By Qin Fang, China

I once had a harmonious family. We lived a life without worrying about food and clothing. However, in the early stages of my second pregnancy, I unknowingly drank traditional Chinese medicine that promoted blood circulation, which almost led to a miscarriage, but later, through medical means, I managed to give birth to my son. Although both my child and I were safe, I read online that taking medication during pregnancy can tend to lead to a child having dwarfism. This became a heavy burden on my heart. Whenever I saw that other children younger than mine were taller, I felt a deep pain in my heart, and I often lived in a state of self-blame. I lost count of how many tears I shed over this matter. In October 2013, a relative of mine testified Almighty God’s work of the last days to me, and she showed me a passage of Almighty God’s word titled “God Is the Source of Man’s Life.” There was a particular section that left a deep impression on me. God says: “From the moment you come crying into this world, you begin to fulfill your responsibilities. For the sake of God’s plan and His ordination, you play your role and start your life’s journey. Whatever your background may be, and whatever the journey ahead of you may be, in any case, no one can escape the orchestrations and arrangements of Heaven, and no one can control their own fate, for only He who is sovereign over all things is capable of such work” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God). God’s words moved me deeply. I came to know that human life comes from God, that what kind of children one has isn’t up to oneself, and that this is all part of God’s sovereignty and arrangements. At that moment, I couldn’t help but cry, and I poured out all my pain and worries to God. I felt a sense of liberation in my heart that I’d never felt before. Later, through reading God’s words, I also understood that a person’s gender, appearance, and height in this world are all predetermined by God and aren’t affected by external circumstances. If God had ordained that my child would be healthy, then even if I took medicine, it wouldn’t affect his health. I felt that God’s words were a healing medicine that dispelled my inner troubles, and I felt very at ease and liberated in my heart.

Six months after accepting Almighty God’s work of the last days, I began to do my duties in the church. At first, my husband didn’t oppose this. But in May 2014, he saw on TV and the internet all the negative propaganda spread by the CCP to slander, blaspheme, and defame The Church of Almighty God, and he began to obstruct me in my faith. He even smashed my MP5 player that I used to read God’s words, saying, “Look at what they say online. The state opposes your faith in Almighty God, and the police will arrest you. If you get arrested, it’ll be utterly humiliating! The internet also says that believers in God abandon their families and don’t live normal lives.” I retorted, “In all this time since I’ve started believing in God, have I abandoned my family or stopped living in a normal way? Our gatherings just consist of us reading God’s words together, and you’ve seen this with your own eyes. We haven’t done anything illegal, so is it legal for the police to arrest us? Those who steal, rob, gamble, and engage in prostitution aren’t dealt with, yet they specifically arrest believers. Isn’t this an inversion of right and wrong?” But no matter what I said, my husband just wouldn’t listen. Later, he constantly persecuted me for my faith in God, and whenever he was unhappy, he would bring up my faith in God. Whenever he came home from work and saw that I wasn’t there, he would explode in anger, yelling, “How can we go on living like this? If you keep believing like this, I’ll call the police!” He’d often come home drunk at night and yell at me, rummaging through my things to find my books of God’s words, claiming he would destroy them. He even pulled my hair and dragged me to the ground, insisting that I leave in the middle of the night. I was furious, thinking, “My faith in God just consists of me gathering with my brothers and sisters to eat and drink God’s words, yet my husband treats me like this—he’s an outright devil!” In a fit of anger, I also thought about leaving, but when I thought about my two young children, and how I didn’t want my hard-earned marriage to fall apart like this, I endured. But unexpectedly, my husband’s persecution of me became more intense.

On February 16, 2016, after lunch, I prepared to go out to a gathering, and my husband yelled, “You’re going out again? You are not living a normal life!” I replied, “What do you mean I’m not living a normal life? I haven’t delayed anything around the house. I’ve cooked, and tidied up the home, and I need to have my own time too.” Just as I was about to open the door, he suddenly locked it and blocked me from leaving, threatening me with his phone, saying, “If you go out again, I’ll call the police!” With that, he dialed the emergency number 110. I felt very nervous. Seeing him about to press the green dial key, I hurriedly said, “If you make that call today, do you know what’ll happen afterward? There are retributions for doing evil!” His hand trembled for a moment while holding his phone, then he exited the dialing interface, and said in an outburst of anger, “I can’t live like this anymore! I’m not going to work today. You’re going to have to make a choice today! I’m calling your dad and my mom to discuss our divorce!” Then he called my parents and his mom. I didn’t know what to do, and I felt really weak. Looking at the family photo on the wall, I couldn’t help but think, “It hasn’t been easy for us to get to this point. Life has been tough, and in the past we spent so little time together because of my husband’s work. But now he’s got a stable job, we’ve moved into a big house, our life is free of worries, and our son and daughter are both smart and healthy. We’ve really made it in terms of both our family and career. If we divorce, I’ll lose all of this. Although I face some persecution for believing in God, at least I have a complete family, and the children have both a father and a mother. How can we just get a divorce? I really don’t want it to get to that point.” I regretted not stopping him from calling my parents. If I had just said something conciliatory and agreed to not go out for a while, perhaps he wouldn’t have brought up divorce. I didn’t know how to get through all this, so I prayed to God, hoping He would guide me. At that moment, I remembered what the Lord Jesus said: “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). It felt as if a beam of light had cut through my heart, and it brightened instantly, and I thought, “Am I not just considering my flesh? Between my family and faith, I’m afraid of losing my family and regret not saying something conciliatory to my husband. I’m compromising with him and trying to preserve my family at the cost of betraying God. In what way am I testifying to God?” I recalled the days when I suffered terribly because of the issues related to my son, and I wondered, “If it weren’t for God saving me, how could I live so freely now? I can’t be so ungrateful or lacking in conscience.” So I prayed to God, “God, please give me faith. No matter what happens next, even if we really do divorce, I will still choose to believe in You and do my duty.” After praying, I felt a sense of liberation in my heart.

That afternoon, my dad, my two younger sisters, and my in-laws all came over. They all believed my husband and persecuted me along with him. In the end, my dad and my sisters dragged me into the car by force and took me back to my hometown. Back at my parents’ house, they beleaguered me every day. My dad saw that I insisted on believing in God, and one day at lunch, he said, “The state is severely cracking down on and arresting those who believe in Almighty God. If you get arrested and sentenced to a few years in prison, do you think your husband will still want you? You’ll end up losing your home. Why suffer like this? Listen to us, just give up this faith of yours. They say on TV that your lot is anti-state, so what good will come from opposing the state? Look at your family now, you’ve got a house and a car, and your two kids are smart and well-behaved. Why are you giving up such a good life to go on believing in God? You really don’t know how blessed you are!” The more I listened, the angrier I felt. What was he talking about, calling me anti-state? What does it mean to oppose the state? God’s words clearly say: “God does not partake in the politics of man, yet the fate of a country or nation is controlled by God. God controls this world and the entire universe” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Appendix 2: God Presides Over the Fate of All Mankind). I said sternly and solemnly, “Dad, believing in God just means we read God’s words and gather to fellowship the truth. God guides us to walk the right path and live out normal humanity. How can we be anti-state? You can’t believe in baseless rumors!” But my mom, seeing that I wouldn’t listen, screamed at me, “If you keep this up, you’ll get arrested and lose everything. What will your life be like then? If you want faith, just come with me to the cathedral to believe in God in the Three-Self!” I said, “The CCP doesn’t arrest people from the cathedral because those in the cathedral obey the CCP. They claim to believe in the Lord Jesus, but they are actually listening to man and believing in man, not believing in God. The true way has always been persecuted. When the Lord Jesus worked in Judea, He was slandered and condemned by the Roman government and the Pharisees. The disciples who followed the Lord were arrested and persecuted by the Roman government for preaching the gospel. Can you say that the Lord Jesus isn’t the true God, and not the true way? Today, we believe in the true God, and we will inevitably face arrests and persecution from the satanic government of the CCP. Mom, Almighty God is the Lord Jesus returned, and He is God performing a new stage of work based on the foundation of the Age of Grace. He has come to completely save humanity. Believing in Almighty God means we are following God’s new work. For you to be able to believe in the Lord Jesus, isn’t it because many missionaries came to China, forsaking their families and careers to preach the gospel?” My dad, seeing my firm resolve, interrupted me and questioned me fiercely, “So you’re saying you have no leeway to turn back, and that you insist on holding to your faith? As your parents, we are doing this for your own good. If you get arrested, don’t blame us for not warning you! If you don’t listen to us and carry on in this faith of yours, I will disown you. You can go wherever you want after the divorce. This family doesn’t want you anymore!” After my dad finished speaking, he began to shed tears. Seeing him so heartbroken, I cried too. I silently prayed to God in my heart, “Almighty God, please keep my heart quiet before You. I don’t know how to handle this kind of situation. Please grant me faith and guide me.” After praying, I thought of a passage of God’s words: “In every step of work that God does on people, externally it appears to be interactions between people, as if born of human arrangements or from human disturbance. But behind the scenes, every step of work, and everything that happens, is a wager made by Satan before God, and requires people to stand firm in their testimony to God. Take when Job was tried, for example: Behind the scenes, Satan was making a wager with God, and what happened to Job was the deeds of men and the disturbance of men” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God). With the guidance of God’s words, I suddenly realized that although it seemed like my dad was trying to persuade me, it was in fact Satan trying to use my affections to drag me to its side, attempting to make me leave God and betray Him. If I went over to my dad’s side, wouldn’t I just be playing into Satan’s schemes? I suddenly thought of the words of the Lord Jesus: “He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37). Everything I have comes from God, and my life comes from Him as well. Believing in God and worshiping Him is perfectly natural and justified, so I couldn’t abandon my faith in God just to consider my dad’s feelings. I also thought of Peter’s experience. Peter’s parents hoped he would pursue a career as an official and achieve success and renown, and they opposed and hindered Peter from believing in God and expending himself for Him. But Peter chose to believe in God and follow Him, resolutely leaving his parents behind. With this in mind, I gained faith and my resolve to follow God strengthened. No matter what my dad said, I had to see through Satan’s schemes and not be deceived. My dad saw that I wasn’t saying anything and fiercely pressed me again, “So you’re set on this; nothing’s going to hold you back?” Resolutely, I replied, “Absolutely nothing. I will persist in my faith in God; I refuse to be ungrateful. In the past, I always worried that my son would become a dwarf. I lived in fear, pain, and guilt every day. Back then, you all advised me to just let things play out as they might, but the pain in my heart was something only I understood. Later, I accepted God’s new work, read His words, and understood the truth, and only then was my heartache relieved. If it weren’t for God saving me, who knows, one day I might not be able to take it anymore and choose to die, and then you would lose your daughter. Don’t you want the best for me?” My dad, seeing my resolve, sulked in silence.

Later, my dad saw me secretly reading God’s words again and angrily said, “If you keep on believing in your God like this, I’ll call the police, get them to arrest you, and I’ll have them beat you senseless! I don’t believe you won’t change!” I saw my dad’s eyes were red with anger, and his expression was dark. Just to prevent me from believing in God, he was even willing to send me to prison to suffer under the torture of the CCP. How could he be so cruel? Was this really the father I’d always known? Had he not become an accomplice of the CCP and a servant of Satan? I saw that my dad’s essence was one of hatred and opposition toward God. I thought of a sentence of God’s words: “Love what God loves, and hate what God hates: This is the principle that should be adhered to” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Recognizing One’s Own Misguided Views Can One Truly Transform). Those who truly believe in God are the ones I should love. Those who hate God and oppose Him are all enemies of God. They are devils. God abhors them, so I should reject them as well. I had to live by God’s words, not be constrained by my parents, and resolutely follow God!

I stayed at my parents’ house for two and a half months. After returning home, my husband thought I no longer believed in God, so his attitude toward me softened a lot. A couple of weeks later, he found out that I still believed in God and said fiercely, “You’re still attending gatherings and believing in God? Get the hell out of here!” Saying this, he strode to the door, opened it, and shouted at me, “Get out! This family doesn’t want you anymore. Go wherever you want!” The truth was that I didn’t want to leave home, and I just wanted to put on a show for him. I walked to the bedroom, took a suitcase from the closet, and I started organizing my clothes and putting them inside. I thought to myself, “If he sees me packing my clothes, he’ll probably remember our marital bond. If he sees I’m really leaving, he might just compromise.” Unexpectedly, my husband came in from the living room and snatched the suitcase from me. He dumped all the clothes out onto the bed, and started rummaging through them, cursing at me, saying, “Let me see if you’re taking all valuables from my house!” I was furious at the sight of the mess of clothes my husband had made. How could he say such things to me after we had lived together for ten years? He was treating me like a thief, and my heart felt utterly cold. I put the clothes back in the suitcase and walked out the door. Reflecting on what had just happened, my heart ached, and I couldn’t help but cry, as I thought, “My husband is truly heartless! I’m walking the right path in life by believing in God, yet he’s forcing me to leave home again. Is this really how my family falls apart?” I prayed to God, “God, I’m finding it so hard to believe in You. My heart is so weak. I don’t know how to walk the road ahead. Please guide me.” After all this, I went to stay at a sister’s house.

The next afternoon, I just couldn’t calm down. I thought of my son, who was only five years old and had never been away from me. Could he really manage without me by his side? Just the thought of my child’s tender little face and his future broke my heart into a thousand pieces. I worried, what if he looked for his mother? Would my husband do something in anger? Would all this implicate the church or the brothers and sisters? That night, I went back home. My parents-in-law were there, and my husband had taken the children out to eat. My mother-in-law said, “We were all very worried about you after you left. Just live a normal life and drop this faith of yours! Do you really have to make all this fuss and end up divorced?” I calmly replied, “Mom, it’s not that I don’t want to live a normal life, it’s that your son can’t accept me.” My mother-in-law anxiously said, “Divorce may be nothing for the adults, but the problem is that the children will suffer. They’re still so young. Please, you have to think of the children.” Hearing my mother-in-law say this made me feel very upset, and tears welled up in my eyes. The truth was, the ones I was most worried about were the children. What would their lives be like if I were to leave? Not long after, my husband returned with the kids. As soon as they came in, the kids saw me and walked toward me. But my husband shouted, forbidding them from approaching me, and he told our daughter to go settle our son into bed for the night. The moment I saw the kids obediently heading to the bedroom, I felt that my worries and concerns were unnecessary. God is the source of man’s life, and He governs and holds sovereignty over everything. The fate of my children in the future is also under God’s orchestrations and arrangements. I thought of a passage of God’s words: “No one can escape the orchestrations and arrangements of Heaven, and no one can control their own fate, for only He who is sovereign over all things is capable of such work. Ever since man came into existence in the beginning, God has always been performing His work in this manner, managing the universe, and directing the laws of change for all things and the trajectory of their movement. Like all things, man is quietly and unknowingly being nourished by the sweetness and rain and dew from God; like all things, man unknowingly lives under the orchestration of God’s hand. Man’s heart and spirit are within God’s grasp, and everything of their lives is beheld in the eyes of God. Regardless of whether or not you believe all this, any and all things, whether living or dead, will shift, change, renew, and disappear in accordance with God’s thoughts. This is how God holds sovereignty over all things” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God Is the Source of Man’s Life). Each of us lives according to the life trajectory that God has ordained from the moment we are born, playing our own roles. The kinds of situations we experience in life are all part of God’s sovereignty and arrangements. People simply don’t have the power to change any of this. What hardships my children would endure and what blessings they would enjoy as they grew up, how people would treat them, and how their physical condition would be—all of this is under God’s orchestrations and arrangements. My children’s fate wouldn’t change because of my care and nurturing, nor would my departure affect their growth. God had long since arranged what my children’s fate would be. My daughter taking care of my son that day seemed to tell me that anyone can live without another person, and that each has their own way of living. Regardless of age, God will orchestrate and arrange all people, events, and things, and prepare suitable environments for each person’s growth. With this in mind, I felt more at ease, and I was willing to entrust my children to God. To my amazement, after the kids went to bed, my husband opened the door again and tried to chase me out, and he only stopped making a scene after my in-laws talked him down.

That night, I lay in bed, reflecting on the events that had unfolded. Since my husband had bought into the baseless rumors and devilish words spread by the CCP, he feared it would affect his interests, so he had become angry. Without regard for our marital bond, he repeatedly persecuted me to try and get me to renounce my faith, whether by trying to drive me out of the house or threatening divorce. He also had my parents try to control and monitor me, and he even kicked me out of the house several times. After I found God, I didn’t neglect my family or my children, yet he was treating me like that. How could there be any genuine affection between people? I thought of a passage of God’s words: “Why does a husband love his wife? Why does a wife love her husband? Why are children dutiful to their parents? Why do parents dote on their children? What sorts of intentions do people actually harbor? Is their intent not to satisfy their own plans and selfish desires?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God and Man Will Enter Into Rest Together). God’s words are absolutely true. Relationships between people are all based on interests, and they are all about using one another to satisfy one’s selfish desires. In the past, my husband treated me well because I didn’t encroach on his interests, I took care of the family in every possible way, I was especially considerate toward him, and helped him gain face. But now that I was believing in God and doing my duty, and I was at risk of being arrested by the CCP at any moment, which would implicate him, he had completely changed into a different person. Seeing the truth revealed, I wondered how there could be any love or affection between people. My husband had kicked me out of the house several times, yet I still wanted to preserve our marriage, as I believed “Once a man and woman are married, their loving bond runs deep.” I didn’t realize this was all just one-sided wishful thinking on my part. The more I thought about it, the more I realized just how foolish I was! I had always tried to preserve this family, and because of being persecuted by my husband, I rarely ate and drank God’s words, my gatherings were limited, and I couldn’t do any duty. In what way was this true faith in God? Moreover, if I couldn’t do my duty, I couldn’t experience God’s words, and if I couldn’t gain the truth, how could I be saved by God? God says that doing one’s duty is the only way to be saved, as in the course of one’s duty, there are many opportunities to obtain the truth and there are many moments when one receives the work and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Pursuing the truth in the course of one’s duty allows one to cast off one’s corrupt disposition and gain more opportunities to be perfected by God. Believing in God and doing one’s duty is the most valuable and meaningful thing a person can do! I had to choose between my family and my faith. So I prayed to God, “God, I want to do my duty. Please open a path for me. I am willing to give myself to You completely.”

Later, another incident strengthened my resolve to leave home and do my duty. One day, a couple of weeks later, I returned home after a gathering and was cooking when my husband came up behind me and yanked my hair, asking me, “Did you go out to gather for your faith in God again?” When he saw that I wasn’t responding, he gave my hair another hard yank, causing my scalp to hurt. I said, “As long as I have breath in my lungs, I will believe in God!” My husband flew into a fit of rage and yelled, “Do you believe I will kill you today?” He then shoved me hard, took a fruit knife from the cupboard, and put his right arm around my neck, while his left hand held the knife. He pressed the back of the knife against my neck and shouted, “I really want to kill you!” In desperation, I quickly called for my daughter, urging her to call her grandmother. At this, my husband slammed the knife down on the dining table. All this showed me once again my husband’s God-hating essence, and that he would actually be willing to kill me to prevent me from believing in God. He was truly an evil person and a devil! How could there be any happiness living with such a devil? I thought of a passage of God’s words: “There is no relationship between a believing husband and a nonbelieving wife, and there is no relationship between believing children and nonbelieving parents; these two types of people are completely incompatible. Prior to entering into rest, one has physical relatives, but once one has entered into rest, one will no longer have any physical relatives to speak of. Those who do their duty are enemies of those who do not; those who love God and those who hate Him are in opposition to one another. Those who will enter into rest and those who will have been destroyed are two incompatible types of created beings. Created beings that fulfill their duties will be able to survive, while those that do not fulfill their duties will be objects of destruction; what is more, this shall last through eternity. Do you love your husband in order to fulfill your duty as a created being? Do you love your wife in order to fulfill your duty as a created being? Are you dutiful to your nonbelieving parents in order to fulfill your duty as a created being? Is the human view on believing in God right or wrong? Why do you believe in God? What do you wish to gain? How do you love God? Those who cannot fulfill their duties as created beings, and who cannot make an all-out effort, will become objects of destruction. There are physical relationships that exist between the people of today, as well as associations by blood, but in the future, these will all be shattered. Believers and nonbelievers are not compatible; rather, they are opposed to one another. Those in rest will believe that there is a God and will submit to God, whereas those who are rebellious against God will all have been destroyed. Families will no longer exist upon earth; how could there be parents or children or spousal relationships? The very incompatibility of belief and unbelief will have utterly severed such physical relationships!” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God and Man Will Enter Into Rest Together). Believers and nonbelievers are fundamentally incompatible, and the paths they walk are entirely different. My husband didn’t believe in God and even hated Him; he was essentially a devil. Living with him brought no happiness at all, as I was not only suffering his persecution, but also being hindered in my pursuit of truth and life growth. I was unable to do my duty as a created being, and in the end, I would fall into disaster just like him. One day in July 2016, I left a note for my husband that said, “I’m leaving. Please don’t look for me ever again!” The moment I stepped out of the door, I felt a sense of liberation in my heart, and I resolved to do my duty properly to satisfy God.

Through all this, it was God’s words that gave me faith and strength, guiding me step by step out of from the dark influence of my family, and enabling me to follow God and do my duty. All of this was the result of God’s words. Thanks be to God!