By Xiao Te, China

After knowing and loving each other for eight years, my husband and I were about to get engaged, when I came down with a sudden illness that made me lose the ability to give birth. At that time, I was completely disheartened, and I lost the courage to go on living. My husband’s family saw that I couldn’t give birth and urged him to break up with me, but he ignored his family’s dissuasion and resolutely decided to marry me. My husband’s steadfast loyalty reignited my hope in life and I was very grateful to him, but at the same time, I felt great sorrow over being unable to give birth, and I always felt I was indebted to my husband. In my heart, I secretly told myself that I needed to properly cherish our hard-earned union. After getting married, I kept the house in perfect order so that my husband could have peace of mind while away at work. With both important and trivial matters, I did my best to put him first, and I made sure to give him face around relatives and friends. About two years into our marriage, not wanting me to live in self-blame for being unable to give birth, my husband adopted a child. After adopting this child, our home was filled with much more joy and laughter, and I felt that the home was warmer than before.

In January of 2009, my cousin spread Almighty God’s gospel of the kingdom to me. Almighty God’s words had great authority and power, and I was deeply drawn to them. After that, I would often read God’s words and fellowship with the brothers and sisters on our understanding of His words. I came to understand that God’s work of the last days was to save mankind, that there were many people who had been harmed by Satan and hadn’t yet come before God, and that it was our responsibility and obligation to bring these people before God to accept His salvation. I wanted to offer my contribution to the gospel work. Before long, by God’s grace, I took up my duty in the church. I thought to myself, “How great it would be to testify God’s gospel to my husband and have him join me in my faith in God.” But after listening to me, my husband said disdainfully, “There is absolutely no God in this world,” and added that he is a materialist. My husband saw I was quite enthusiastic in my belief in God, and out of curiosity, he went online to do some research. He saw that the internet was full of negative propaganda fabricated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to smear the church and blaspheme God, and so he asked me nervously, “Are you believing in Almighty God? That’s going to get you arrested. Believing in God means giving up your family and your job. Don’t be fooled by this!” He also said he went to the Domestic Security Protection Bureau to inquire and was told that for any family with someone who believed in Almighty God, the children couldn’t become civil servants or join the army in the future, and all other family members would be implicated. He said that if I continued down this path, sooner or later I’d be arrested. Listening to my husband’s words, I was very surprised. The CCP was even using family members to report believers in God; it was so wicked! Quickly, I said to my husband, “Don’t believe the rumors you see online; they’re all fabricated by the CCP. And just because I believe in God, it doesn’t mean I want to give up my family and job.” However, he didn’t believe me at all and still sided with the CCP. I had no choice but to keep believing in secret behind his back.

One year later, my husband saw that I was still believing in God, and he was worried that I’d be arrested and get our family involved, which would affect his reputation. I remember there was even one time when he got down on his knees and begged me to stop believing. Seeing my husband on his knees, pleading with me, I was quite surprised. He usually acted like a male chauvinist, but there he was, kneeling down and begging me. I recalled how he typically cared a lot for our family, and thought, “If I don’t listen to him, will he still treat me how he did before? Will we argue about this frequently? Will it reach the point where we don’t get along with each other?” Pondering this, I became a bit weak, and I thought, “Maybe I’ll go out less in the future. I’ll spend the weekends at home with him so that he doesn’t worry as much.” But then I thought, “If I listen to him and give up on believing in God, I’ll lose my chance to attain salvation. That won’t do!” I also thought, “Maybe my husband’s just been temporarily misled by the CCP. The truths I understand now are shallow; in the future, if I take my time in talking to him, I have faith that he’ll see through the Party’s rumors.” However, later on, in order to make me abandon my faith in God, he secretly printed out the CCP’s negative online propaganda and brought it home for me to read. I refused, but he pulled me over and forced me to read it. Unconsciously, I turned away from him, and to my surprise, this sent my husband into a fury. He grabbed my collar, pushed me into the corner, and, in a frenzied anger, violently clasped his hands around my throat. There was a fierce look in his eyes. He said to me furiously, “Today, you’re going to see the truth! You need to wake up to this!” He was choking me so hard that I was having some trouble breathing, and after quite some time, he finally released his grip. Seeing what my husband had done, I was stunned. In my time knowing my husband, he had never once put his hands on me. Now, he had got violent with me because of my belief in God. I felt terribly wronged, and tears streamed down my face. I thought to myself, “What am I going to do in the future? If I keep believing in God and doing my duty, my husband certainly won’t treat me well like he has in the past. Then how long would our family be able to last? But if I abandon my faith in God, I’ll lose my chance of being saved. God becoming flesh to express truths and save mankind is an extremely rare opportunity that I can’t afford to miss.” I was very conflicted and in pain, and I didn’t know what to do. I went before God and prayed to Him: “God, my stature is too small. Please enlighten me and guide me to stand firm amidst these circumstances.” After that, I read a passage of God’s words: “Since the creation of the world, I have begun to predestine and select this group of people—namely, you of today. Your temperament, caliber, appearance, and stature, your family into which you were born, your job, and your marriage—you in your entirety, even including the color of your hair and your skin, and your time of birth—were all arranged by My hands. I arranged by hand even the things you do and the people you meet every single day, not to mention the fact that bringing you into My presence today was actually done by My arrangement. Do not throw yourself into disorder; you should proceed calmly” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Utterances of Christ in the Beginning, Chapter 74). God’s words made me realize that man’s fate is in God’s hands. A person’s job, marriage, and family were all ordained by God long ago. Whether or not my family would split apart was all in God’s sovereignty and arrangements, and I had no control over whether or not my husband was going to divorce me. I ought to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements and do my duty well as a created being. Having understood God’s intentions, my heart felt a bit calmer.

Afterward, I read God’s words: “You must possess My courage within you, and you must have principles when it comes to facing relatives who do not believe. For My sake, however, you also must not yield to any dark forces. Rely on My wisdom to walk the perfect way; do not allow any of Satan’s conspiracies to take hold. Put all your efforts into placing your heart before Me, and I shall comfort you and bring you peace and happiness” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Utterances of Christ in the Beginning, Chapter 10). Pondering God’s words, I realized that, because of my affection, I’d nearly fallen victim to Satan’s cunning plot. The CCP spread these rumors online to smear the church, misleading our nonbelieving relatives and using them to obstruct and persecute us, aiming to make us shun and betray God. At first, my husband didn’t persecute me, but after seeing those rumors online, he did all he could to exert his opposition and persecution, using all sorts of tactics to get me to give up believing in God and acting as an instrument for Satan. I couldn’t stop doing my duty because of my husband’s persecution; wouldn’t that mean I’d succumbed to Satan’s cunning plot? God’s words say: “You must have principles when it comes to facing relatives who do not believe.” When it came to everyday matters, I could listen to my husband, but with regard to my faith in God, I had to have my own stance and principles. I couldn’t give up believing in God because of his persecution; I had to combat this with wisdom. After that, I began doing my duty in the evenings, telling my husband that I was taking a class, while going to work normally during the daytime. Things went on quietly like this for a while, and my husband didn’t argue with me about my faith in God. After some time had passed, my husband became suspicious. He began to stalk me in secret, often looking through my bag. He found the books of God’s words and the notes from my spiritual devotion I’d hidden in the closet, and angrily pointed his finger at me, saying, “You’re a stubborn one, alright! I’m going to burn all these books of yours; let’s see how you keep believing then!” At the time, I was quite scared, fearing that he really was going to burn them, and so when he wasn’t home, I secretly took them over to a sister’s house to keep them safe. Due to my husband’s persecution, I couldn’t engage in spiritual devotions and read God’s words normally at home, so I had no choice but to rent my own apartment. Every day, I would read God’s words in this rented space before going home.

In May of 2012, because my husband had gone to the Protection Bureau to learn about the matter of belief in God, someone from the bureau began to keep tabs on him. They would usually contact him via WeChat under the pretext of checking up on him out of concern, and they asked him where I worked. As a result, I was shadowed by the CCP for over two months, and I ended up being arrested at a gathering. After my release, I feared that if they followed me it’d mean trouble for the brothers and sisters, so I stopped gathering for the time being and would usually just read God’s words in secret when my husband wasn’t home. One day, my husband found out that I was still believing in God, and he asked me in a serious tone, “Can you stop believing? If you keep believing and get arrested again, do you know what that’ll do to my reputation? Have you considered my feelings or considered our child’s future? Are the three of us not living quite well? If you’re unhappy, we can go traveling. I could buy you a small car as well. If there’s something you want, I’ll make it happen. Why do you insist on following this path?” At the time, I was somewhat tempted and weak. I thought that being happy together with my family sounded quite nice, and I wanted to agree to my husband’s proposal. But thinking of not believing in God, I became extremely sad. And I quickly prayed to God: “God, I want to believe in You and do my duty, but I don’t want my family to split apart. Please give me faith and the resolve to endure suffering so that I can overcome this temptation from Satan.” After that, I thought of God’s words: “If, on the road to loving God, you are able to stand on the side of God when He does battle with Satan, and you do not turn back to Satan, then you will have achieved the love of God, and you will have stood firm in your testimony” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God). God’s words gave me faith and strength. Faced with these circumstances, I had to stand on God’s side and humiliate Satan. My husband feared that if I was arrested again, it would influence his reputation and make him ashamed to show his face around relatives and friends, so he used material enjoyments to seduce me into a compromise. But I showed no discernment, and when my husband satisfied my material enjoyments, I was tempted, even wanting to satisfy my husband and pursue fleshly familial happiness. My stature really was so small. Also, before I was arrested, in order to get me to abandon my faith in God, my husband had used all kinds of means to monitor and track me, and to search my bag, even wanting to burn my books of God’s words. My husband wasn’t truly being good to me; he was only offering me these benefits to get me to abandon my faith. I couldn’t succumb to Satan’s cunning plot. So, I said to my husband, “Man is created by God, and worshiping God is right and proper.” My husband responded disdainfully, “The idea that man is created by God comes from the Bible, which was written by man himself, yet still you believe it. You really are simple-minded!” Hearing his words, I realized that our conflicting views on believing in God were irreconcilable. We were walking on two separate paths, and sooner or later, our marriage would have to end. But on the inside, I was truly in pain, and I thought, “We’ve really gone through a lot in our time being married. At the beginning, my husband’s steadfast loyalty helped me through the most difficult time of my life. If I lose this marriage, how am I supposed to go on living in the future?” I still felt somewhat indebted to my husband and child. But then I thought, “God is the source of man’s life, and not having God is tantamount to not having life. If I listen to my husband and don’t believe in God, don’t eat and drink His words, then I’ll have abandoned God’s salvation and continued to live under the power of Satan. Would I then not be living as a walking corpse? I can’t abandon my faith in God.” So I prayed to God and asked Him to guide me to walk the path in front of me.

After that, I read a passage of God’s words: “Pernicious influences that thousands of years of ‘the lofty spirit of nationalism’ have left deep in the human heart, as well as the feudal thinking by which people are bound and chained, without an iota of freedom, with no will to aspire or persevere, no desire to make progress, remaining instead negative and regressive, entrenched in a slave mentality, and so on—these objective factors have imparted an indelibly filthy and ugly cast to the ideological outlook, ideals, morality, and disposition of humanity. Humans, it would seem, are living in a dark world of terrorism, which none among them seeks to transcend, and none among them thinks of moving on to an ideal world; rather, they are content with their lot in life, to spend their days bearing and raising children, striving, sweating, going about their chores, dreaming of a comfortable and happy family, and dreaming of conjugal affection, of filial children, of joy in their twilight years as they peacefully live out their lives…. For tens, thousands, tens of thousands of years until now, people have been squandering their time in this way, with no one creating a perfect life, all intent only on mutual slaughter in this dark world, on the race for fame and fortune, and on intriguing against one another. Who has ever sought after God’s intentions? Has anyone ever heeded the work of God? All the parts of humanity occupied by the influence of darkness have long since become human nature, and so it is quite difficult to carry out the work of God, and people have even less heart to pay attention to what God has entrusted to them today” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Work and Entry (3)). From what God’s words exposed, I found the root cause of my pain. Due to being bound and restricted by such traditional notions as “Once a man and woman are married, their loving bond runs deep,” “holding hands and growing old together,” and “being a good wife and a loving mother,” I believed that having marital love and filial piety and spending my life in peace was what happiness meant. When my husband refused to believe in God and even opposed and persecuted me, always arguing with me over this matter, I feared that our love would fall apart and that we’d lose this beautiful marriage of ours, and I wanted to do all I could to preserve it. But before I believed in God, even though my husband was good to me, and even though our family was quite tight-knit and our marriage was harmonious on the surface, every day there was nothing but those trivial household affairs, which often gave me a sort of empty feeling inside. In reality, that wasn’t true happiness. Now, if I preserved our family, my flesh would be satisfied, but my husband didn’t believe in God, pursuing worldly trends and following the path of a person of the world. We appeared to be united, but we were divided at heart; we didn’t have a common language, let alone any happiness. Looking at the families I knew, many of them seemed happy and blissful on the surface, but they couldn’t break free from their inner emptiness. For instance, I had a colleague who, despite having a car, a home, a beautiful daughter, a seemingly comfortable material life, and a good marriage, wasn’t happy at all and often worried her husband would have an affair while attending engagements away from home. To stay looking young, she put lots of time into maintaining her health and beauty, and she even followed her husband around. She often lamented to me that her life was so exhausting. This made me realize that no matter how much people enjoy their material lives, it can’t satisfy the void in their hearts, and familial harmony cannot resolve their spiritual needs. If people don’t believe in God, no matter how much fleshly enjoyment they have, it’s all temporary. When the great tribulation is upon us, those people will lack God’s protection and will all be destroyed. If I chose to follow the path of a nonbeliever, abandoning my faith in God in order to pursue marital love and familial happiness and satisfy momentary fleshly enjoyments, I would ultimately fall into disaster and be punished. Man is created by God, and only if one returns to the Creator and takes up their duty can their life have value and meaning. Take Peter, for instance, who heard the Lord Jesus’ call and forsook everything to follow Him. In the end, he gained a true understanding of God and received God’s perfection and blessings. His was the most valuable, meaningful life of all. Going forward, I ought to properly pursue the truth and pursue a meaningful life. Later on, due to job cuts at my company, I was assigned to work as a salesperson, meaning that I didn’t have to spend all day at the office and could do my duty during the daytime. This really was God showing me the way. Not long after, I was arrested again.

In December of 2012, I was arrested while spreading the gospel and spent fifteen days in jail. When I got home, my husband said to me in a disheartened voice, “You know, you have a criminal record now. This time, I tried to use my connections and told the Protection Bureau captain not to put you on file, but he said, ‘Believers in Almighty God are important cases! It’s an order from the central authorities; there’s nothing you can do!’ Now our child is caught up in your trouble and won’t be able to work as a civil servant or join the army in the future. You’ve got the whole family involved this time; think of what you’ve done to my reputation!” Hearing this, I was indignant, thinking, “Believing in God isn’t even a crime, so why does this have to mean trouble for my whole family? The CCP is truly so detestable!” My husband went on to say, “I don’t want to continue being on tenterhooks all the time like this. Now there are two paths you can choose from: One is abandoning your faith in God, and continuing this life with me. The other is divorce, and we go our separate ways and don’t interfere in each other’s affairs. It’s up to you.” When I heard my husband mention divorce, my heart felt like it was going to break. I thought, “Our child is still so young; what will happen to him after our divorce?” To make matters worse, I couldn’t interact with the brothers and sisters during that time due to having been arrested. I felt particularly lonely and helpless, and I missed the days I’d spent with the brothers and sisters. During that time, my husband would get home late every night, and he was often dead drunk. Although we still lived under the same roof, we were estranged from each other, and the warmth our home once had was now long gone. I was miserable, and my hatred for the CCP only grew. It was their fabricated rumors that had brought this upon my family. I thought of two passages of God’s words: “Forefathers of the ancient? Beloved leaders? They all oppose God! Their meddling has left all beneath heaven in a state of darkness and chaos! Religious freedom? The legitimate rights and interests of citizens? They are all tricks for covering up sin!” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Work and Entry (8)). “Do you truly hate the great red dragon? Do you truly, sincerely hate it? Why have I asked you so many times? Why do I keep asking you this question, again and again? What image is there of the great red dragon in your hearts? Has it really been removed? Do you truly not consider it to be your father? All people should perceive My intention in My questions. It is not to provoke the anger of the people, nor to incite rebellion among man, nor that man may find his own way out, but is to allow all people to liberate themselves from the bondage of the great red dragon” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God’s Words to the Entire Universe, Chapter 28). In light of God’s words, I saw clearly that the CCP is a devil that hates and resists God. It flies the banner of “religious freedom” while arresting and persecuting believers in God all over. It uses all sorts of rumors to mislead people, making people believe in its devilish words and resist God along with it. I thought of so many believers who’d been arrested and persecuted by the CCP and forced to leave home, and so many harmonious families that had been torn apart by its rumors and poisons. Yet the CCP still blames the victims, saying that believers in God give up their homes. It always shifts the blame onto others! Seeing clearly the CCP’s wicked and ugly essence heightened my determination to pursue the truth and follow God until the end. No matter how the CCP persecuted me, I was going to follow God.

At night, I stood alone on the balcony, deep in thought about my time believing in God. I had enjoyed so much of God’s grace and so much watering and provision from God’s words, and His words had also helped me understand some truths and offered support to my heart. I knew that only if I believed in and followed God would my life have value, but when I thought of how my hard-earned marriage was going to split apart like this, I still felt some hesitation in my heart. I prayed to God: “God, I want to follow you, but I can’t let go of my family. Please give me the faith and strength to struggle free from these fleshly constraints.” Afterward, I thought of God’s words: “Mankind’s life is given by God; … everything they have is given by God, and it is God whom they should thank” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Recognizing One’s Own Misguided Views Can One Truly Transform). I had always viewed my husband as my benefactor, believing that it was he who’d given me the courage to go on living and given me a beautiful marriage, to the extent that, even when he persecuted and resisted me after I started believing in God, I didn’t hate him. When I wasn’t doing my duty, I’d even try to make time to cook him some good food, wanting to repay my debt to him. God’s words made me understand that everything I had was given to me by God, and that this marriage came from God’s sovereignty and ordination. The One I ought to thank was God! Thinking of this, I felt much more relaxed, and the burden that had weighed on my heart for years was finally gone. I thanked God from the bottom of my heart!

After this, I read more of God’s words and gained some discernment regarding my husband’s essence. Almighty God says: “Anyone who does not recognize God is an enemy; that is, anyone who does not recognize God incarnate—whether or not they are inside or outside this stream—is an antichrist! Who is Satan, who are demons, and who are God’s enemies if not resisters who do not believe in God? Are they not those people who are rebellious against God? Are they not those who claim to have faith, yet who lack truth? Are they not those who merely seek to obtain blessings while being unable to bear witness for God? You still mingle with those demons today and treat them with conscience and love, but in this case are you not extending good intentions toward Satan? Are you not in league with demons? If people have made it to this point and are still unable to distinguish between good and evil, and continue to blindly be loving and merciful without any desire to seek God’s intentions or being able in any way to take God’s intentions as their own, then their endings will be all the more wretched. Anyone who does not believe in the God in the flesh is an enemy of God. If you can bear conscience and love toward an enemy, do you not lack a sense of justice? If you are compatible with those which I detest and with which I disagree, and still bear love or personal feelings toward them, then are you not rebellious? Are you not intentionally resisting God? Does such a person possess truth? If people bear conscience toward enemies, love for demons, and mercy for Satan, then are they not intentionally disrupting God’s work? … The standard by which humans judge other humans is based on their behavior; those whose conduct is good are righteous, while those whose conduct is abominable are evil. The standard by which God judges humans is based on whether their essence submits to Him or not; one who submits to God is a righteous person, while one who does not is an enemy and an evil person, regardless of whether this person’s behavior is good or bad and regardless of whether their speech is correct or incorrect” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God and Man Will Enter Into Rest Together). God exposed that all those who do not acknowledge Him are devils and Satans; they are enemies of God. God sees people’s essence, whereas I only looked at their surface appearance. I saw that my husband did everything well both inside and outside the house, that he was kind to his family and friends, that he would lend a hand when people needed his help, and that he didn’t turn his back on me even after I became unable to give birth, and so I thought he was a rare good person in this world. However, after he found out I believed in God, his fierce side was revealed; it was like he’d become another person. To get me to abandon my faith, he adopted all sorts of means to intimidate and bribe me, even coercing me with the threat of divorce. I saw that my husband’s essence was that of a truth-hating, God-hating devil. I also realized that he was only good to me in the past because I was willing to expend myself for our family without complaint and listened to whatever he said, which satisfied his vanity as a male chauvinist. After I started believing in God, understood some truths, and developed some ideas of my own, he began to persecute and oppose me. When I was arrested, affecting his reputation and touching upon his interests, he threatened to divorce me. In reality, he wasn’t truly being good to me at all, which taught me that true love does not exist between people, and that everything is about interests and transactions. I thought of God’s words: “Believers and nonbelievers are not compatible; rather, they are opposed to one another” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God and Man Will Enter Into Rest Together). I realized that, on this path of believing in God, I was destined to part ways with my husband. Even if we tried to stay together, we wouldn’t be happy, and it would affect my faith in God and my performance of duty. I wasn’t willing to compromise when it came to my belief in God. Afterward, my husband asked me whether I’d made up my mind, and I said, “I choose to believe in God.” Hearing this, my husband shook his head and said in despair, “I’ve truly exhausted all my options; I’m just no match at all for your God. I wish you all the best.” In my heart, I silently thanked God.

After that, we quickly handled the divorce procedures. The moment I walked out of the Civil Affairs Bureau, I heaved a deep sigh of relief. From that day on, I could finally believe in God freely. This experience helped me see my true stature. I thank God for bringing me away from my family, freeing me from its entanglement so that I can wholeheartedly expend myself for Him, pursue the truth, and do my duty well as a created being.