By Mu Han, China

I once had a happy family, and my husband was very kind to me. My only regret was that I didn’t have children for many years after marriage. I saw many renowned doctors and spent a lot of money, but it was all in vain. Because of this, I spent most of my time in a state of pain and despair. One day in 2015, a sister came to my house to gather with my mother-in-law. She shared Almighty God’s gospel of the last days with me and read many of Almighty God’s words to me. From God’s words, I understood that man was created by God, that people’s destinies are in God’s hands, that everything a person has is given by God, and that when to have children is also predestined by God. Gradually, I managed to extricate myself from my pain, I no longer felt sad about not having children, and my mood was much brighter than before. Later, I had a child. At that time, although my husband did not believe in God, he supported our faith. Our family was happy and harmonious, and our neighbors were very envious.

But the good times didn’t last long. In 2017, my husband’s parents saw the CCP’s slander and defamation against The Church of Almighty God on TV, and saw that the CCP was suppressing and arresting those who believed in Almighty God. They were afraid of being arrested and no longer dared to host brothers and sisters. Then they tried to persuade me to stop believing as well. One day, my father-in-law said in a serious tone, “I saw on TV that the CCP is arresting people who believe in Almighty God everywhere. Many people have been arrested, and I heard that once they are arrested, they are tortured, and that the whole family, from the adults to the children, all suffer, and that in the future, the children of these people won’t be able to go to college, join the army, or become civil servants. For the sake of this family, don’t let your brothers and sisters come to our house for gatherings anymore. You should stop believing too!” My mother-in-law echoed him, saying, “There’s a sister who is wanted by the CCP and on the run, and even now, she still can’t go home. Her son signed up to join the army, but because his mother believes in Almighty God, he failed the political review and wasn’t accepted. The CCP is cracking down so hard right now. You should stop believing!” After hearing their words, I thought, “People are created by God, and it is right for us to worship God. If we stop believing in God out of fear of persecution, isn’t that betraying God?” So I said, “We believe in God by gathering to read God’s words and by walking the right path in life. We don’t do anything illegal. The CCP arrests and persecutes the believers because it is an atheistic party that resists God. We just need to be more careful in the future.” My mother-in-law said, “Believing in God is a good thing, but it’s useless trying to fight the CCP. The CCP doesn’t allow people to believe, and if you insist on believing and are arrested one day, this family will be ruined!” I saw that I couldn’t reason with them, so I didn’t say anything more. Later, my husband also came to be misled by the CCP’s rumors, and he feared that my faith would get me arrested and implicate the family, so he often prevented me from attending gatherings and doing my duty. My mother-in-law’s attitude toward me also changed drastically. She not only stopped helping me with my child but also surveilled me. Whenever I went out to a gathering, she would tell my husband, and my husband would often get angry with me, threatening that if I continued to go to gatherings, he would seek out the brothers and sisters to get even. My whole family stopped me from believing in God, and no one helped me with the child. I couldn’t go out to gatherings or do my duty, and I felt really weak and tormented. I often cried in sadness, not knowing when these days would end. Sometimes I even thought, “If I listen to them and stop going to gatherings, won’t the arguments stop? Can our family return to the happy life we had before?” But I knew it was wrong to think this way. I couldn’t betray God to please them. I would be truly lacking in conscience if I did that.

Later I read a passage of God’s words and my state changed somewhat. God says: “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” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only by Experiencing Painful Trials Can You Know the Loveliness of God). Reading God’s words moved me deeply. My family believed the CCP’s rumors and persecuted and obstructed me from believing in God, making me want to compromise. I was so weak and lacking in stature. The Communist Party resists God, and believing in and following God and walking the right path of life in the country where it rules is bound to be littered with obstacles. My family’s persecution was also a test for me, to see whether I would stand on the side of God or Satan. Thinking of this, I resolved that no matter how my family persecuted me, I would never compromise, and no matter how much I suffered, I would follow God to the end. Later, I moved to another house with my child, and I was no longer under my in-laws’ surveillance. My husband was out of the house during the day as he was at work, and I could attend gatherings and do my duty again. I was really happy.

Later, Sister Chen Ping came to gather with me, but my husband found out, and he drove her away, and then he angrily said to me, “Those people aren’t allowed to come to our house for gatherings anymore. If the police were to find out, our whole family would suffer. If I find them here again, I’ll call the police!” I was furious and argued back at him, but no matter what I said, my husband wouldn’t let me believe in God anymore. I thought about how Sister Chen Ping couldn’t come to gather with me anymore, and with my child being so young, I couldn’t take him to gatherings and do my duty. I felt a weakness inside me, and I felt that the path of faith was too difficult, and that maybe I should stop doing my duty for a while and wait until my child grows up to start again. Later, I read God’s words and gained some discernment of my state. God says: “When God works, cares for a person, and looks upon this person, and when He favors and approves this person, Satan trails closely behind, trying to mislead the person and bring them to harm. If God wishes to gain this person, Satan will do everything in its power to obstruct God, using various wicked ploys to tempt, disturb and impair the work of God, in order to achieve its hidden objective. What is this objective? It does not want God to gain anyone; it wants to snatch possession of those whom God wishes to gain, it wants to control them, to take charge of them so they worship it, so they join it in committing evil acts, and resist God. Is this not Satan’s sinister motive? You often say that Satan is so wicked, so bad, but have you seen it? You can see how bad mankind is; you have not seen how bad the real Satan is. Yet in the matter of Job, you have clearly observed just how wicked Satan is. This matter has made Satan’s hideous countenance and its essence very clear. In warring with God, and trailing along behind Him, Satan’s objective is to demolish all the work God wants to do, to occupy and control those whom God wants to gain, to completely extinguish those whom God wants to gain. If they are not extinguished, then they come to Satan’s possession, to be used by it—this is its objective” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique IV). From God’s words, I saw clearly the evil and vileness of Satan. God works to save people, but Satan tries its best to block people from following God. It makes up all kinds of rumors to smear The Church of Almighty God, and it treats believers as arch-criminals of the state, arresting and persecuting them, even implicating the families of Christians, intimidating our nonbelieving relatives and using them to disturb and obstruct us in our faith. The vile purpose of the great red dragon doing all this is to make us all betray God and go to hell along with it. My family was afraid of being arrested by the CCP and didn’t dare believe in God, and they banded together to obstruct my belief. When I faced persecution, I felt weak, and wanted to abandon my duty to protect our happy little family. This would have meant falling into Satan’s trap! Understanding this, I resolved that no matter how difficult the road ahead was, I would not compromise, and that I had to rely on God to stand firm in my testimony. Later, I took my child out to gatherings in secret. Amazingly, he fell asleep as soon as we got to the sister’s house, and woke up only after our gatherings had ended, meaning I could attend the gatherings with peace of mind. Later, I was elected as a church leader, and the church work was very busy, so I sent my son to kindergarten and continued to do my duty.

In 2018, the CCP launched another special operation targeting The Church of Almighty God, and all the streets were plastered with banners reading “Severe Crackdown Against The Church of Almighty God” and “Troops Won’t Be Withdrawn Until the Purge Is Complete.” Loudspeakers in residential areas blared announcements on loop from morning to night, aiming to rile up the public and get them to report on those who believed in Almighty God, with a reward of 2,000 yuan for each arrest. During that time, many brothers and sisters were arrested, with dark clouds and panic hanging over the city. My husband was scared of me getting arrested and started to persecute me even more severely. One day, as I was about to leave, my husband said, “Don’t think I don’t know you’re going out to gatherings in secret. I see how busy you are, you must be a leader by now! The police specifically arrest people who believe in Almighty God. Look, there are surveillance cameras and monitoring devices all over the streets, and the police could catch you at any moment. You’re not allowed to believe anymore, or you’ll drag us down with you! You must write a guarantee for me right now, pledging that you won’t believe in Almighty God anymore. If you don’t write it, I’ll throw you out of this house and you’ll never see our child again!” I was shocked to hear him say this. Only the CCP devils would make a person write a guarantee not to believe in God. Isn’t he a devil! I said firmly, “Almighty God is the Savior who has come to save humanity, I will never betray God, let alone write a guarantee!” This made my husband fly into a rage, and he grabbed me by the neck with his left hand and gave me two hard slaps with his right hand. My face immediately burned with pain, and tears flowed down my face uncontrollably. In all these years together, my husband had never hit me, but on that day, he slapped me because he believed the CCP’s rumors. I felt so wounded and weak. I prayed to God through my tears, asking Him to give me faith and strength. Seeing it was time to go to a gathering, I made an excuse to leave. But my husband stopped me, saying, “The only thing I’ll be doing today is following you. If you dare go to a gathering, I’ll call the police and have you all arrested!”

But after that, I still found a way to attend the gathering. My husband saw that I wasn’t listening to him, so he said awful things about me in front of my parents and relatives, trying to get my family to urge me not to believe. My mother said, “I know what she’s like. Since she came to your house, she hasn’t argued with you, and she’s done everything she should. She just believes in God. What’s wrong with that?” My brother also tried to persuade him. Seeing that my family wouldn’t side with him, my husband flew into a rage. He found my MP5 player that I read God’s words with and smashed it. He also tore up the Bible, and then he smashed the glass bathroom door, much of our kitchenware, and a number of other things. My in-laws rushed to my house when they found out, angrily criticizing me, saying, “The Communist Party doesn’t allow people to believe in God, so can’t you just stop believing? If you still insist on believing in God and get caught, it will bring disaster upon our family. Your husband won’t be contracted for any building constructions anymore, our property will be confiscated, and then the whole family won’t have any means of living. This all ends today! Get rid of the books and stop believing!” My mother-in-law also had my father-in-law go to Chen Ping’s house to get even with her. I thought about how Chen Ping was responsible for church work, and that if something happened to her, the whole church would be impacted, and I angrily said, “Believing in God is my own choice. Don’t go around bothering others. From now on, she won’t come here, and I won’t go to her.” Hearing me say this, they thought I had compromised and left. But later on, my husband still went to Chen Ping’s house to bother her, leaving her with no choice but to leave her home to do her duty. Thinking about how Chen Ping couldn’t go back home because of me, I felt really guilty and uncomfortable, and I also thought about how because of my family’s persecution, I couldn’t contact brothers and sisters. I spent my days in a state of deep repression. I had to be careful when I read God’s words, afraid of being discovered by my husband, and when I looked at our large room, I felt like a bird trapped in a cage. Although life was comfortable, I didn’t feel any happiness. How I wished I could believe in God and read His words freely!

Not long after, my husband said, “A friend from the police station said the government is launching a special operation against you believers in Almighty God, and that once they catch you, no amount of money can bail you out. Not only will you suffer inside, but our entire family will be dragged down with you. The government wants to ban all religious beliefs. Even the Three-Self Church is going to be torn down. Do you think you can live a good life if you don’t listen to the CCP? Believing in God in China is a death wish! I don’t want to live in constant fear and anxiety because of your faith. You have two choices: One, give up your faith and stay home to take care of our son. If you do this, you will be in charge of this family, and I’ll listen to you in everything. Two, keep your faith, but leave our son behind, and leave this house with nothing.” It was clear to me that our marriage was over. I felt very sad, and thinking of my child having to part from his mother at such a young age, made me feel particularly weak and weep silent tears. Facing the impending breakup of my family, the past flashed through my mind like scenes from a movie. Could I really give up the family I had worked so hard to build over all these years? In particular, when I thought about being separated from my child and not being able to watch him grow up, leaving seemed ten thousand times harder. My heart ached like it was being cut by a knife, and my head was in a daze. In my painful struggle, a thought popped into my head, “If I stop believing in God, my husband won’t divorce me, I can spend my days beside my child, and the whole family can return to the way it was, living in happy familial bliss.” When I thought like this, I realized this was a betrayal of God. I thought of how I spent my days living in darkness and emptiness when I didn’t believe in God, and how it was God who saved me from this sea of suffering, supplying me with the truth and giving me the opportunity to be saved. If I chose to betray God for the sake of my family, I would be unworthy of God’s salvation! So I prayed to God in my heart, “God, I don’t want to betray You, I want to believe in You, do my duty, and repay Your love, but I can’t bear to leave my child. I am so weak. Please give me faith and strength.” After praying, I recalled a hymn of God’s words entitled “You Should Forsake All for the Truth”:

1  You must suffer hardship for the truth, you must give yourself to the truth, you must endure humiliation for the truth, and to gain more of the truth you must undergo more suffering. This is what you should do. You must not throw away the truth for the sake of a peaceful family life, and you must not lose a lifetime of dignity and integrity for the sake of momentary enjoyment.

2  You should pursue all that is beautiful and good, and you should pursue a path in life that is more meaningful. If you lead such a vulgar life, and do not pursue any objectives, do you not waste your life? What can you gain from such a life? You should forsake all enjoyments of the flesh for the sake of one truth, and should not throw away all truths for the sake of a little enjoyment. People like this have no integrity or dignity; there is no meaning to their existence!

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Experiences of Peter: His Knowledge of Chastisement and Judgment

Under the enlightenment and guidance of God’s words, I understood that I could not betray God to preserve my family. I thought about how God, to save people from Satan’s power, endures immense humiliation by becoming flesh to speak and work among people, suffering all kinds of hardships. God has paid all His painstaking price. If I were to betray God for the sake of my family’s happiness, in what way would I have any conscience or human dignity? My pursuit of the truth and God’s salvation in my belief in God is the right path in life, and all the suffering endured to obtain the truth is worth it. No matter the physical pleasure or comfort of life, it is all empty, and only by obtaining the truth can one be saved and live on. I shouldn’t throw away the truth and betray God for the sake of my child and family. I had to be strong, pursue the truth, repay God’s love, and live out a meaningful life. At that moment, everything became clear to me. No matter how my husband pressured me, I would never do anything to betray God. My husband was pressuring me into a divorce, fearing that if I were arrested, I would drag him down with me. He was acting to protect his own interests. I saw that only God truly loves people. Where is the love between people? The relationships between people are only driven by personal interests, and once there are no interests to be gained, people turn hostile. My husband clearly knew that believing in God was the right path but still sided with the CCP to pressure me. His essence was in resistance to God, and by following the CCP, he was following the path to perdition and destruction. Meanwhile, by believing in God and pursuing the truth, I was following the path of salvation. Our paths were fundamentally different. Living together only meant continuing to be pressured by him, and being left with no way to freely believe in God or pursue the truth. So, I calmly said, “Since you propose divorce, I agree.” My husband sneered and said, “Once we’re divorced, you’re never seeing our child again, and if I find out you’ve come for him, I’ll call the police and have you all arrested!” My mother-in-law then came over to try to persuade me, saying, “If you just stop believing in God, you can take your child wherever you want, and live a good life! Besides, he’s so young; how can you bear to leave?” Hearing my mother-in-law’s words, my heart felt like it was being stabbed by a knife. I thought, “Since he was born, he’s never been apart from me. Who will take care of him in the future? Will he suffer? Will others bully him? What if he gets sick and there’s no one there to care for him?” The more I thought about it, the more it hurt. I then recalled God’s words: “I will always comfort all those who perceive My intentions, and I will not allow them to suffer or come to harm. The crucial thing now is to be able to take action in accordance with My intentions. Those who do this will certainly receive My blessings and come under My protection. Who can truly and completely expend themselves for Me and offer up their all for My sake? You are all half-hearted; your thoughts go around and around, thinking of home, of the outside world, of food and clothing. Despite the fact that you are here before Me, doing things for Me, deep down you are still thinking of your wife, children, and parents at home. Are all these things your property? 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? Why do you always worry about the family of your flesh and pine for your loved ones? Do I have a certain place in your heart?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Utterances of Christ in the Beginning, Chapter 59). “Besides birth and childrearing, the parents’ responsibility in their children’s lives is simply to provide them with a formal environment to grow up in, for nothing except the predestination of the Creator has a bearing on a person’s fate. No one can control what kind of future a person will have; it is predetermined long in advance, and not even one’s parents can change one’s fate. As far as fate is concerned, everyone is independent, and everyone has their own fate. So, no one’s parents can stave off one’s fate in life or exert the slightest influence on the role one plays in life. It could be said that the family into which one is destined to be born and the environment in which one grows up are nothing more than the preconditions for fulfilling one’s mission in life. They do not in any way determine a person’s fate in life or the kind of destiny within which a person fulfills their mission” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique III). God’s words gave me faith and strength. I thought about how I was infertile for many years due to illness, with even renowned doctors being helpless, and that when I was living in darkness and pain, it was God’s words that brought me light, allowed me to understand God’s sovereignty and predestination, and helped free me from pain. Later, I miraculously had a child. My family and child are gifts from God. I always thought I could take good care of my child, and never entrusted him into God’s hands. God’s words made me understand that it is actually God who watches over, preserves, and provides for each person. My child’s fate is in God’s hands, and He will arrange everything for him. His destiny and whether he suffers are all determined by God. It is not as if I can take good care of him just because I’m home, nor can I guarantee his health and safety just by being with him every day. I should entrust everything to do with my child to God and focus on doing my duty. Thinking this way, I let go of some of my worries about my child, and my heart was no longer in such pain. My mother-in-law was still complaining about me, but I didn’t want to argue with her, thinking to myself, “Clearly, it is your son who wants a divorce to protect himself, and yet you say that I am abandoning my family and child because of my faith in God. Don’t you see you’re turning the truth on its head?”

I also thought of a brother in our area who had been hunted by the CCP because of his faith. He had risked his life to return home in secret to care for his elderly paralyzed father, only to be captured and beaten to death by the CCP. In what way were the believers abandoning their families? Wasn’t it the CCP’s cruel persecution of Christians that led to such outcomes? I recalled a passage of God’s words: “For thousands of years this has been the land of filth. It is unbearably dirty, misery abounds, ghosts run rampant everywhere, tricking and deceiving, making groundless accusations, being ruthless and vicious, trampling this ghost town and leaving it littered with dead bodies; the stench of decay covers the land and pervades the air, and it is heavily guarded. Who can see the world beyond the skies? The devil tightly trusses all of man’s body, it veils both his eyes, and seals his lips firmly shut. The king of devils has rampaged for several thousand years, right up until today, when it still keeps a close watch on the ghost town, as if it were an impenetrable palace of demons; this pack of watchdogs, meanwhile, stare with glaring eyes, deeply fearful that God will catch them unawares and wipe them all out, leaving them without a place of peace and happiness. How could the people of a ghost town such as this ever have seen God? Have they ever enjoyed the dearness and loveliness of God? What appreciation have they of the matters of the human world? Who of them can understand God’s eager intentions? Small wonder, then, that God incarnate remains completely hidden: In a dark society such as this, where the demons are merciless and inhumane, how could the king of devils, who kills people without batting an eye, tolerate the existence of a God who is lovely, kind, and also holy? How could it applaud and cheer the arrival of God? These lackeys! They repay kindness with hate, they began treating God as an enemy long ago, they abuse God, they are savage in the extreme, they have not the slightest regard for God, they plunder and pillage, they have lost all conscience, they go against all conscience, and they tempt the innocent into senselessness. 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)). Contemplating God’s words, I saw that the CCP is indeed an evil demon resisting God and harming people. It pretends to support religious freedoms, but secretly, it madly resists God and captures and persecutes His chosen people. The CCP should truly be cursed and damned! God is incarnated to express the truth on earth, purify and save people, but the CCP madly creates disturbances and disruptions. In order to capture and persecute God’s chosen people and eradicate His work, over the years, not only has the CCP carried out various special operations to suppress The Church of Almighty God, but it also uses cellphone tracking and installs electronic surveillance in the streets to monitor and capture brothers and sisters, forcing many brothers and sisters into becoming homeless and separating from their families, with many brothers and sisters having been captured, tortured in prison, and even beaten to death. The CCP also deprives the families of Christians of their rights to work and go to school, instigating and stirring up family conflict, and causing countless families to break apart. The CCP is truly despicable and evil! My once-happy family, had been shattered and divided because of the CCP’s rumors and suppression. The CCP is a demon group resisting God, harming and devouring people! By undergoing these persecutions, I also saw that God’s wisdom is exercised based on Satan’s schemes. Despite the CCP’s crazy persecution, it has not shaken the determination of God’s chosen people to follow Him. Instead, more and more people have accepted God’s salvation of the last days, and God’s gospel of the last days has spread to many countries overseas. That which comes from God is sure to prosper! I thought of how many people are still blinded by the CCP’s rumors, living under Satan’s power, not knowing of God’s salvation of the last days. I have the responsibility and obligation to share God’s gospel of the last days with those who yearn for God’s appearance. I made a resolution before God that I would follow Him to the end and spread the gospel to repay His love. Later, I went through the divorce process with my husband.

Looking back on my experiences now, although I lost my family and my life is not as comfortable as before, and I cannot spend my days and nights with my child, I have come to understand some truths and gained discernment. Today, being able to come before God and do my duty as a created being, and to spread and bear witness to God’s salvation of the last days, is truly valuable and meaningful! I will never regret my choice.