By Su Xing
I’m a Christian. I was expecting a baby on March 8, 2014. A few days before that, I had undergone all necessary examinations in a town hospital, and the result was fine. So we decided that I was going to have a natural delivery. My whole family had got everything ready to meet the arrival of a new life. A few days passed in waiting, but nothing happened. On March 14, my water broke. I was immediately sent to the town hospital by my families. However, the hospital refused me on various excuses. We could do nothing, so we went to another town hospital. I again underwent a series of examinations, and the doctor found nothing wrong with me. I thought I could deliver my baby there, but I was refused again. The doctor of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department insisted that I should go to the county hospital of maternal and child health. We had no choice but to ask an acquaintance in the hospital to help persuade that doctor, but to no avail. The acquaintance was puzzled and said, “Strange enough. According to your condition, you will have an easy delivery. But I have no idea why they must refuse you today.” Hearing that, I also couldn’t figure out why they rejected me and I was very angry. I thought: Yeah. How can the hospital not receive patients? Why do they receive others but refuse me? Just at that moment, God’s words occurred to me: “Everything, from the surrounding environment to people, affairs, and things, all exist by permission of His throne. Do not on any account let grievances arise in your heart, or God will not bestow His grace upon you.” They reminded me in time that anything happening to me, whether good or bad, was by God’s permission and in God’s arrangements. Today, the doctor didn’t allow me to give birth here, it must surely possess the good will of God. I should submit to it first.
So we went to the county’s women and children’s hospital. We thought I would have a natural childbirth, but after examination, the doctor discovered that my baby’s head had already moved down to my cervix, and that there was a nasty bump on my baby’s head. I needed an urgent operation, otherwise both my baby and I would be in mortal danger. The doctor hurried my husband to sign on the operation permit. Then I was rushed into surgery. The first part of the operation went smoothly and my baby was taken out successfully. After that, however, came the sudden shouting of the operating surgeon, “Oh no! Her uterus is hemorrhaging. Go get her relative’s signature and go to the dispensary to fetch some astringent. If the bleeding can’t be stopped, her womb has to be removed.” On hearing that, all the other doctors and nurses tensed up and began to act. The nurse went to the blood bank to take blood, but there was no plasma that matched my blood type. So she hastened to phone another hospital for plasma transference. Meanwhile the operating surgeon was watching my cardiograph and my blood pressure closely. She talked to me continuously and asked me if I had any discomfort. Besides, she urged the nurse to get the plasma as soon as possible, for if I lost too much blood, my life would be lost. At this point, the blood was gushing out from my body; my stomach was upset so much that I kept vomiting. I felt my life was drifting out of me, tears escaping my control. I thought: Am I going to die so young? Is my baby going to be motherless right after birth? …
In grave danger of death, I remembered God’s words all of a sudden: “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?” “Almighty God is an all-powerful physician! … So long as you still have one breath, God will not let you die.” God’s words infused me with immediate faith. And I prayed to God in tearful silence, “Oh God, You are the Ruler of the heavens and earth and all things. You control man’s fate, man’s life, and death. I entrust myself completely to You. Whether to live or to die, it’s at Your mercy, and I’ll never make any complaint.” After I prayed to God like this, I felt peace in my heart. At that moment, I heard the surgeon was patting my womb continuously after the injection of astringent. And she said to the nurses in a severe voice, “This injection is crucial. If it doesn’t work, then we must hurry to remove her womb. And if her womb is removed but there’s no immediate supply of plasma, she will die of excessive blood loss at any moment.” Hearing what she said, I felt no tension or fear. I believed that my life was in the hands of God and all that I needed to do was to call to Him unceasingly in my heart.
Some while later, the bleeding was finally stopped and the plasma also arrived. My wound was sewed up, the blood transfusion was done, then I was sent back to my ward. Lying on the hospital bed, my heart was overflowing with gratitude to God: Thank God for saving me from the verge of death.
I thought I would be slow to recover since I lost so much blood. I never would have thought that I could be up on the third day after my delivery. And I looked better and better. People in my ward thought it incredible that I could escape from death and recover within such a short time. An aunt said to my mother-in-law, “Your daughter-in-law is lucky enough to have recovered so quickly from hemorrhage. The woman in the next ward had a C-section earlier than her, but she hasn’t dared to move yet….” Hearing her words, I was clear in my mind that all this was out of God’s wondrous care and protection of me.
After I left the hospital, I read a passage of God’s words: “All that God does for every individual is beyond doubt; He leads everyone by the hand, looks after you with every passing moment and has never once left your side. … In the long course of human life, almost every individual has encountered many dangerous situations and faced many temptations. This is because 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. As for what God is doing, He is protecting you with each passing moment, steering you away 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; He guides and decides the fate of every individual” (God Himself, the Unique VI). God’s motherly words made me feel His love for man is so real and that He is right by my side protecting me at any moment. Deliberating on God’s words, I remembered that I was rejected by the two town hospitals. It was a bad thing in our eyes, but actually there was God’s good purpose in it: Giving birth in either of them would bring dire consequences for me. Because the town hospital was unable to handle such an emergency as hemorrhage due to its inadequate conditions and equipment. As for transferring blood from the county which was more than forty kilometers away, even if the blood finally arrived, it would be too late to save me from blood loss. God’s words say: “Man’s heart and spirit are held in the hand of God, everything of his life is beheld in the eyes of God. Regardless of whether or not you believe this, any and all things, whether living or dead, will shift, change, renew, and disappear in accordance with God’s thoughts. Such is the way in which God presides over all things” (God Is the Source of Man’s Life). Through this experience, I truly had a taste of God’s profound love for me. It was God that saved me from the verge of death. I saw that: God is the source of my life and God rules over and orchestrates everything. Only God can save me, and God is my only reliance. I’m willing to follow God all my life to repay His grace of salvation.
