By Hong Ju
It’s sad that a top will keep spinning by itself if you spin it and weigh it, but once it stops, it will fall down and cannot get up. Then what about us humans? Do we not keep working all day long and never stop but are unable to get up after each setback, just like a top?
Hong Ju was a strong-minded person. Though her family was poor, she firmly believed that she could build a pleasant home with her own hands and change her fate through her own efforts, living a good life like others. In order to build her ideal home, she started whirling like a top — she spent all day fighting and fighting, all she did waswork and work, and much of her life revolved around her family and her work.
Not long after she had a baby, she humped lumber and stones, and sawed boards with her husband to build their new house. Besides, their five-or-six-acre mountain fields were under her charge as well. She worked in such breathless haste day and night, and ate meals irregularly. After the house was built, she continued breaking her back to repay the loan. In her thirties, intolerable pains in her head, waist, and extremities came as a wake-up call about her poor health. However, to live an ideal life, she endured the pain and kept grinding herself cruelly. She had considered her life would get better as long as she went on struggling in this way.
The life of Hong Ju was like a spinning top, heart-rending and mournful. However, life was fraught with accidents. At the age of 42, she was forced to stop struggling.
That day, she was alone at home. She accidentally fell down the stairs, and cracked his head open and fractured her waist and back. With blood dyeing her clothes red, she lay on the ground in unendurable agony. Not until her husband came home was she sent to the hospital. The accident caused her to lie in bed for 3 years. Everyday life made her feel worse than death. As soon as she got up from bed, she felt as if there was a big stone on her back. That pain was beyond expression.
During these 3 years, she got cholecystitis and gastroptosis, and should not eat many kinds of food. She was envious of healthy people but could do no other than shed tears secretly. She didn’t know when such a life would end. At that time, she began to have a deep sense of her incapacity and insignificance. She had been considering she could change her fate with her own hands all along, but now she couldn’t even free herself from illness; how could it be possible to alter her future? The life condition made her who was strong-minded crack up. Consolation from others gave her no relief from her despair at all. She thought she was just like a dead-alive person. Several times, with a broken heart, she prepared to end her life by taking poison, but was rescued every time. In this way, she tormented herself time after time …
That was until one day, her children’s mother-in-law brought her the gospel of God. She read God’s words: “Mankind, who left the supply of life from the Almighty, does not know why they exist, and yet fears death. There is no support, no help, but mankind is still reluctant to close their eyes, braving it all, drags out an ignoble existence in this world in bodies without the consciousness of souls … The Almighty has mercy on these people who suffer deeply. At the same time, He is fed up with these people who have no consciousness, because He has to wait too long for the answer from humans. He desires to seek, seek your heart and your spirit. He wants to bring you food and water and to awaken you, so you are no longer thirsty, no longer hungry. When you are weary and when you begin to feel the desolation of this world, do not be perplexed, do not cry. Almighty God, the Watcher, will embrace your arrival any time.”
God’s motherly words solaced her hopeless heart. She felt the love from Him. At that moment, she lying in bed, tears had flowed down her cheeks already. She thought that during these years of sufferings, she had been overwhelmed, without confidence to face the future. Yet the gospel of God came upon her when she had given up hope. It was not until that moment that she knew she wasn’t without support. God is truly reliable and trustworthy, waiting around her for her return all the time. The more she thought of this, the more she was moved, as if she, suffering in the abyss, saw the light eventually, and then she had hope of futurity. Thereupon, she accepted God’s gospel.
With every passing day Hong Ju read more and more words of God. Then She had a different interpretation of her past life. God says: “It long ago planted the seed of the tumor of atheism within the young heart of man, teaching man fallacies such as ‘learn of science and technology, realize the Four Modernizations, there is no God in the world.’ Not only that, it repeatedly proclaimed, ‘Let us build a beautiful homeland through our industrious labor,’….” “The fate of man is controlled by the hands of God. You are incapable of controlling yourself: Despite always rushing and busying about for himself, man remains incapable of controlling himself. If you could know your own prospects, if you could control your own fate, would you still be a creature? … The destination of man is in the hands of the Creator, so how could man control himself?”
Hong Ju finally understood: People’s fate is in the hands of God. How much wealth we may possess and whether we are rich in our entire life are all predestined and arranged by God. None can be off the life course set by God, much less change his destiny with his own hands, because all of these are unrealistic. She neither knew God nor believed in His sovereignty before, but lived by Satan’s poison — building a beautiful homeland by our own hands, in the vain hope of creating her own happiness and pleasant home by her own hands. For the life of her dreams, she had been rushing and busying herself with constant sweat of her brow, and contending with the Creator’s predestination at all costs, regardless of the sacrifice of her health. Even if she had made so many efforts, she didn’t gain the happy life she wanted, only to suffer from disease. Overwork had left an indelible imprint on her body. Wasn’t it because she relied on herself rather than believed in God’s sovereignty?
Recalling the scenes in the past, she hated Satan to the core, for it blinded her eyes, making her have no discernment, trapped her into the evil tendencies, and brought her endless pain and bitterness. Satan says, “Everything depends on myself.” However, we are so insignificant that we cannot even control tomorrow. Then, how can we build the beautiful homeland for ourselves? The pitiful thing was that she had no truth and couldn’t see through Satan’s trickery. She regretted and detested herself, whereas she felt more gratitude for the salvation of God. At the lowest point of her life, His saving grace came upon her, allowing her behold the true hope of life. In her past life, deceived by Satan, she didn’t know God. As a result, she struggled against God’s sovereignty by herself, and lost God’s care and protection. Thus, she was afflicted by Satan, which made her miserable. But now, she had found God, and she preferred becoming a wise person to keeping sad after being ignorant and tired so long. She set her determination before God: “O God! I am no longer willing to rush around for myself by my own hands; I am willing to give up these false views such as ‘One’s fate rests with himself’ and ‘Create a beautiful future with our own hands.’ I will give my all to You, let You dominate and arrange it, submit to Your predestination, walk the right road of life of worshiping You, and live a meaningful latter half of my life.”
In the following days, Hong Ju felt greatly relieved. She often read God’s words, sang hymns, and lived a church life with brothers and sisters. Such a life made her feel enriched and content. To her surprise, her headache and other diseases unconsciously got better several months later. She truly experienced God’s love toward her.
At present, Hong Ju and her family have a house along the street. Her son has a new apartment in the city too. Her whole family are healthy and safe. And most importantly, she is not so exhausted and miserable anymore when she learns to obey God’s orchestrations and arrangements instead of kicking against her destiny. After these experiences, she truly realized: “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. Only when one accepts the Creator’s sovereignty, submits to His orchestrations and arrangements, and seeks true human life, will one gradually break free from all heartbreak and suffering, shake off all the emptiness of life.” Thank God! Hong Ju’s happiness is going on …
Recommendation : The brief introduction of the Church of Almighty God | Eastern Lightning
