By Ma Xiaolan
I’m a Christian, 62 years old this year. After my husband and I accepted God’s work of the last days in 2013, we attended gatherings but we didn’t pursue the truth. We had no understanding of God’s intention to save mankind or of His almightiness and sovereignty. I always thought to myself, “Since I’m still hale and hearty, I must find ways to make more money and save more so that I will have something to fall back on if I catch a disease or become too old to move.” Therefore, I devoted all my efforts to making money, and only bothered with faith when I had the time. It was not until after a calamity happened to me that I had an awakening, gained some true knowledge of God’s sovereignty, and truly experienced the salvation work that God did for me.
A Calamity Caused by My Desire for Money
At noon on July 29, 2016, hardly had I returned home when my neighbor ran up to me saying, “The chestnuts on your tree are ripe and many have fallen to the ground. Hurry and pick them.” Hearing this, I thought, “Yes. I can pick them and sell them. I must hurry before others take them.” Thereupon, I hastily got my basket and bamboo pole and went to the tree without having lunch. Seeing many chestnuts without husks on the ground, I quickly picked them all up. When I looked up and saw a branch laden with chestnuts, I thought, “If I pick these chestnuts now, I can sell them.” However, the tree grew on a slope, over ten meters above an area of sand by a river, which was littered with stones. So I couldn’t help worrying, “If I climb up the tree and pick the chestnuts, any carelessness may lead to me falling out of the tree and being crippled. But what a pity to lose money that is within my grasp! No, I must pick them. As long as I’m very careful, nothing’s gonna happen to me.”
At this thought, I climbed up the tree cautiously, and then clung to a branch with one hand and knocked the chestnuts down with the other. Unexpectedly, I had just knocked the chestnuts hard several times when both the branch I was holding and the one I was standing on broke off, and I fell onto the slope and then rolled onto the sand. I hit my head on a triangular stone (the wound was over one inch long and three millimeters deep, and I needed four stitches) and blood immediately flowed down along my eyebrows. I couldn’t move and lay there bleeding. At that moment, I was in despair. I thought, “I’m finished. Am I dying? Some time ago, my neighbor fell down the stairs and was diagnosed with comminuted fractures of the femurs. He spent more than 20,000 yuan on treatment but now still suffers from the after-effects, and walks with a cane. Will I survive after falling from such a height?” At the thought of this, I was very scared and hurriedly prayed to God in my heart, “God! I fell from such a height and my head is bleeding. I feel like I’m about to die. God, please save me.” After my prayer, I really saw God’s deeds. Some people who were in the vegetable patch across the river heard my shouts and immediately ran to me. At the sight of me, they shouted with fear, “Oh, no! Help! Somebody help!” Hearing the shouts, others arrived in a hurry. When they carried me home, I was in a half-conscious condition, and vaguely heard someone saying, “My goodness, will she make it after falling from that height?” Hearing this, I dazedly thought, “Could it be that I’m really dying? …” Soon after that, I passed out.
When I came round, I found myself lying on a bed in an intensive care unit. My family told me that after my son drove me to the town hospital, the doctor obstinately refused to treat me because of the seriousness of my injury; consequently, my son had no choice but to take me to the city hospital. After a thorough examination, the doctor said that I had broken six right posterior ribs and that there were two cracks in my lumbar vertebrae, causing a small piece of bone to enter the bone marrow. If the bone wasn’t taken out soon, I would be incontinent and be paralyzed in both legs. Hearing this, I felt desperate and extremely anxious, and tears flowed down my face unceasingly. “I’m injured so badly that I even can’t take care of myself. Not only do I suffer myself but I’ve also become a burden to my family. My life is over. Rather than living like this, it’d better for me to die!” Later, the doctor learned from my husband that I once hurt my chest when I was young and had edema that caused pleurisy and as a result, my left lung didn’t work and my right lung had lost one third of its function. Unfortunately, this time I’d broken the ribs on my right, and if I had surgery my right lung would probably get damaged, which would be very dangerous. So, the doctor didn’t dare to operate on me. Afterward, the director of the hospital found out about my condition and said to me, “If you have surgery in such a condition, you will develop terrible complications. Now, all we can do is use non-surgical forms of treatment, and we can’t tell whether it will work on you; it depends on your luck.”
God’s Words Gave Me Faith and Strength
The doctor’s words sent a shiver through my heart. “I’m finished. Since the doctors say I can’t have surgery, it means that I can’t be cured. I’m a total wreck. I will spend the rest of my life on bed, unable to take care of myself. Then what’s the point of living like this?” When I thought of this, tears of despair welled up in my eyes. In my pain, I came before God and prayed, “God! Now I am suffering and feel helpless. The doctors have refused to operate on me for fear of having to bear responsibility. Now I can only entrust myself to You. Regardless of the result, I’m willing to obey Your orchestrations and arrangements.” After praying I thought about God’s words where it says: “Be quiet within Me, for I am your God, your only Redeemer. You must quiet your hearts at all times and live within Me; I am your rock, your buttress.” God’s words gave me hope and faith. “That’s right! God is almighty. He rules over everything; everyone’s life and death are in His hands and I’m not an exception. With God as my rock, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” At that time, my husband came in and said to me, “I’ve tried my best and told the doctor I don’t care about the expense, but he still refused to operate on you. I had no choice but to sign the paper and agree for you to have non-surgical treatment.” Hearing his words, I said calmly, “Since we have believed in God, we should rely on Him, pray to Him frequently and believe in His omnipotence and rule. Whether I will recover or not is in God’s hands. Let’s entrust everything to God.” Hearing my words, he nodded and said, “Yes. We believers should trust in and rely on God.”
Under the guidance of God’s words, I had some faith. However, faced with my actual condition, I was still a little worried and afraid. When in the ICU, I couldn’t move. I just lay in the bed, even unable to turn over without my family’s help; I needed them to feed me, and had to urinate and defecate in bed too. I was very afraid I would be like this for the rest of my life. In my helplessness, I could only pray to God again and again, asking Him to protect my heart. Later, through reading and pondering God’s words more, and drawing near to God in my heart, I became less worried and afraid. During that time, I didn’t dare to leave God for a second, and often hummed the hymn of God’s words “The Onset of Illness Is God’s Love”: “Almighty God, Head of all things, wields kingly power from His throne, ruling over all things, guiding us on this earth. Come before Him, learn at all times. All people, objects and matters are all permitted by God’s throne. So if sickness befalls, God has good intentions. Don’t complain, His grace He’ll bestow. Even if the body suffers, Satan’s ideas you can’t keep. Praise God during illness. Don’t lose heart or give up. God will shine His light when you seek. God will shine His light when you seek. Think of Job, how faithful he was. God is a powerful doctor. Dwell in sickness, you’re sick. Dwell in spirit, you’re fine. If you breathe, God won’t let you die.” The more I sang the hymn, the more I had strength and faith, and gradually I was no longer worried or afraid. I believed that everything is in God’s hands and I was willing to obey His orchestrations and arrangements.
I recalled the time after I started to believe in God. Although I attended gatherings and read God’s words, I didn’t pursue the truth and had no knowledge of God’s sovereignty and His intention of saving mankind. I held the same viewpoint as the unbelievers, and was deeply afflicted and fooled by the rules of living that Satan instilled in us, such as “Money is first” and “Money isn’t everything, but without it, you can do nothing.” I thought as long as we are alive, we have to earn more money; particularly as I was old, I had to make more money while I was still hale enough to work so that I could have something to fall back on in the future. I valued money more than belief in God, thinking money was my best support. Therefore, even though I knew it was dangerous for me to climb the tree, in order to accumulate more money I still risked climbing it, with the result that I fell and got seriously injured. In fact, I was not short of money, and God tells us to be content with having enough food and clothing; however, I didn’t listen but still looked for ways to make more money for my future. Now, I’d injured myself so seriously that the doctors didn’t dare to operate on me no matter how much money we were willing to spend. This proves that money can’t make any difference at the juncture of life and death, much less save me. At that moment, my viewpoint finally changed: I no longer saw money as more important than the truth. It was all because of God’s protection and His great power that I could survive such a calamity. When I changed my viewpoint and learned to rely on God, I saw more of God’s wondrous deeds in the following days and I gradually got better.
God’s Love Accompanied Me
After a week, I could get out of bed and go to the bathroom if supported by a member of my family. Ten days later, I was able to walk by myself, and then the doctor examined me thoroughly. Finding I’d recovered so well, he looked me over and said in confusion, “You were injured so badly. I hadn’t imagined that your injuries would heal up so nicely even without surgery.” Hearing his words, I was very happy and kept thanking God in my heart, because I knew this was all God’s deeds. By contrast, in the next ward, a woman of my age who had only broken her arm and had entered the hospital before me still hadn’t recovered. Seeing my miraculous recovery, she said with surprise, “You were injured so badly but got well so fast. It’s unbelievable!” I thought, “This is all owing to God’s care and protection. You don’t believe in God, so how could you understand this?”
Fifteen days later, the doctor said I could be discharged from the hospital to recuperate at home. After I returned home, my family bought some medicinal herbs to treat me with. After half a month, I could cook by myself while leaning on a cane. Seeing me like this, my daughter-in-law, who often came to visit me, said happily, “Mom, you can even cook for yourself. You were injured so badly that we thought you would be paralyzed and wouldn’t be cured. I didn’t think you would get well so fast. Before you fell, my dad broke his leg when he took a spill on his bicycle, and now he’s still lying in bed, unable to walk, and needs my mom to help with his basic necessities. It seems that believing in God is good; you believers are protected by God.”
Hearing this, I couldn’t stop thanking God for His grace and protection. I thought 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. As people grow up in this kind of environment and with this kind of background, could we say that people in fact grow up in the palm of God’s hand? (Yes.)”
With this practical experience, I have tasted God’s love. God is protecting me all the time and has never left me; He is the only One I can depend on. At first, I fell out of the tree and injured myself so badly that the doctors didn’t want to treat me or operate on me; then I recovered so fast and can now cook by myself. This was all because God cared for and protected me at every step, and His love accompanied me all the time. I truly saw a manifestation of God’s authority and power.
During this experience, I saw more of God’s wondrous deeds. When I was 20, I got a high fever which caused pleurisy. After the doctors removed the pleural fluid several times, the nerves in the left side of my sternum contracted, leaving my left shoulder lower than the other. When I walked, my shoulders were at different heights. Surprisingly, my shoulders leveled again after the injury from the fall. Seeing this, my neighbors all said in surprise, “After the fall you are now walking properly and your mental outlook has improved a lot. It’s truly a blessing in disguise.” At that point, words could not describe my emotional frame of mind and I thanked God continuously in my heart. I read God’s words: “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’s word is the truth and is reality. My fate is controlled by God’s hands, and how much money I possess in life is preordained by God rather than being gained by my own hands. What I should do is come before God and obey His sovereignty and arrangements. Now I’ve resumed my life in the church. I pray, sing hymns, attend gatherings with the brothers and sisters, and I perform my duty in the church. This allows me to feel God’s real love.
All the glory be to God!
