By Monique, USA

Soon after accepting Almighty God’s gospel of the last days, I learned from God’s words that when God is finishing His work of the last days, great disasters will come upon mankind to reward the good and punish the evil. Those who did evil and opposed God will be destroyed in the disasters, while those who accepted the judgment of God’s words and were cleansed will be protected by God and survive. They will be brought by Him into His kingdom to enjoy eternal blessings. I thought at the time that getting into the kingdom and gaining eternal life would be a great blessing. I knew I had to treasure this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, do my duty well, and work hard for God so that when God’s work ends I’d be qualified to remain. So, I quit my job and started my duty to preach the gospel. At this critical time, with disasters growing ever greater, I had to get more good deeds done and share God’s gospel of the last days with even more people. In that way I could make a contribution to spreading the kingdom gospel. So, I threw all my energy into sharing the gospel, and was busy from early till late every day. More and more people were accepting God’s work of the last days in my district, and churches were established one after another. Seeing these results left me feeling very pleased with myself. I felt like my contributions to the gospel work couldn’t go unnoticed. When the pandemic broke out, with infection numbers rising all around the world, I felt totally calm. I thought that since I expended myself for God in my duty, the pandemic wouldn’t affect me, no matter how widespread it became. However, getting suddenly infected with the virus compelled me to reflect on the motives and impurities underlying the performance of my duty over the years.

One day in May 2021 I suddenly began coughing, then developed a fever and felt weak all over. At first I thought I’d gotten a cold and didn’t really care, but the symptoms persisted for a week without going away. A sister noticed my symptoms were really similar to Covid and was concerned I’d gotten it, so she suggested I go to the hospital for a check-up. I didn’t pay it much mind, and thought, “I’ve worked long days, suffering and sacrificing for my duty, and have done pretty well. Also, I haven’t done evil and disrupted the church’s work. So how could I get infected?” But the test came back positive, which I hadn’t expected at all. I walked along the road home in a daze, unable to make sense of it. “I’ve been doing my duties for years,” I thought, “so how could I catch Covid? What will the brothers and sisters think of me if they find out? Will they assume I’m being punished for doing something that offended God? But then, I haven’t done evil and disrupted the church’s work.” Millions of people around the world had died since the previous year, when the pandemic broke out, so was I going to die too, now that I was infected? Wouldn’t my sacrifice and expenditure of the last few years come to nothing if I died when God’s work was about to conclude? It would leave me with no part in the blessings of the future kingdom. The more I thought about this the worse I felt. How would I ever get through this situation? I prayed, calling out to God, “God, You have, by Your good intention, allowed me to catch this illness. You never do wrong, so is it that I rebelled against and opposed You in some way? It is no accident that I have been infected, and it all comes under Your sovereignty and arrangements, so I wish to seek Your intention and self-reflect. But what I don’t know is how I offended Your disposition. Please enlighten and guide me to know where I went wrong. I’m ready to repent.” I thought of a passage of God’s words after that: “How should you experience sickness when it comes? You should come before God and pray, seek and grope for God’s intention; you should examine yourself to find what it is you have done that went against the truth, and what corruption in you has not been resolved. Your corrupt disposition cannot be resolved without undergoing suffering. Only in being tempered by suffering can people not be dissolute, and able to live before God at all times. When someone suffers, they are always at prayer. They have no thought for the pleasures of food, dress, and other enjoyments; they pray constantly in their hearts, examining themselves to see whether they have done anything wrong or where they may have gone against the truth. Normally, when you face a serious illness or strange malady that makes you suffer very badly, this does not happen by chance. Whether you are ill or in good health, God’s intention is there in that” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. In Believing in God, Gaining the Truth Is Most Crucial). The timely enlightenment of God’s words showed me that my infection wasn’t random, and that it was entirely down to God’s sovereignty and arrangements. I had to seek God’s intention and reflect on myself properly. I couldn’t complain and blame God no matter what. While quarantined at home over the next few days, I opened up to the brothers and sisters about any corruption I had revealed. I dissected my corruptions and knew myself, and sought a path for practice and entry in God’s words. Also, no matter how I felt physically, I kept doing my duty by preaching the gospel online. After a couple of days, I felt much better. I was hardly coughing anymore, my temperature was normal, and my energy and strength had recovered. I was really happy about this, and felt that God had looked after and protected me on seeing my obedience and repentance. My anxiety eased at the thought.

But the next day I suddenly felt tightness and discomfort in my chest and couldn’t stop coughing. Then I got a fever and went weak all over. I felt a wave of panic. Ever since being diagnosed, I hadn’t blamed God and had kept on doing my duty. How could I have gotten even sicker? There was no medicine for curing Covid, so if God didn’t save me, I was sure to die. The thought of death was really scary—I couldn’t resign myself to it. I thought about how I’d followed God for more than 10 years, leaving my home and job behind and working long days on my duty. I’d suffered plenty and paid quite a price. Would none of that be remembered by God? If I died, I’d never see the beauty of the kingdom or enjoy the blessings of the kingdom of heaven. The more I thought about it, the more negative I became. I was still doing my duty, but I didn’t have any inner drive, and I got really annoyed when extra work came up. I’d just rush through it so I could get some rest. Before, I used to work on my duty from morning till night, and I thought God would protect me, but now that God wasn’t doing that, I had to think of my own well-being and take care of my health. Getting too stressed and tired wouldn’t help my recovery. In gatherings, the other brothers and sisters had so much vigor when they spoke. But as for me, I started coughing whenever I spoke, and I couldn’t catch my breath after reading a few lines of God’s words. I felt really upset and couldn’t help but try to reason things out, “I’m usually really diligent in my duty, and I’m serious and responsible. Some of the others don’t match up to me in their duties. Everyone else is healthy and doing their duty, so why am I the one with the virus? If this is a trial from God, then how come the same hasn’t happened to others in the church who pursue the truth even more than I do? And if this is a punishment from God, then why so, when I haven’t done evil or disrupted the church’s work, or offended His disposition? God, I still want to do my duty. I like it, and I haven’t had my fill of it. I want to keep on living and doing a good job in my duty. God, I’m doing an important duty now and I can still labor for You. Please protect me so that I can go on living and laboring for You….” When I thought about it that way, a passage of God’s words came to mind very clearly: “Upon what basis do you—a created being—make demands of God? People are not qualified to make demands of God. There is nothing more unreasonable than making demands of God. He will do what He ought to do, and His disposition is righteous. Righteousness is by no means fairness or reasonableness; it is not egalitarianism, or a matter of allocating to you what you deserve in accordance with how much work you have completed, or paying you for whatever work you have done, or giving you your due according to what effort you expend. This is not righteousness, it is merely being fair and reasonable. Very few people are capable of knowing God’s righteous disposition. Suppose God had eliminated Job after Job bore witness for Him: Would this be righteous? In fact, it would be. Why is this called righteousness? How do people view righteousness? If something is in line with people’s notions, it is then very easy for them to say that God is righteous; however, if they do not see that thing as being in line with their notions—if it is something that they are incapable of comprehending—then it would be difficult for them to say that God is righteous. If God had destroyed Job back then, people would not have said He was righteous. Actually, though, whether people have been corrupted or not, and whether they have been profoundly corrupted or not, does God have to justify Himself when He destroys them? Should He have to explain to people upon what basis it is that He does so? Must God tell people the rules He has ordained? There is no need. In God’s eyes, someone who is corrupt, and who is liable to oppose God, is without any worth; however God handles them will be appropriate, and all are the arrangements of God. If you were displeasing to God’s eyes, and if He said that He had no use for you after your testimony and therefore destroyed you, would this, too, be His righteousness? It would. … Everything that God does is righteous. Though humans may not be able to perceive God’s righteousness, they should not make judgments at will. If something He does appears to humans as unreasonable, or if they have any notions about it, and that leads them to say that He is not righteous, then they are being most unreasonable” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). Pondering God’s words, I felt like He was calling me to account face to face. Hadn’t I just now blamed God for being unfair and unrighteous? And wasn’t that a case of bargaining with God, trying to justify myself and negotiate conditions? I felt I’d accomplished some things during my years of suffering and paying the price in my duty, so God should protect me from disaster. That would be His righteousness. But in fact that was all my notions and imaginings, and not at all in line with the truth. God is the Lord of creation and I am a created being. Everything I enjoy comes from God, and my life was also given by God. How God arranges my fate and how long He lets me live is all up to Him. As a created being, I should submit and accept that. Who was I to be arguing with God and trying to set terms? I’d had faith all those years and enjoyed so much of the watering and sustenance of the truth from God, but still had no gratitude. Now that I’d gotten the virus and faced the threat of death, I was arguing my case with God, resisting and blaming Him for unrighteousness. Where was my conscience and reason? As I thought about this I felt more guilty and ashamed, and knelt before God in prayer. “God, I’m so unreasonable! I was created by You; I’m a created being. I should submit to all Your orchestrations and arrangements. That is perfectly natural and justified. You’ve allowed that I catch this potentially lethal virus. I didn’t want to submit, and I argued with You, blaming You for not doing the right thing and asking You to let me go on living. I was completely without reason. I was so rebellious! God, I want to reflect on myself properly and repent to You.”

Over the next few days, I felt deeply reproached whenever I thought about my complaints and my misunderstanding of God. Especially thinking of how, when my condition got more serious, I argued with God, got negative, slacked off, became perfunctory in my duty and dragged my feet, I felt even more guilty and uneasy. When I wasn’t sick and there was no crisis, I was proclaiming God’s righteousness and saying that created beings had to submit to the Creator’s orchestrations and arrangements. Why did I reveal so much rebelliousness and resistance when I got sick? I read the following in God’s words during my devotionals: “Man’s relationship with God is merely one of naked self-interest. It is a relationship between a receiver and a giver of blessings. To put it plainly, it is the relationship between an employee and an employer. The employee works hard only to receive the rewards bestowed by the employer. There is no affection in such an interests-based relationship, only transaction. There is no loving or being loved, only charity and mercy. There is no understanding, only helpless suppressed indignation and deception. There is no intimacy, only an uncrossable chasm” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Appendix 3: Man Can Only Be Saved Amidst God’s Management). “In the minds of antichrists, as long as someone is able to do a duty, pay a price, and suffer some hardship, they ought to be blessed by God. And so, after doing church work for a while, they start taking stock of the jobs they have done for the church, the contributions they have made to God’s house, and what they have done for the brothers and sisters. They keep all of this firmly in their minds, waiting to see what graces and blessings it will earn them from God, so that they might determine whether what they are doing is worth it. Why do they always preoccupy themselves with such things? What is it that they are pursuing in the depths of their hearts? What is the aim of their faith in God? From the start, their belief in God has been about obtaining blessings. And no matter how many years they listen to sermons, no matter how many words of God they eat and drink, no matter how many doctrines they understand, they will never let go of their desire and intention to be blessed. If you ask them to be a dutiful created being and accept God’s sovereignty and arrangements, they will say, ‘That has nothing to do with me. It is not what I should be striving for. What I should strive for is: when I have fought the fight, when I have made the requisite effort and suffered the requisite hardship—once I have done this according to what god requires—god should reward me and allow me to remain, and to be crowned in the kingdom, and to hold a higher position than the people of god. I should be in charge of two or three cities, at the least.’ This is what the antichrists care about most. No matter how the house of God fellowships the truth, their intention and desire to obtain blessings cannot be dispelled; they are the same sort of person as Paul. Does such a naked transaction not harbor a sort of wicked and vicious disposition? Some religious people say, ‘Our generation follows god on the path of the cross. God chose us, so we are entitled to be blessed. We have suffered and paid a price, and we have drunk from the bitter cup. Some of us have even been arrested and sentenced to jail time. After suffering all this hardship, hearing so many sermons, and learning so much about the Bible, if one day we are not blessed, we will go to the third heaven and argue with god.’ Have you ever heard anything like this? They say they will go to the third heaven to argue with God—how bold is that? Doesn’t just hearing it make you fearful? Who dares to try and argue with God? … Aren’t such people archangels? Aren’t they Satans? You can argue with anyone but not with God. You shouldn’t do such a thing, or even think of doing it. Blessings come from God: He gives them to whomever He wishes to. Even if you meet the conditions for receiving blessings and God doesn’t grant them to you, you still shouldn’t argue with God. The entire universe and all of mankind are under God’s rule; God calls the shots. How can you, a tiny human being, dare to argue with God? How can you overestimate your abilities so much? Why don’t you take a look in the mirror to see who you are? By daring to clamor against and contend with the Creator in this way, aren’t you courting death? ‘If one day we are not blessed, we will go to the third heaven and argue with god’ is a statement that openly clamors against God. What kind of place is the third heaven? It’s where God resides. Daring to go to the third heaven to argue with God is tantamount to trying to ‘overthrow’ God! Isn’t this the case? Some might ask, ‘What does this have to do with antichrists?’ It has a lot to do with them, because all those who want to go to the third heaven to argue with God are antichrists. Only antichrists can say such things. Words like these are the voice that antichrists harbor deep within their hearts. This is their wickedness” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Seven: They Are Wicked, Insidious, and Deceitful (Part Two)). I was shamed before the revelation of God’s words and saw that my years of suffering and sacrifice in the performance of my duty weren’t about being considerate of God’s intentions and doing a created being’s duty to repay God’s love. It was all about getting into the kingdom and enjoying eternal blessings. I treated doing duty as a way to escape disaster, as a bargaining chip and capital in a deal with God. That’s why I was always reckoning up how much work I’d done, how many people I’d converted, and how much I’d suffered and sacrificed. I felt that the more these came to, the more merit I’d earned and the more I qualified for being protected by God and surviving the disaster. On unexpectedly falling ill with Covid, however, I blamed and misunderstood God, without seeking how to submit to Him. Instead, I thought about how to behave well to win God’s favor, so that He would protect me and I would quickly recover. When I saw my condition deteriorate, I despaired of God. I blamed Him for being unfair and not protecting me. Evidently, my faith and duty were simply for the purpose of being blessed. I was only using God to achieve my own goal of gaining blessings, like doing a deal with God and trying to cheat Him. How selfish and deceitful I was! I thought about Paul, in the Age of Grace, crisscrossing Europe to preach the gospel. He suffered and sacrificed plenty, but everything he expended was for getting into the kingdom of heaven and being rewarded. In the end, he said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: From now on there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:7–8). What that really meant was that if God didn’t bestow a crown on him, then God wasn’t righteous. People in the religious world are deeply influenced by these words from Paul. Those who work and suffer in the name of the Lord all do it to go to heaven and be blessed. If not blessed, they argue their case with God. And I was just like them, wasn’t I? Then I felt afraid. I never imagined that I, like an antichrist, would argue with God and defy Him if I wasn’t blessed. Were it not for the revelation of the facts, I wouldn’t have realized that I had such a serious antichrist disposition. I thought of some of God’s words: “I have held man to a strict standard throughout. If your loyalty comes with intentions and conditions, then I would rather be without your so-called loyalty, for I abhor those who deceive Me through their intentions and extort Me with conditions. I wish only for man to be absolutely loyal to Me, and to do all things for the sake of—and in order to prove—one word: faith. I despise your use of blandishments to try to make Me rejoice, for I have always treated you with sincerity, and so wish for you to also act with true faith toward Me” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Are You a True Believer in God?). I could feel from God’s words that His disposition is righteous, holy, and tolerates no offense. God works to save mankind, and what He wants is man’s sincerity and loyalty. If people’s giving and expending of themselves contain hidden motives and impurities, and include bargaining and cheating, then they will not have God’s approval and in fact will nauseate and disgust God, and be condemned by Him. Just like Paul, far from being blessed by God, he was ultimately severely punished in hell. Mustn’t God also have been nauseated and disgusted by the transactional, adulterated way that I did my duty? Today, getting sick had exposed the despicable intentions underlying my faith and made me see God’s righteousness and holiness. At that, I fully accepted and submitted to having contracted the illness, from my heart.

I read another passage of God’s words later on: “As a created being, when one comes before the Creator, they ought to perform their duty. This is a very proper thing to do, and they should fulfill this responsibility. On the basis that created beings perform their duties, the Creator has done even greater work among humankind, and He has carried out a further stage of work on people. And what work is that? He provides humankind with the truth, allowing them to gain the truth from Him as they perform their duties and thereby to cast off their corrupt dispositions and be purified. Thus, they come to satisfy God’s intentions and embark on the right path in life, and, ultimately, they are able to fear God and shun evil, attain complete salvation, and no longer be subjected to Satan’s afflictions. This is the effect that God would have humankind achieve in the end by performing their duties. Therefore, during the process of performing your duty, God does not merely make you see one thing clearly and understand a little truth, nor does He merely let you enjoy the grace and blessings you receive by performing your duty as a created being. Rather, He allows you to be purified and saved, and, ultimately, come to live in the light of the face of the Creator” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Nine (Part Seven)). God’s words really moved me. For a created being, doing a duty is a responsibility and obligation that cannot be shirked. More than that, it is a path to gain the truth and achieve dispositional change. In the course of our duties, God sets up all sorts of situations to expose people’s corrupt dispositions. Then, through the judgment and revelations of His words, and through His pruning and discipline, He allows us to understand our corrupt disposition and make a change, to no longer be subject to Satan’s corruption and afflictions. This is God’s earnest intention. Over the years of doing my duty, I’d revealed lots of corruption in the circumstances set up by God. I’d gained some understanding of my corrupt dispositions. Then I’d started hating myself and had repented and changed, living some human semblance. I’d gained so much through my duty, but still I wasn’t grateful. Instead, I used the performance of my duty as a bargaining chip and capital to escape disaster, and treated God like He was to be cheated and exploited. How despicable! God has expressed so many truths, but instead of treasuring them I thought only about how to be blessed, escape disaster, get into the kingdom of heaven and be rewarded. I was so vile! I prayed and swore to God that I wouldn’t do my duty only for the sake of being blessed, and that I would pursue the truth diligently in my duty to repay God’s love. I read another passage of God’s words that gave me a path of practice. God’s words say: “If, in your faith in God and pursuit of the truth, you are able to say, ‘Whatever sickness or disagreeable event God allows to befall me—no matter what God does—I must submit, and stay in my place as a created being. Before all else, I must put this aspect of the truth—submission—into practice, I must implement it, and live out the reality of submission to God. Moreover, I must not cast aside what God has commissioned to me and the duty I should perform. Even on my last breath, I must hold fast to my duty,’ is this not bearing testimony? When you have this kind of resolve and this kind of state, are you still able to complain about God? No, you are not. At such a time, you will think to yourself, ‘God gives me this breath, He has provided for and protected me all these years, He has taken much pain from me, given me much grace, and many truths. I have understood truths and mysteries that people have not understood for generations. I have gained so much from God, so I must repay God! Before, my stature was too small, I understood nothing, and everything I did was hurtful to God. I may not have another chance to repay God in the future. No matter how much time I have left to live, I must offer the little strength I have and do what I can for God, so that God can see that all these years of providing for me have not been in vain, but have borne fruit. Let me bring comfort to God, and no longer hurt or disappoint Him.’ How about thinking this way? Do not think about how to save yourself or escape, thinking, ‘When will this illness be cured? When it is, I shall do my best to perform my duty and be loyal. How can I be loyal when I’m ill? How can I perform the duty of a created being?’ As long as you have a single breath, are you not capable of performing your duty? As long as you have a single breath, are you capable of not bringing shame upon God? As long as you have a single breath, as long as your mind is lucid, are you capable of not complaining about God? (Yes.) It is easy to say ‘Yes’ now, but it will not be so easy when this really happens to you. And so, you must pursue the truth, often work hard on the truth, and spend more time thinking, ‘How can I satisfy God’s intentions? How can I repay God’s love? How can I perform the duty of a created being?’ What is a created being? Is the responsibility of a created being merely to listen to the words of God? No—it is to live out the words of God. God has given you so much truth, so much of the way, and so much life, so that you may live out these things, and bear testimony to Him. This is what ought to be done by a created being, and it is your responsibility and obligation” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only in the Frequent Reading of God’s Words and Contemplation of the Truth Is There a Way Ahead). God’s words are so moving for me. God is the Lord of creation and I am a created being, so my fate is in His hands. He allowed the illness to come upon me, so whether I lived or died, I should submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements. That’s the basic sense that a created being should possess. And a duty is something a created being should hold to. At any time, no matter what happens, so long as there’s breath in my body, I should hold to my duty. I’d enjoyed so much of God’s love over the years, but I was always rebelling against Him and hurting Him since I didn’t pursue the truth. I was deeply in God’s debt. As long as I was alive, I should do my duty well to repay God’s love. In the days that followed, I pondered every day about how to do my duty well to satisfy God. The sister I was partnered with was new to preaching the gospel and didn’t know many of the principles, so problems kept cropping up. I was online helping and guiding her. I also often quieted myself before God, reading His words and singing hymns to praise Him. I still kept coughing and had a fever, but I was no longer constrained by sickness, and I stopped thinking about whether I would die. I knew my life was in God’s hands and that God’s sovereignty would determine how long I lived. Every day that God gives me is a day when I pursue to do my duty well and repay God’s love. When the day comes that God allows death to take me, I will submit and voice no complaint.

One evening I couldn’t stop coughing and my throat was full of phlegm. I had a high fever and my body felt sore all over. I tossed and turned in bed, feeling terrible and unable to sleep. I wondered, “Am I about to die? Will I ever wake again after I go to sleep?” The idea of death was really upsetting, and I couldn’t stop crying at the thought that I might never again get the chance to read God’s words. I got up, turned on my computer, and read this passage of God’s words: “Everyone’s lifespan has been predetermined by God. An illness may appear to be terminal from a medical standpoint, but from God’s point of view, if your life must still go on and your time has yet to come, then you couldn’t die even if you wanted to. If God has given you a commission, and your mission is not over, then you will not even die from an illness that is supposed to be fatal—God will not take you yet. Even if you do not pray and seek the truth, or do not attend to treating your illness, or even if you put off your treatment, you will not die. This is particularly true for those who have received a commission from God: When their mission has yet to be completed, no matter what illness befalls them, they must not die straight away; they must live until the final moment of the mission’s completion. Do you have this faith? … The fact is that no matter whether your bargaining is meant to get your illness cured and keep you from dying, or whether you have some other intent or goal in it, from God’s point of view, if you can do your duty and are still of use, if God has decided that you are to be used, then you will not die. You will not be able to die even if you want to. But if you make trouble, and commit all manner of evil deeds, and aggravate God’s disposition, you will die swiftly; your life will be cut short. Everyone’s lifespan was determined by God before the creation of the world. If they can obey the arrangements and orchestrations of God, then regardless of whether they suffer illness or not, and whether they are in good or poor health, they will live the number of years predetermined by God. Do you have this faith?” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). Reading God’s words, I could feel His love and mercy. This warmed my heart. I understood God’s intention a little better. That I could be born into the last days, believe in God and do a duty was all determined by God. Whether sick or not, I’d have to die if God ordained that my days were done. And if God ordained otherwise, then I wouldn’t die even with a fatal illness. I didn’t know what was waiting for me, but I should put my life in God’s hands and follow His orchestrations and arrangements. Thinking that I could die at any time, I really wanted to speak from the heart to God again. I knelt down and prayed to God, “Oh God! Thank You for letting me hear Your voice and obtain watering and sustenance from so much that You have said, and for allowing me to comprehend the truth and learn properly to conduct myself. I feel my life hasn’t been in vain. This is all through Your mercy and salvation! It’s just that I’m so deeply corrupted, and I’m always rebelling against and hurting You. I haven’t pursued the truth well or genuinely done my duty to repay Your love. I’ve also never given You a shred of comfort. I am deeply in Your debt. I don’t know if I’ll have another chance to repay Your love. If I do live, I want to really pursue the truth and do my duty well to satisfy You….” That night, I fell asleep before I knew it. As soon as I woke up the next day, I felt totally relaxed, as if I’d never even gotten sick. My throat felt fine and all the phlegm had gone. I rushed to take my temperature and found it was back to normal. I was really moved by this, and I knew it was God’s mercy and protection. Although I revealed a lot of rebelliousness and resistance when I got Covid, God still watched over and protected me. I couldn’t hold back my tears, and offered up my thanks and praise to God.

Two months passed, with my temperature staying normal throughout. The sickness didn’t recur, and before I knew it I’d completely recovered. Thinking of how I survived while so many others died in the pandemic, I knew it was all thanks to God’s wondrous care and salvation for me. Catching Covid laid bare the hidden intentions and impurities in my faith and duty, allowing me to see my vile motives for trying to do a deal with God in return for blessings. Through this, I gained some understanding of myself and was disgusted with myself. Also, I gained some real experience and understanding of God’s holy, righteous disposition, and a sense of submission to God’s sovereignty and arrangements. While I underwent refinement and pain through the experience of getting sick, I also gained so much—things that I couldn’t have gained from a less taxing situation. Whenever I think back on what I reaped from this experience, I’m filled with gratitude and praise toward God. I give thanks to God for His salvation!