This is human fate. Man can make all kinds of plans for his future, but no one can plan the manner and time of their birth and of their departure from the world. Though people do their best to avoid and resist the coming of death, yet still, unbeknownst to them, death silently draws near. No one knows when they will perish or how they will do so, much less where it will happen. Obviously, it is not humanity that holds the power of life and death, not some being in the natural world, but the Creator, whose authority is unique. Mankind’s life and death are not the product of some law of the natural world, but a consequence of the sovereignty of the Creator’s authority.” After reading these words, my heart suddenly brightened. I had heard the older generation say that life and death are decreed by fate, but I had never known what the mystery was in it. Now God’s words made me truly understand that when and where one dies is not determined by any man. I had always been worried about my parents and my brother, fearing that my brother would die of an accidental fall or injury if he was not carefully watched, and that then my parents would die of grief for the loss of my brother. I had often lived in all kinds of worries, afflicted with depression and pain. Not until then did I understand that my brother’s health and future, and my parents’ lifespan and health were all under God’s sovereignty, and that I could do nothing for them. Even if I had stayed with them every day, I could not change their destiny. After understanding this mystery, I felt relaxed as never before. I thought that if I had seen this passage of God’s words earlier, I would not have lived such a tiring life.

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Afterward, whenever I had time, I would attend the gatherings with my sisters. Gradually, I had more understanding of God. I came to realize: We mankind were created by God, and should have lived happily under the guidance of God. However, because we were tempted by Satan and left God, we have lived in various pains. Once in a gathering, I saw God’s words say, “When one has no God, when one cannot see Him, when one cannot clearly recognize God’s sovereignty, every day is meaningless, worthless, miserable. Wherever one is, whatever one’s job is, one’s means of living and the pursuit of one’s goals bring one nothing but endless heartbreak and irrelievable suffering, such that one cannot bear to look back.” I recalled: Since childhood, I had never known there is God, so I had no one to pour out my difficulties to, had no one to rely on, and could only take all the pressure and bear all the pain by myself. When all my efforts to change the fate of my family failed and instead unpredicted adversities came upon us one after another, I felt increasing despair. The pain in my heart was more than I could bear, so that I lived in agony. Today because I have accepted Almighty God’s work, I have known that all our pain is caused by Satan and by our ignorance of God’s sovereignty and our straying away from God’s protection and care. I have known our lives come from God, and that our everything is dominated by God. I should unload the heavy burden in my heart and commit myself and my family to God, and let God lead us the way ahead.

In the Spring Festival in 2017, when I came back home, my mom told me excitedly, “Your brother is in better health than before. In the past, he relapsed twice a month; this year, he has only relapsed about three times in total, and besides, his illness isn’t as severe as before.” I believed from my heart that it was God’s deed, and I was full of gratitude to Him.

Once during my spiritual devotions, I saw a passage of God’s words: “Throughout your long lives, basically every individual has encountered many dangerous situations and undergone many temptations. This is because Satan is right there beside you, its eyes fixed on you constantly. It likes it when disaster strikes you, when calamities befall you, when nothing goes right for you, and likes it when you are caught in Satan’s net. As for God, He is protecting you constantly, keeping you from one misfortune after another and from one disaster after another. This is why I say that everything man has—peace and joy, blessings and personal safety—is in fact all under God’s control, and He guides and decides the life and fate of every individual. … There is no craftiness in God, no falsity. God is faithful and everything He does is both true and real. He is the only thing that people can count on and the only thing that people can entrust their lives and their all to.” After reading these words, I could not control my emotions and burst into tears. “Ever since I could remember, I have never enjoyed the warmth of my family or my parents’ love, but instead my days were full of endless scolding. I hated it that I came to this world, and I had no courage to face the miserable future, so I chose to end my young life by drinking pesticide. When I grew a little older, I went to sell ice creams, but I nearly dropped to my death or drowned. Later, I left home and found a job. I worked day and night, starved, wandered the streets, slept in the broken factory, and for several times I almost lost my life…. I have never told anyone my hardships, for I always thought it was because I was born unlucky. Not until today do I know that all of these resulted from Satan’s affliction. It was Satan that made me encounter many dangers, so that I couldn’t go on in this world and chose to end my life before knowing what my future would be like. But under God’s protection, I escaped the danger again and again. It was God that had guaranteed my safety and removed Satan’s affliction from me. Then God arranged many environments to bring me back to His home, letting me know that I was the lost one from Him and had suffered too much outside, and should now come back home.” In thinking about this, I felt very warm and happy in my heart. “God has been silently doing everything for me, accompanying me every day in my life. Now I have finally realized God’s true love for me. Thank Almighty God!”

After that, I read Almighty God’s words carefully every day. Sometimes, I listened to hymns while working and felt great enjoyment. Particularly when I watched videos of hymns made by brothers and sisters, my heart also danced happily with them. The lyrics of the hymn “My Life Is Free and Released” moved my heart: “My heart is flying out, is flying out. I will repay God’s love, passive no more. Once I misread God’s will and ignored Him. But now I’ve seen that God is waiting for my love. I’ll try hard to satisfy God, and let Him gain my heart. Look, all flowers are in bloom everywhere; and music is ringing in my mind. I’ll try hard to satisfy God, and let Him gain my heart. Look, all flowers are in bloom everywhere; and music is ringing in my mind. I sing out my heart’s love for God. My heart happy, my soul joyful, inspired by God’s love. Practicing God’s words fills me with praise and joy. I’m so happy to eat, drink and fellowship God’s words. I feel at ease to sing a song of love from my heart. I’m no longer weak and passive; I will comfort God’s heart. I’m so joyful to enjoy God’s love; I’m the happiest one. I’m no longer weak and passive; I will comfort God’s heart. I’m so joyful to enjoy God’s love; I’m the happiest one. God’s love fills my heart.” Watching brothers and sisters dancing freely to praise God, I felt unspeakably excited. Thank God for saving me, so that I can gather with brothers and sisters and read His words and enjoy His love. The time I spend with brothers and sisters is the happiest of my life. They often call to ask whether I have any troubles and how my life is, and they tell me that if I have any difficulty, don’t hesitate to tell them. This love and care of brothers and sisters toward me is brought by God’s love. Now my life has changed a lot; my brother’s condition is much better and thus less money is needed for his treatment; my parents are in better health; I also have my own family; and my job is light and pleasant. All my pain has gone. I give thanks to Almighty God. All I have are His blessings for me. I’m willing to follow Him for a lifetime.

The End.

When we feel lonely and helpless, or suffer pain and setbacks, do not forget that God is always silently watching us by our side; He is our strongest supporter and our sole reliance.

Jesus Christ is God Himself. The Holy Father, the Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit, They are One. We can know from the bible verses, the Lord Jesus said, “he that has seen me has seen the Father….” (John 14:9) “I am in the Father, and the Father in me….” (John 14:10) “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).