By Zihan, China

In June 2019, I went to another region to do my duties. I didn’t return home for over a year, so my nonbelieving husband reported me and my mother. To avoid being captured by the police, I hadn’t dared to return home since then, nor had I dared to visit my mother. I often thought about her, “My mother is getting older, my father passed away early, and she has no relatives to care for her. Now that she’s been reported by my husband, she doesn’t dare to interact with the brothers and sisters. I don’t know what her state is like or how she is getting on right now.” My mother worked hard to raise me, and now that she was old and needed someone to take care of her, not only was I unable to be by her side to carry out my filial duty, but I had implicated her and made her live in fear. Every time I thought about this, I felt really distressed and indebted to my mother, and I longed for the day when I could return to visit her and carry out my responsibilities as her child. But I was afraid of being captured by the police if I returned home, and I’d been busy doing my duties, so I hadn’t been able to go home to see her.

In July 2023, during a gathering, I learned from a sister that my mother had developed dementia, and that she couldn’t take care of herself anymore and was now living in a nursing home. I could hardly believe my ears. How could my mother have developed dementia? She couldn’t take care of herself, and there were no relatives around to care for her. I couldn’t even imagine how much she must have been suffering! I held back my emotions during the gathering. Later, when I quieted down at night, I thought, “How could my mother have developed dementia? If she’d developed a different illness, at least her mind would be clear, and in her illness, she’d be able to reflect, understand herself, and learn lessons, and perhaps she’d be able to recover from the illness. But now that she isn’t functioning normally, how can there be any hope for her to be saved?” I also felt my mother’s dementia might have been because my husband reported my mother and me. This kept her from gatherings and her duties, and she also had to worry about me. This could have caused her mind to be affected. If I’d been able to do my duties in my hometown, I could have taken care of her and I’d have also been able to fellowship God’s words with her and support her, and perhaps she wouldn’t have developed this illness. In this time when my mother needed my care the most, I couldn’t be by her side. What was the point of her having raised a daughter like me? I felt deeply indebted to my mother. I had no motivation to do my duties and even regretted having come to another region to do them.

After the supervisor learned about my state, she read me a passage of God’s words: “You do not need to overly analyze or investigate the matter of your parents falling seriously ill or meeting with some great misfortune, and you certainly should not put energy into it—doing so will be of no use. People being born, growing old, getting sick, dying, and encountering various great and small matters in life are very normal occurrences. If you are an adult, then you should have a mature way of thinking, and you should approach this matter calmly and correctly: ‘My parents are ill. Some people say that it’s because they missed me so much, is that possible? They definitely missed me—how could a person not miss their own child? I missed them too, so why didn’t I get sick?’ Does any person get sick because they miss their children? That’s not the case. So, what is going on when your parents encounter these significant matters? It can only be said that God has orchestrated this kind of matter in their lives. It has been orchestrated by God’s hand—you cannot focus on objective reasons and causes—your parents were supposed to encounter this matter when they reached this age, they were supposed to be struck with this illness. Could they have avoided it if you had been there? If God had not arranged for them to fall ill as part of their fates, then nothing would have happened to them, even if you hadn’t been with them. If they were destined to encounter this kind of great misfortune in their lives, what effect could you have had if you’d been by their side? They still wouldn’t have been able to avoid it, right? (Right.) Think about those people who don’t believe in God—aren’t their families all together, year after year? When those parents encounter great misfortune, the members of their extended family and their children are all with them, right? When parents fall ill, or when their illnesses worsen, is it because their children left them? That’s not the case, it is fated to happen. It’s just that, as their child, because you have this blood tie with your parents, you will feel upset when you hear that they are sick, while other people won’t feel anything. This is very normal. However, your parents encountering this kind of great misfortune doesn’t mean that you need to analyze and investigate, or ponder on how to get rid of it or resolve it. Your parents are adults; they have encountered this more than a few times in society. If God arranges an environment to rid them of this matter, then, sooner or later, it will vanish completely. If this matter is a life hurdle for them, and they must experience it, then it is up to God how long they must experience it for. It is something that they must experience, and they cannot avoid it. If you wish to single-handedly resolve this matter, to analyze and investigate the source, causes, and consequences of this matter, that is a foolish thought. It is of no use, and it is superfluous” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (17)). After reading God’s words, I understood that the birth, aging, illness, and death of people are laws ordained by God. The hardships and sufferings a person must go through in life are all predetermined by God, and I shouldn’t analyze or study these things from a human perspective. What I should do is accept them from God and learn to submit to His orchestrations and arrangements. My mother had developed dementia, and this was the suffering she should endure; it was related to her own fate, and it hadn’t been caused by her worrying about me or by my not being there to care for her. But I mistakenly thought that if I’d been there to care for her and help her in her life entry, she wouldn’t have developed this illness. This was a misunderstanding of God’s sovereignty and arrangements and a distorted thought. I thought about the parents of this world, some of whom have children by their side to accompany and care for them. They still end up suffering the illnesses that are to come upon them and die at their appointed time. Their children being by their side to care for them doesn’t exempt them from great suffering. My mother’s illness and its severity had all been determined by God. I’d just be able to provide some care if I went home, but I’d not be able to alleviate her suffering. I had to submit and entrust my mother’s illness to God, allow Him to orchestrate and arrange everything, and put my heart into my duties.

In January 2024, I suddenly learned that my mother had passed away due to her illness a month prior. This news knocked me off my feet. I’d never expected my mother to pass on so quickly. For these past few years, I’d been hoping to have the chance to go back and see my mother, but before I’d been able to fulfill my filial duty, she left this world forever. I no longer had the chance to be filial toward her. I felt really distressed and struggled to hold back my tears. I kept calling out to God, asking Him to keep me from complaining against or misunderstanding Him. I sat dazed in front of my computer for an entire afternoon, without the heart to do my duties. I thought about how I hadn’t cared for my mother in her illness and about how I hadn’t even been able to see her one last time before she died, and I felt a deep sense of guilt and indebtedness. I knew that my relatives and acquaintances would criticize me for having no conscience and call me an ungrateful and unfilial daughter. Over the next few days, although I was doing my duties, I was completely listless. My mind was filled with images of my mother suffering from illness, and I thought about how she must have been longing for me to come home to see her one last time before she passed. The more I thought about it, the more indebted I felt toward my mother, and I couldn’t help but shed tears. I spent those few days completely dazed. Later, I realized that carrying on like this was dangerous, so I prayed to God, asking God to lead me to break free from the bonds of my affection and not be disturbed. I found a passage of God’s words that was quite helpful to me. God says: “Your parents getting sick would already be a big shock for you, so your parents passing away would be an even greater shock. Then, before this has happened, how should you resolve the unexpected blow that it will deal to you, so that it will not impact, interfere with, or affect your performance of your duty or the path that you walk? First, let’s look at what exactly death is all about, and what exactly passing away is all about—doesn’t it mean that a person is leaving this world? (Yes.) It means that the life a person possesses, which has a physical presence, is removed from the material world that humans can see, and disappears. That person then goes on to live in another world, in another form. The lives of your parents departing means that the relationship you have with them in this world has dissolved, disappeared, and ended. They are living in another world, in other forms. As for how their lives will go in that other world, whether they will return to this world, meet you again, or have any kind of fleshly relationship or emotional entanglements with you, this is ordained by God, and it has nothing to do with you. In sum, their passing away means that their missions in this world are over, and a full stop has been placed behind them. Their missions in this life and in this world have ended, so your relationship with them has also ended. … Your parents passing away will just be the last news that you hear about them in this world, and the last of the hurdles that you see or hear about when it comes to their experiences of being born, growing old, getting sick, and dying in their lives, that is all. Their deaths won’t take anything away or give anything to you, they will have simply died, their journeys as people will have come to an end. So, when it comes to them passing away, it doesn’t matter whether these are accidental deaths, normal deaths, deaths from illness, and so on, in any case, if not for God’s sovereignty and arrangements, no person or force could take away their lives. Their passing away only means the end of their physical lives. If you miss them and yearn for them, or feel ashamed of yourself due to your feelings, you shouldn’t feel any of these things, and it is not necessary to feel them. They have departed from this world, so missing them is redundant, isn’t it? If you think: ‘Did my parents miss me over all those years? How much more did they suffer because I wasn’t by their side showing filial piety to them for so many years? Over all these years, I’ve always been wishing that I could spend a few days with them, I never expected that they’d pass away so soon. I feel sad and guilty.’ It is not necessary for you to think in this way, their deaths have nothing to do with you. Why do they have nothing to do with you? Because, even if you showed them filial piety or accompanied them, this is not the obligation or task that God has given you. God has ordained how much good fortune and how much suffering your parents will encounter from you—this has nothing at all to do with you. They will not live longer because you are with them, and they will not live shorter lives because you’re far from them and couldn’t be with them often. God has ordained how long they will live, and it has nothing to do with you. Therefore, if you hear news that your parents have passed away during your lifetime, you do not need to feel guilty. You should approach this matter in the correct way and accept it” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (17)). God’s words are very clear: The birth, aging, illness, and death of people are all ordained by God. Regardless of how old a person is or how they die, whether it is a normal death or an accidental death, these things are all predetermined by God, and no one can change it. The way my mother passed away was also part of God’s sovereignty and arrangements, which God had predetermined even before she was born, and now that her time had come, it was natural that she had to leave. Even if I were by her side taking care of her, I couldn’t have kept her alive. I remembered that when my father was ill, I took him to the hospital for treatment and stayed by his side carefully caring for him over the course of several months, but I couldn’t alleviate his suffering, and in the end, he still passed away due to his illness. The birth, aging, illness, and death of people are all predetermined by God. I couldn’t alleviate my parents’ suffering, nor could I prolong their lives, so I had to maintain a rational attitude and submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements. I also thought about how my mother had various ailments before she found God. The doctors all said she wouldn’t live long, but ever since she found God, her various ailments had improved. My mother living into her seventies was already a grace and a blessing from God. Realizing this, I felt somewhat liberated, and I no longer felt so self-reproachful and guilty about my mother’s death.

I then read a passage of God’s words: “There is a saying in the world of nonbelievers: ‘Crows repay their mothers by feeding them, and lambs kneel to receive milk from their mothers.’ There’s also this saying: ‘An unfilial person is lower than a beast.’ How grandiose these sayings sound! Actually, the phenomena that the first saying mentions, crows repaying their mothers by feeding them, and lambs kneeling to receive milk from their mothers, really do exist, these are facts. However, they are simply phenomena within the animal world. They are merely a kind of law that God has established for various living creatures, and by which all kinds of living creatures, including humans, abide. The fact that all kinds of living creatures abide by this law further demonstrates that all living creatures are created by God. No living creature can break this law, and no living creature can transcend it. Even relatively ferocious carnivores like lions and tigers nurture their offspring and do not bite them before they reach adulthood. This is an animal instinct. No matter which species they are, whether they are ferocious or kind and gentle, all animals possess this instinct. All kinds of creatures, including humans, can only continue to multiply and survive by abiding by this instinct and this law. If they didn’t abide by this law, or didn’t have this law and this instinct, they wouldn’t be able to multiply and survive. The biological chain wouldn’t exist, and neither would this world. Isn’t that true? (Yes.) Crows repaying their mothers by feeding them, and lambs kneeling to receive milk from their mothers demonstrates precisely that the animal world abides by this kind of law. All kinds of living creatures have this instinct. Once offspring are born, they are cared for and nurtured by the females or males of the species until they become adults. All kinds of living creatures are able to fulfill their responsibilities and obligations to their offspring, conscientiously and dutifully raising the next generation. This should be even more the case for humans. Humans are called higher animals by mankind—if they cannot abide by this law, and lack this instinct, then humans are lower than animals, aren’t they? Therefore, no matter how much your parents nurtured you while they were raising you, and how much they fulfilled their responsibility to you, they were only doing what they ought to within the scope of the abilities of a created human—it was their instinct. … All kinds of living creatures and animals possess these instincts and laws, and they abide by them very well, carrying them out to perfection. This is something that no person can destroy. There are also some special animals, like tigers and lions. When these animals reach adulthood, they leave their parents, and some males even become rivals, biting, contending, and fighting as necessary. This is normal, it is a law. They are not governed by their feelings, and they do not live amid their feelings like people do, saying: ‘I have to repay their kindness, I have to recompense them—I have to obey my parents. If I don’t show filial piety to them, other people will condemn me, berate me, and criticize me behind my back. I couldn’t bear that!’ Such things are not said in the animal world. Why do people say such things? Because in society and within groups of people, there are various incorrect ideas and consensuses. After people have been influenced, corroded, and rotted by these things, different ways of interpreting and dealing with the parent-child relationship arise within them, and they ultimately treat their parents as their creditors—creditors that they will never be able to repay their whole lives. There are even some people who feel guilty for their whole lives after their parents die, and think themselves unworthy of their parents’ kindness, because of one thing they did that didn’t make their parents happy or didn’t go the way their parents wanted it to. Tell Me, is this not excessive? People live amid their feelings, so they can only be encroached upon and disturbed by various ideas stemming from these feelings” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (17)). After reading God’s words, I understood that the reason I was in so much pain was because I had been inculcated with traditional cultural poisons like “An unfilial person is lower than a beast” and “Raise children to support you in old age.” I believed that since my parents worked hard to raise me, providing for my food, clothing, and education, and since I hadn’t had a chance to repay my father for his kindness of bringing me up before he passed away, and if I didn’t repay my mother’s kindness, then I would be truly an utter disgrace, and even lower than a beast. I regarded these traditional values as positive things and principles by which to live, not realizing that my life came from God. My mother merely gave birth to me and raised me, and my parents were merely fulfilling their responsibilities and obligations in everything they did for me, and this couldn’t be considered a kindness. On reflection, if it weren’t for God’s care and protection when I was growing up, I wouldn’t be alive now. When I was young, I went boating with a friend, and the boat capsized. We both fell into the river and nearly drowned, but fortunately, two adults happened to be fishing by the river and rescued us. At the time, I thought I’d just been lucky, but later, upon reading God’s words and finding out that God watches over humanity day and night, I realized that this had in fact been God’s care and protection. Moreover, my parents caring for me and raising me was also God’s ordainment. But I didn’t thank God for His care and protection or do my duties properly. Instead, I always felt indebted to my mother for not being able to care for her, and this even affected my duties. Especially after learning of my mother’s passing, I felt even more guilty and tormented for not being able to care for her in her old age and send her off properly. I even regretted leaving home to do my duties. Was I not utterly lacking in conscience? I had been influenced and harmed by the ideas of traditional culture, and I was truly unable to distinguish right from wrong!

Later, I read two passages from God’s words that taught me how to treat my parents. Almighty God says: “When dealing with your parents, whether you fulfill your obligations as a child to take care of them must be entirely based on your personal conditions and God’s orchestrations. Doesn’t this explain the matter perfectly? When some people leave their parents, they feel that they owe their parents a lot and that they do nothing for their parents. But then when they do live together, they are not filial to their parents at all, and they do not fulfill any of their obligations. Is this a truly filial person? This is saying empty words. No matter what you do, what you think, or what you plan, those things are not important. What is important is whether you can understand and truly believe that all created beings are in the hands of God. Some parents have that blessing and that destiny to be able to enjoy domestic bliss and the happiness of a large and prosperous family. This is God’s sovereignty, and a blessing God gives them. Some parents don’t have this destiny; God has not arranged this for them. They are not blessed to enjoy having a happy family, or to enjoy having their children stay by their side. This is God’s orchestration and people cannot force this. No matter what, ultimately when it comes to filial piety, people must at least have a mindset of submission. If the environment permits and you have the means to do so, then you can show your parents filial piety. If the environment does not permit and you lack the means, then do not try to force it—what is this called? (Submission.) This is called submission. How does this submission come about? What is the basis for submission? It is based on all of these things being arranged by God and ruled over by God. Though people may wish to choose, they cannot, they do not have the right to choose, and they should submit. When you feel that people should submit and that everything is orchestrated by God, don’t you feel calmer in your heart? (Yes.) Then will your conscience still feel rebuked? It will no longer feel constantly rebuked, and the idea of not having been filial to your parents will no longer dominate you. Occasionally, you may still think about it as these are some normal thoughts or instincts within humanity, and no one can avoid them” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. What Is the Truth Reality?). “As a child, you should understand that your parents are not your creditors. There are many things that you must do in this life, and these are all things that a created being ought to do, that have been entrusted to you by the Lord of creation, and they have nothing to do with you repaying your parents’ kindness. Showing filial piety to your parents, repaying them, returning their kindness—these things have nothing to do with your mission in life. It can also be said that it is not necessary for you to show filial piety to your parents, to repay them, or to fulfill any of your responsibilities to them. To put it plainly, you can do a bit of this and fulfill a bit of your responsibilities when your circumstances allow; when they do not, you do not need to insist upon doing so. If you cannot fulfill your responsibility to show filial piety to your parents, this is not a terrible thing, it just goes against your conscience, human morality, and human notions a little. But at the very least, it does not go against the truth, and God will not condemn you for it. When you understand the truth, your conscience will not feel rebuked on account of this” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (17)). God’s words clearly outline the way to treat our parents. This primarily depends on our conditions and abilities. If conditions permit and our abilities allow, we can fulfill our responsibilities and be filial to our parents, but if circumstances don’t allow, there’s no need to insist upon doing this, and we must submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements. My inability to care for my mother in the time between her becoming ill and her passing didn’t mean I was unfeeling or ungrateful. I did want to be filial to my mother, but because I was being persecuted and hunted by the CCP for believing in God in an atheistic country, I couldn’t return home. This didn’t reflect a lack of conscience on my part. Moreover, I have my own mission in believing in God, which is to do the duties of a created being. If I made myself unable to do my duties because I was focused solely on being filial to my mother, then this would mean I was truly lacking in conscience. Recognizing this, I no longer felt condemned by my conscience, and I was able to calm my heart in my duties. It was God’s words that turned my fallacious viewpoints around, allowing me to properly treat my mother’s passing and find a sense of liberation in my heart.