By Kuaile, China

When I was young, my mom and dad told me that God created man and so man should live worshipping the Creator. When I got older, I started attending gatherings. Around 2017, my mom was expelled as an evil person because she disrupted and disturbed church work and stubbornly refused to repent. From then on, she didn’t support me as much in my faith. I started college in 2018, and every time I went home or my mom called me, she’d always tell me to study hard and ask me what my plans were for my studies and in life. She hardly ever mentioned my faith in God, and plus, I was busy with my studies and rarely ate and drank God’s words, so I gradually drifted apart from God. I often felt empty and exhausted.

One day, when I was home for the winter vacation in 2020, I read a passage of God’s words. “God does not merely pay a price for each person in the decades from their birth to the present. As God sees it, you have come into this world countless times, and have been reincarnated countless times. Who is in charge of this? God is in charge of this. You have no way of knowing these things. Each time you come into this world, God personally makes arrangements for you: He arranges how many years you will live, the sort of family that you will be born into, when you will build a home and a career, as well as what you will do in this world and how you will make a living. God arranges a way for you to earn a living, so that you can accomplish your mission in this life unhindered. And as for what you should do in your next incarnation, God arranges and delivers that life to you according to what you ought to have and what ought to be given to you…. God has made these arrangements for you many times, and, at last, you were born into the age of the last days, into your present family. God arranged an environment for you in which you could believe in Him, He allowed you to hear His voice and come back before Him, so that you could follow Him and perform a duty in His house. It is only with such guidance from God that you have lived until today. … God takes full responsibility for every soul that is reincarnated. He works attentively, paying the price of His life, guiding every person and arranging each of their lives. God toils and pays a price in this way for man’s sake, and He bestows upon man all of these truths and this life. If people do not perform the duty of created beings in these final days, and they do not return before the Creator—if, in the end, no matter how many lives and generations they have lived through, they do not do their duties well and they fail to meet God’s demands—would their debt to God not then be too great? Would they not be unworthy of all the prices God has paid? They would be so lacking in conscience, they would not deserve to be called people, as their debt to God would be too great. Therefore, in this life—I am not talking about your former lives, but in this life—if you are not able to give up the things you love or external things for the sake of your mission—like material pleasures and the love and joy of family—if you do not give up the pleasures of the flesh for the sake of the prices that God pays for you or to repay God’s love, then you are truly wicked! Actually, any price that you pay for God is worth it. Compared to the price that God pays on your behalf, what does the tiny amount that you offer up or expend amount to? What does the little you suffer amount to? Do you know how much God has suffered? The little that you suffer is not even worth mentioning when it is compared to what God has suffered. Moreover, by doing your duty now, you are obtaining the truth and the life, and in the end, you will survive and enter into God’s kingdom. What a great blessing that is! While you follow God, no matter whether you suffer or pay a price, you are actually working with God. Whatever God asks us to do, we listen to God’s words, and practice according to them. Do not rebel against God or do anything that brings Him sorrow. In order to work with God, you must suffer a little, and you must renounce and lay aside some things. You must give up fame, gain, status, money, and worldly pleasures—you even need to give up things like marriage, work, and your prospects in the world. Does God know whether you have given up these things? Can God see all this? (Yes.) What will God do when He sees that you have given up these things? (God will be comforted, and He will be pleased.) God will not only be pleased and say, ‘The prices that I paid have borne fruit. People are willing to work alongside Me, they have this resolve, and I have gained them.’ Whether God is pleased or happy, satisfied or comforted, God does not only have that attitude. He also acts, and He wants to see the results that His work achieves, otherwise what He requires of people would be meaningless. The grace, love, and mercy that God shows man are not merely a kind of attitude—they are a fact, as well. What fact is that? It is that God puts His words within you, enlightening you, so that you may see what is lovely about Him, and what this world is all about, so that your heart is filled with light, allowing you to understand His words and the truth. In this way, without knowing it, you gain the truth. God does so much work on you in a very real way, enabling you to gain the truth. When you gain the truth, when you gain that most precious thing which is eternal life, God’s intentions are satisfied. When God sees that people are pursuing the truth and willing to cooperate with Him, He is happy and contented. He is then of an attitude, and while He is of that attitude, He goes to work, and approves of and blesses man. He says, ‘I will reward you with the blessings that you deserve.’ And then you will have gained the truth and the life. When you have knowledge of the Creator and you have gained His appreciation, will you still feel an emptiness in your heart? You will not. You will feel fulfilled and have a sense of enjoyment. Is this not what it means for one’s life to have value? This is the most valuable and meaningful life” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Paying the Price to Gain the Truth Is of Great Significance). I understood from God’s words that everything man has comes from God, that we are alive today only because God cares for and protects us, and that people have a conscience and live meaningful lives only when they fulfill their duties as created beings. That I was born in the last days and was fortunate enough to hear God’s voice was predestined by God before the ages, along with the responsibilities and mission I should fulfill. Though I had followed my parents in faith since I was young, I’d never done a duty. I wanted to do one when I got to college, but I couldn’t let go of my studies and future prospects. I just attended gatherings, as that was the regulation, but my heart was estranged from God. Thinking back, the people I associated with at college were almost all nonbelievers, and over time I started following wicked trends, eating and drinking and having fun. I spent less and less time eating and drinking God’s words, and also became increasingly selfish and deceitful. I was no different from those who did not believe. I thought of God’s words: “It is only by seeking the truth to resolve problems while performing a duty that people can grow in life” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. What It Means to Pursue the Truth (1)). I came to understand that only by doing our duty and experiencing God’s work can we gain the truth and keep growing in life and ultimately be gained by God. How can we attain salvation if we don’t perform our duty and pursue worldly trends? Afterward, I heard a hymn of God’s words by chance: “Awaken, brothers! Awaken, sisters! My day will not be delayed; time is life, and to seize back time is to save life! The time is not far off! If you fail the college entrance examination, you can study and retake it as many times as you like. However, My day will brook no further delay. Remember! Remember! I urge you with these good words. The end of the world unfolds before your very eyes, and great disasters rapidly draw near. Which is more important: your life, or your sleep, your food and drink and clothing? The time has come for you to weigh these things” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Utterances of Christ in the Beginning, Chapter 30). After hearing this hymn, I realized that I didn’t have much time left to do a duty. When I took the exams to get into college, I could’ve stayed in school another year and taken the exams again if I had failed. But there is only one chance to be saved by God, and if we miss it, it’s gone forever. I also considered how serious the pandemic was, and how without God’s care and protection we could die at any time. I felt that the pandemic was God’s way of warning me. I’d been following worldly trends for years and wasted so much time, missing so many chances to do a duty and gain the truth. Now, I didn’t want to miss any more chances. If I didn’t use this precious time to do a duty and prepare good deeds more, then I’d get swept up in disaster and it would be too late for regret. I now felt a growing urgency to do my duty, and when the pandemic lockdowns ended, I started doing the duty of watering newcomers.

Because the pandemic was still going on, I was taking classes online and didn’t have too many of them, so I could both take classes and do my duty. I never thought this would make my mom unhappy. Because she wanted me to find a part-time job to do in my spare time. One night, she asked me furiously, “I told you to get a job, so what are you thinking about it?” I said, “My plan is to keep doing my duty.” She got very angry and said, “I’m not asking you to stop doing your duty; you can do it and work at the same time. You mustn’t take your faith so seriously. Don’t be like me; I gave up everything and ended up being cleared out.” I thought to myself, “Isn’t holding onto the world while also believing in God just trying to have it both ways? That’s not sincere faith in God! Also, you giving up your job and family and you being cleared out were two separate things. You were cleared out because you did all sorts of evil and refused to repent.” So I said to my mom, “I’m studying now; if I get a job as well, how will I have time to do my duty? I’m not getting a job.” My mom rebuked me, saying, “I see that you won’t listen to anything I say. Can’t you tell I just want what’s best for you?” I said, “I’ll listen to you on anything else; just not on this.” She got so angry that she picked up my laptop and smashed it. I felt very wronged and didn’t understand why she had flown into such a rage. Afterward, whenever I wanted to go attend a gathering or do my duty, she gave me chores to do. Sometimes I’d be rushing out of the house and she’d get angry with me and scold me.

One day, she asked me, “What are your plans for the future?” I said, “I’ve decided to do my duty in God’s house.” She saw that I was prioritizing my duty, so she said with a stern expression, “I raised you all these years, and nothing good has come of it. I would’ve been better off having a dog. I could feed that dog and it would wag its tail at me. What have I got in return for all the effort I expended for you? Just leave. Go wherever you want. I don’t want any spongers in this house!” Hearing it, I was stunned, and thought, “I just believe in God; I haven’t done anything bad, and yet you want to kick me out.” My mom went on, saying, “If you persist in your faith and doing your duty, this family will be broken. I will have no daughter from this day on, and you will have no mother. I will have raised you for nothing!” I felt so hurt and wronged when she said this, and I thought, “My mom used to believe in God; shouldn’t she be supporting me? Why is she obstructing me?” I felt like there were two paths that lay before me: the path of believing in God, doing my duty, and ending my relationship with my mom, and the path of satisfying my affection, betraying God, and not being able to do my duty anymore. When faced with making a choice, my heart felt torn in two. I had such deep affection for my mom. She had loved me so much all my life. She’d gone without good food and new clothes and would leave the best things for me. She was the most important person to me. But I couldn’t leave God, either. God had given me life. It was God who’d given me my living breath, who had cared for me and protected me as I grew up. My health had never been great, and I often got sick. Without God’s care and protection, I’d have died long ago and wouldn’t be here today. If I left my mom, at least I’d be able to live. But if I left God, wouldn’t I just become a walking corpse? What meaning would there be to life then? I knew I had to choose believing in God, but if I made that choice, wouldn’t I then have no mother in the future? My warm, sweet family would be gone. I felt under so much pressure from my mom. Why did it have to be one or the other? Why did I have to make this choice? I then thought of a passage of God’s words I’d read before: “In every step of work that God does within 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 bet with God, and what happened to Job was the deeds of men and the disturbance of men. Behind every step of work that God does in you is Satan’s wager with God—behind it all is a battle” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God). God’s words helped me to understand that although on the surface it seemed that my mom was pressuring me and making me choose, behind all this was a spiritual battle. It was the temptation of Satan, too. Satan knew my weakest spot and so used affection to pressure me into abandoning my faith. If I’d followed my mom, given up my faith and my duty, then I’d have fallen for Satan’s scheme and lost my chance at salvation. Whether I’d be kicked out of my home or not, I couldn’t betray God and give up my duty for the sake of affection. I thought of more of God’s words: “When you are faced with trials, you must satisfy God, though you may weep bitterly or feel reluctant to part with some beloved object. Only this is true love and faith” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement). My heart found its strength. No matter what I’d face in the future, I’d rely on God to keep going. So I said to mom, “I’ve always wanted this family, and I’ve always wanted you and dad. I’d rather eat less and spend less and be a good daughter to you. If I can’t meet your requirements, then it’s because I’m just not able to. This is the best I can do. But believing in God and doing my duty is the right path and I can’t give it up.” My mom got incredibly angry and later moved out and rented someplace else.

Every now and then, my mom would have me over to her rented place for chats. One time, she said to me, “Your dad’s health isn’t good. You have to think of him. What will you do if he gets sick one day? I never said you couldn’t believe in God. So-and-so and so-and-so believe in God and also have jobs, right? You mustn’t take faith so seriously. Aren’t I just thinking of your future when I tell you to get a job?” I was so upset. My dad’s health really hadn’t been great for a few years. If he really got sick, what would I do as his daughter without any money to help? The more I thought about it, the unhappier I became. In my heart, I kept praying to God, saying, “Oh God, please protect me from the snares of Satan. I wish to satisfy You, but I’m weak. I’ll soon crumble under this siege. Please give me the faith to see through Satan’s schemes and stand firm in my testimony to You.” After praying, God’s words came to mind: “Why do you not entrust them into My hands? Do you not have sufficient faith in Me? Or is it that you are afraid I will make inappropriate arrangements for you?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Utterances of Christ in the Beginning, Chapter 59). God’s words suddenly brought light into my heart. God holds sovereignty over all, and He controls our lives and deaths. Surely even more so He is sovereign over whether someone gets sick or not? Whether my dad would get sick or not in the future or what his health would be like were not things I could control. I should leave him in God’s hands and submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements. I also understood that my mom had become a lackey of Satan. If being hard on me failed, she tried the soft approach, using every means to tempt and lure me into betraying God. So I said to mom, “I’m an adult now. I can think for myself and make my own choices. I’m set on faith in God. My faith is more than just saying I acknowledge Him and believing in Him in my heart. Do I really have faith in God if I don’t do my duty? I don’t care about how those people you mentioned believe in God. If they are going downhill, should I follow them too? It’s not that I have no conscience. It’s because I have a conscience that I know what to do and what not to do.” My mom went silent after hearing that. I knew I couldn’t have said those words. It was God guiding me to counter Satan’s schemes.

Yet I still felt really upset on my way home. My mom talked with me over and over again, and I didn’t understand why she always had to be like this with me, or why she always wanted me to choose between my faith and her and my dad. When was this all going to end? I really didn’t want to go through this anymore. As I walked, I thought of a passage of God’s words: “When God works to refine man, man suffers. The greater a person’s refinement, the more of a God-loving heart they’ll possess, and the more of God’s might will be revealed in them. Conversely, the less refinement a person receives, the less of a God-loving heart they’ll possess, and the less God’s might will be revealed in them. The greater such a person’s refinement and pain and the more torment they experience, the deeper their love of God will grow, the more genuine their faith in God will become, and the more profound their knowledge of God will be” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement). I pondered this passage of God’s words as I walked and, without noticing it, my heart felt energized. It’s precisely because I’ve now chosen the path of faith that Satan is trying to obstruct me. If I didn’t believe in God and didn’t choose to do my duty, then I wouldn’t be being refined in this way. I thought of the many brothers and sisters who were under persecution and suffering obstruction from their families for believing in God, but never gave up their faith or duty. Instead, they prayed to God and leaned on Him to stand firm in their testimony. I’d now chosen to follow God and perform the duty of a created being. There was no way Satan was going to let me go that easy, so it was trying to make me shun God through my mom continually persecuting me. God was also using this persecution to perfect my faith in Him and so that I would learn to lean on Him to stand firm in my testimony. Once I understood this, I felt so moved. God had not left me when I was negative but had used His words to guide me, enabling me to stand firm and not be misled and seduced by Satan. I felt that God was beside me, leading me onward by the hand. I felt so steady and supported, and I had the faith to get through this situation.

One and a half months later, my mom moved back home. One morning, my mom came to my room and asked what I thought about getting a job. I said, “I haven’t changed my mind. I choose to do my duty in the house of God.” She called me an ungrateful wretch and went to strike me in a rage. I can’t remember exactly how many times she slapped me. She even held me by the neck and banged my head against the wall. Only when I was about to stop breathing did she stop. I really couldn’t understand why she was doing this to me. Wasn’t I just believing in God and doing my duty? I wasn’t doing anything bad. While she was hitting me, I thought about brothers and sisters being cruelly tortured by the great red dragon. The great red dragon is the king of devils, and it torments brothers and sisters so much. But this was my mom. She was the closest person to me, and to hit me as hard as she did, I didn’t feel physical pain—it broke my heart.

Soon it was spring 2021. One day, I’d just got home from doing my duty and my mom was picking a fight with me on purpose because of some trivial things. She went to hit me again and shouted, “I’ve raised you all these years and nothing good has come of it. Since this is how it is, just go. Get out! I’ll pretend you’re not my daughter. You didn’t come from me!” I thought, “The only way I can do my duty is to leave. But to be honest, I didn’t want to leave my parents, either. To move out would mean living alone. I wasn’t courageous at all. When I thought about how I’d become a child with no family, I felt so upset. If I was made to give up my faith, I’d be able to keep my home, but I’d enjoyed so much of God’s grace and had eaten and drunk so many of God’s words, where would my conscience be if I couldn’t do my duty?” In that moment, I felt so upset, it was as if someone had cut my heart out with a knife. In extreme pain, I thought of dying. I thought that I wouldn’t have to suffer this pain if I died. When I was in the most pain, I read God’s words: “Today, most people do not have that knowledge. They believe that suffering is without value, they are renounced by the world, their home life is troubled, they are not beloved of God, and their prospects are bleak. The suffering of some people reaches an extreme, and their thoughts turn to death. This is not true love for God; such people are cowards, they have no perseverance, they are weak and powerless! God is eager for man to love Him, but the more man loves Him, the greater man’s suffering, and the more man loves Him, the greater man’s trials. If you love Him, then every kind of suffering will befall you—and if you do not, then perhaps everything will go smoothly for you and all will be peaceful around you. When you love God, you will feel that much around you is insurmountable, and because your stature is too small you will be refined; moreover, you will be incapable of satisfying God, and you will always feel that God’s intentions are too lofty, that they are beyond the reach of man. Because of all this you will be refined—because there is much weakness within you, and much that is incapable of satisfying the intentions of God, you will be refined internally. Yet you must clearly see that purification is only achieved through refinement. Thus, during these last days you must bear testimony to God. No matter how great your suffering, you should walk until the very end, and even at your last breath, still you must be faithful to God and at the mercy of God; only this is truly loving God, and only this is the strong and resounding testimony. … It can be seen from much of God’s work that God really does love man, though the eyes of man’s spirit have yet to be completely opened and he is unable to clearly see much of the work of God and His intentions, nor the many things which are lovely about God; man has too little true love for God. You have believed in God throughout all this time, and today God has cut off all means of escape. Realistically speaking, you have no choice but to take the right path, the right path that you have been led onto by the harsh judgment and supreme salvation of God. Only after experiencing hardship and refinement does man know that God is lovely. Having experienced up until today, it can be said that man has come to know part of God’s loveliness, but this is still not enough, because man is so lacking. Man must experience more of God’s wondrous work, and more of all the refinement of suffering arranged by God. Only then can man’s life disposition be changed” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only by Experiencing Painful Trials Can You Know the Loveliness of God). I felt such pain after reading this. Facing suffering is God’s love, but I always felt the situation to be too painful and didn’t want to keep going through it. I really was so fragile. I said I wanted to do my duty but when things got hard, I wanted to shrink back, and even thought of dying. Wasn’t this precisely me falling for Satan’s scheme? I’d still have God if I moved out. This was perfect for training me to live independently and teaching me to lean on God when issues arose. This was beneficial for my life. Once I’d understood God’s intention, I wasn’t suffering in my heart anymore. I was willing to go through my current situation. I knelt and prayed to God, saying, “Oh God, no matter how hard the road ahead gets, I’ll resolutely keep going. Please guide me.” After I’d prayed, I felt even more peaceful and calm. The next day, I told my mom I was going to rent someplace. Unexpectedly, her attitude suddenly changed and spoke to me of her own accord. Her attitude softened a great deal over the next few days. I thought of Abraham. When God told him to offer his most precious son up to God, even though he was reluctant to do it, when he’d determined to offer his son to God, God didn’t take him. What God wanted was Abraham’s sincerity and obedience. Thinking back on this experience, I feel like God was testing me. Once I’d resolved to perform my duty, Satan then had no recourse, and I could finally do my duty without constraint.

Later, I read more of God’s words and came to have some discernment about my mom. Almighty God says: “Those among brothers and sisters who are always giving vent to their negativity are lackeys of Satan, and they disturb the church. Such people must one day be expelled and eliminated. In their belief in God, if people do not have a God-fearing heart, if they do not have a heart of submission to God, then not only will they be unable to do any work for Him, but on the contrary will become those who disturb His work and who defy Him. Believing in God but not submitting to or fearing Him, and instead resisting Him, is the greatest disgrace for a believer. If believers are just as casual and unrestrained in their speech and conduct as nonbelievers are, then they are even more wicked than nonbelievers; they are archetypal demons. Those who give vent to their poisonous, malicious talk within the church, who spread rumors, foment disharmony, and form cliques among the brothers and sisters—they should have been expelled from the church. Yet because now is a different era of God’s work, these people are restricted, for they are decidedly to be eliminated. All who have been corrupted by Satan have corrupt dispositions. Some have nothing more than corrupt dispositions, while others are different: Not only do they have corrupt satanic dispositions, but their nature is also extremely malicious. Not only do their words and actions reveal their corrupt, satanic dispositions; these people are, moreover, the genuine devils and Satans. Their behavior disrupts and disturbs God’s work, it disturbs the brothers’ and sisters’ life entry, and it damages the normal life of the church. Sooner or later, these wolves in sheep’s clothing must be cleansed away; an unsparing attitude, an attitude of rejection, should be adopted toward these lackeys of Satan. Only this is standing on the side of God, and those who fail to do so are wallowing in the mire with Satan. People who genuinely believe in God always have Him in their hearts, and they always carry within them a God-fearing heart, a God-loving heart. Those who believe in God should do things cautiously and prudently, and all that they do should be in accordance with God’s requirements and able to satisfy His heart. They should not be headstrong, doing whatever they please; that does not befit saintly propriety. People must not run amok, waving the flag of God all over the place while swaggering and swindling everywhere; this is the most rebellious sort of conduct. Families have their rules, and nations have their laws—and isn’t it even more so in the house of God? Does it not all the more have strict standards? Does it not all the more have administrative decrees? People are free to do what they want, but the administrative decrees of God cannot be altered at will. God is a God who does not tolerate offense from humans; He is a God who puts people to death. Do people really not know this already?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. A Warning to Those Who Do Not Practice the Truth). I saw that what God was exposing was precisely my mom’s behavior. I never had any discernment of my mom before, and felt that she would be able to understand and support me in my faith and doing my duty. Only through her obstructions and persecution did I begin to see her essence of an evil person. She understood everything and yet still persecuted me and obstructed me in my faith. This was determined by her God-hating essence. I could be misled by her appearance before, thinking that she’d believed in God for many years, given up family and career and suffered a lot, that she was a true believer, and although she was cleared out of the church, perhaps one day she’d turn herself around. But in fact, not only did she not repent, she came to have notions about God’s house and vented her negativity, even obstructing me from believing in God and doing my duty, wanting me to grasp the world and believe in God too. She gave the appearance of thinking of me, but in essence she wanted me to shun God and lose my chance to be saved. She knew my soft spot, that I was afraid of losing home, so she used all kinds of ways to persecute me in my faith. If I didn’t do what she said, she’d launch foul-mouthed attacks on me, and even hit me. I saw that my mom’s nature was one that hated the truth and was hostile to God. I also saw that interpersonal relations were based on interest. When I chose to do my duty and couldn’t get a job, couldn’t do what she wanted, she’d turn against me and hit me and scold me, wanting to disown me, and even throw me out of the house. I saw that she didn’t really love me. Once I had some discernment of my mom’s essence, my heart was able to let go of my affection toward her.

I went through this situation for a year and God led me to overcome my mom’s disturbances and persecution. I feel that there is power and authority in God’s words. They led me out of negativity and weakness time and time again and I also came to have some discernment of my mom’s essence of an evil person. I thank God for saving me.