By Yi Fan
I’m a Christian of the Church of Almighty God. In the past, even though I believed in God, I didn’t have a true understanding of His words “For I am God, Giver of life”; rather I thought that since I was born of my parents, my life was certainly given by them. Later, when I called on God in danger, He wonderfully protected me and gave me a second chance at life. Only then did I understand the true meaning of these words.
September 26, 2015 was the most unforgettable day for me. It was my relative’s wedding day. At that time, I just graduated from technical school, and didn’t have a job, so I went to help my relative out with my father. At lunch, I couldn’t refuse others’ toasts and drank a lot. At that moment, I didn’t feel uncomfortable. Around four o’clock in that afternoon, I invited my two classmates to go swimming. When I went home to get my swimming trunks, I told my mother about this. Not knowing that I had drunk at lunch, my mother just said, “Be careful.” I made a response and went to the natatorium with my classmates.
It was nightfall when we arrived at the natatorium and there were not many people in it. The swimming pool was 50 meters in length and we swam in the water which was two meters deep. In the beginning, I kept swimming the backstroke. When I had covered a distance of ten meters, I suddenly felt weak all over and my limbs were out of control. When I tried to turn to others for help, I found that there was nobody around, and that my classmates were dozens of meters away. I wanted to call them but couldn’t utter a single sound. I opened my eyes wide in alarm and felt quite frightened in my heart: I am still young and I don’t want to die. Just then, I thought of God and prayed to Him immediately: “Oh God, I feel weak all over. Please help me.” After the prayer, I tried to change the stroke so that I could swim to the poolside. However, when I dived into the water, I couldn’t swim anymore and then lost my consciousness.
When I woke up, I found myself lying on the floor of the hall. I couldn’t believe this, so I pinched my arm; the physical pain told me that I was still alive. I couldn’t help but weep for joy, silently offering thanks to God, and then a line of God’s word floated to the top of my mind, “If you have but one breath, God will not let you die” (“The Sixth Utterance”). Just then, seeing that I woke up, my classmates said excitedly, “Yi Fan, you finally woke up! You gave us such a fright.” “Fortunately, Dapeng knows something about first aid, or we don’t dare to imagine what would have happened to you.” From my classmates I came to know what happened: When Dapeng swam to the destination, he didn’t see me; then he immediately turned back to search for me. Seeing that I was struggling in the water, he realized that things weren’t good. He hurriedly asked another classmate to call to the lifeguards for help and tried to pull me up to the poolside. At that time, I had lost my consciousness and my whole body was sinking, so he couldn’t pull me out of the water by himself. Not until another classmate and two lifeguards came was I brought to the poolside. As I had been in the water for at least three minutes, I went into shock. Fortunately, Dapeng knew some first aid treatments, and he gave me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation immediately, so that I could vomit up the dirty water in my stomach and regain my consciousness. Listening to the description of the dangerous scene just passing, I knew it was God that rescued me from water and pulled me back from the verge of death through my classmates. If not, how could my classmate who had got to the destination turn back to search for me without delay? It was God that moved his heart and soul. If he had been one or two minutes late, I would have been dead. Thinking of this, I thanked God from the bottom of my heart for His salvation.
Then my classmates took me to the town health clinic nearby. However, doctors there refused me when they saw that there was blood in my vomit, so my classmates immediately made an emergency call to the county hospital and sent me there. As soon as we arrived, I was directly sent to the ICU. Not until then did my classmates remember to call my family. After receiving the call, my father and sister soon arrived. The result showed that my lungs were bleeding because of the dirty water in them. Fearing that I would suffer after-effects, the doctor suggested we should go to the city hospital for treatment; my father transferred me to the city hospital right away. After the examination, the doctor said: “Don’t worry. It is flash pulmonary edema. Your son just needs an I.V.” Only then did my father breathe a sigh of relief. And the next day, we came back from the hospital. Thanks to God’s protection, the accident didn’t leave any after-effect on me
After I returned home, my relatives came and visited me. When they knew that I had lost consciousness in the water for three minutes, they all said, “How lucky! Normally, people will die if they are in water for more than one minute, yet you are still alive after being under the water for three minutes. You will be blessed.” Later, my mom said to me: “Yi Fan, when I heard that you had an accident, I was very anxious and didn’t know what to do. So I came before God to pray, and God’s words enlightened me: ‘For I am God, Giver of life’; then my heart gradually became calmer. God is right. Our lives are ruled by Him, and our life and death are also in His hands; I should deliver you into His hands….” Hearing this, I realized even more God’s protection for me, and that no matter what we encountered, as long as we relied on God, we would always have a road to take. From then on, I determined to read more of the word of God and not to fool around.
After experiencing this, I gained a real understanding and knowledge of the words “For I am God, Giver of life.” I saw God’s words say: “God created this world and brought man, a living being unto which He bestowed life, into it. In turn, man came to have parents and kin and was no longer alone. Ever since man first laid eyes on this material world, he was destined to exist within the ordination of God. It is the breath of life from God that supports each living being throughout his growth into adulthood. During this process, none believe that man lives and grows up under the care of God. Rather, they hold that man grows up under the love and care of his parents, and that his growth is governed by the instinct of life. This is because man knows not who bestowed life or from whence it came, much less how the instinct of life creates miracles” (“God Is the Source of Man’s Life”). Through the guidance of God’s words, I recognized that the heavens and earth and all things are created by God, and that my life is also bestowed by God. In this life, what family I would be born into and what my fate would be, were not in my parents’ hands, but were predetermined and arranged by God long ago before my birth. In the past, I just verbally acknowledged God and didn’t have true faith in Him. After the drowning, I truly realized that my parents couldn’t save me or decide my life; in the accident, when I relied on God and looked to Him, I saw His wondrous protection. That I could survive was totally God’s love and salvation for me; it was God who gave me a second chance at life. After this realization, I felt even more grateful to God and made up my mind to believe earnestly in God and pursue the truth to pay back His love for me. All glory be to God!
