By Luping, China
The seasons come and go, and the flowers bloom and wilt. All things are changing, but what doesn’t change is their life course. Does grass complain about not possessing the beauty of flowers? Do monkeys complain about not possessing the power of lions? Unable to understand their languages, I can’t tell the answers.
However, in our human life, associating with people from all walks of life, I have heard too many complaints about our origin, appearance, height, job, marriage, family, and so on. When it comes to those factors concerning our fates, everyone seems to have too much disappointment, unwillingness, and dissatisfaction, and I was once one of them.
I couldn’t help looking back on my past. During my childhood, school awards didn’t bring me happiness: Without decent clothes to wear when receiving awards on the stage, I often felt distressed, and even cried and shouted at my mother, complaining about why she gave birth to me.
I kept thinking about my past. The bitterness of my high school life was just like that of young persimmons. At that time, there was a big difference in financial conditions of family between my classmates and me. They could have steamed buns for lunch, while I had to nibble at corn buns hard like stones, which often caused me to have acid reflux. For this reason, I complained again, “We are the same age and live in the same world, but why is there such a big difference between us?”
At the age of marriage, girls of my age had grown tall, slim and pretty while I was so plain that nobody would pay attention to me among the crowd. Later, my classmates all got married to handsome and ideal husbands, but I was still single. And so, my youth slipped away in endless complaints and melancholy.
At the age of 26, I finally got married, which I thought would be the beginning of my happy life. Unexpectedly, after marriage, my husband spent all day loafing about, and even didn’t know how to do farm work. As a result, other people celebrated the Spring Festival happily, while we even had no money to do Spring Festival shopping.
Under the enormous pressure of life, I got heart disease in just half a year after marriage, for which we spent a lot of money and bore a heavy debt. Besides, I couldn’t bear children. So, my husband and mother-in-law all spoke to me coldly. From then on, I was plunged into endless darkness.
During those years, I couldn’t feel any joy of living, just like a puppet without a soul. After years’ complaints, I was exhausted with endless pain and perplexity deep in my heart. At that time, I was lonely, just like the rootless duckweed floating on the water. I longed for someone who could tell me about life and destination to resolve my perplexity about fate and make me live a bit more freely.
Time passed day by day. Over these years, I had been struggling, but I gained nothing but pains and hurts. I felt that I couldn’t find the destination my heart belonged to in such a big world. I didn’t know why all the misfortunes befell me. Many times when I nearly fell apart in pain, I really wanted to yell hysterically: Who can help me?
As the saying goes, “While one is at the end of his road, there will be a new hope.” Just when I was totally in perplexity and despair, God’s love fell upon me, bringing me hope and saving me from misery and darkness.
One day, my classmate preached God’s gospel to me. When she asked me about my insights into life, I gave her a bitter smile, thinking: Look at my present situation. I almost lost hope about life, so what insights could I have? But somehow I dimly felt that my life seemed to take a turn for the better. So, I spoke of my distress to her. After hearing what I said, she read a passage of God’s words to me: “Since the creation of the world I have begun to predestine and select this group of people, namely, you today. Your temperament, caliber, appearance, stature, family in which you were born, your job and your marriage, the entirety of you, even the color of your hair and your skin, and the time of your birth were all arranged by My hands.”
After reading these words, she said to me, “We can’t see through why God arranges different life for each of us, but we should believe that there must be God’s good intentions behind it. Since we humans are created by God, He will be responsible for us. We only need to quiet our heart before God often, read more His words, and pursue to know Him. Then, we will understand many truths and mysteries of life and fate; we will believe in and obey God’s sovereignty and arrangements without any complaint about our life, placing our life and prospects in God’s hands. In this way, we will feel more assured and brightened in our hearts.”
That day, she read many God’s words to me about how to know God’s sovereignty over man’s fate. The more I listened to God’s words, the more released I felt in my heart. My wish of many years, to long for someone to show me the direction of life, had finally come true. From then on, I became a Christian and couldn’t bear to be apart from God’s words.
As I read more and more God’s words after believing in God, my perplexity about fate was resolved bit by bit. I finally understood that my fate, containing God’s painstaking intentions, was arranged by the Creator with the utmost care. He knew my needs, and arranged proper environments to protect me from being influenced and possessed by evil trends. In this way, I could quiet my heart to listen to God’s voice without the bondage of outward fame and fortune and return before Him when hearing the gospel.
In the past, I thought that good family background and good appearance were the preconditions for gaining a happy life as well as fame and fortune. Now, I realize that anyone who knows the Creator is exactly the happiest person, and that anyone who worships God with heart and honesty is the most beautiful person. This is because the peace and sureness in spirit, which can’t be brought by any gorgeous look or material enjoyment, can only be bestowed by God.
It was even more wonderful that my heart disease was unconsciously cured not long after I believed in God. Through this experience, I have tasted God’s love and seen the authority and power of His words. God says: “The word of God is sweet indeed! God’s word is potent medicine! Put to shame the devils and Satan! If we grasp God’s word we will have support and His word will quickly save our hearts! It dispels all things and sets all in peace.” God is as good as His word and His word shall become true. In fact, I didn’t pray to God for curing my disease. I just normally believed in and worshiped Him, but He was gracious toward me and removed my disease. Having tasted God’s love, I have more faith in Him and am no longer negative and weak, feeling that the path of my life is becoming brighter and brighter.
The seasons come and go, and the flowers bloom and wilt. God arranges our life course depending on the needs of our life, in the hope that we can obey His words and walk the right way of life of fearing God and shunning evil and receive the guidance and blessings of Him. Now, do you feel God’s love?
Source: WALK IN THE LIGHT
