by Zhenxin
My whole family believes in the Lord. My father is a preacher and his greatest hope is that I can dedicate my entire life to the Lord and faithfully expend for Him. I had always passionately followed the Lord and later became responsible for leading our church choir. When I reached marrying age, my father found me a partner who believed in the Lord. His family was notoriously poor in the whole village, but my father said that worshiping God was an important matter and that it would be fine as long as that man didn’t obstruct my belief. Thinking my father’s words made sense, I agreed to the marriage.
After getting married, I learned that my husband had no job after quitting the army where he had served for seven years, and that he had no skill and didn’t even know how to do farming work. As my family had no source of income and money was pretty tight, we often needed my birth family to assist us. Having no choice, I set up a tailoring class and took some students to make money to help my family. I planned that if these students became skilled tailors, I would take more students to make more money. And so, every day I shuttled back and forth between my house and the tailoring class. I was so busy that I prayed, read the Bible, sang hymns and praised the Lord less and less and later even stopped attending gatherings. However, I didn’t realize my danger of shunning the Lord.
One day after dinner, there was an uncomfortable feeling in my throat, and when I coughed, I brought up some blood. I thought that maybe some food hurt my throat, so I went to a clinic to get some medicine. After taking medicine, I lay on my bed to rest. At 11 p.m., my chest suddenly felt itchy, my throat felt salty, I coughed up a big mouthful of blood, and before I figured out what was happening to me, I coughed up another mouthful of blood. At that time, I was a little surprised: I had taken some medicine, so why did I get worse? My vomiting became more and more terrible. Once I took a breath, blood would run out. I wanted to close my mouth to stop this, but I couldn’t make it, and my blood kept streaming out. I was entirely lacking strength and could only lay myself facedown on the edge of the bed spitting out blood. Before long, my tongue, face and limbs became numb. Then I tried to wake my husband up but I couldn’t issue any sound. Finally, I weakly kicked my husband awake. When he turned on the light and saw me and the blood on the ground, he shouted with fear, “How come you spit out so much blood?” Hearing this, I opened my eyes, only to find my vision went blurry. My husband then went out to get my mother-in-law, so afraid that he didn’t even wear his pants.
At that time, I also felt afraid. I realized my condition was really serious, and I thought: “If it continues like this, my blood will run dry soon and I will die at any time.” Immediately, I felt very desolate, thinking: “I’m so young; is this really how I will die?” Just when I felt sad, it suddenly occurred to me that I was a Christian, and so I hurriedly called out to the Lord, “O Lord, I feel as though death will soon come for me. Lord, please save me. I don’t want to die.” Then a passage of scripture suddenly sprang to my mind, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). That was right. During that period, I only thought of making money: I devoted all my efforts to the tailoring class and planned to constantly take students to make more money. In order to make money, I stopped attending gatherings and didn’t pay any mind to the brothers and sisters in the church choir. My sudden illness was all caused by my being distant from God and afflicted by Satan. I was in this state now, so what use would it be no matter how much I earned? Money couldn’t save me. Ever since I was young, I had enjoyed so much of God’s grace, yet I didn’t know to repay it now, but instead wholeheartedly struggled for money. I was really so selfish and devoid of conscience, and had broken God’s heart. Realizing all this, I felt great remorse and self-reproach and I silently made a resolution: If I could gain the Lord’s protection and survive, I would surely serve Him faithfully. If the Lord allowed me to die, I would obey.
Later, my mother-in-law hurried over and seeing me at death’s door freaked her out. Then she immediately asked my husband to tell my birth family, and she hurriedly used a hand-pulled cart to take me to the county hospital. While I lay on the hand-pulled cart with blood running out of my mouth, my limbs had been without feeling, and only my brain was conscious. On the way to the county hospital, my mother’s family came in a tractor and then I was transferred onto it. Miraculously, after that, my mouth could close to prevent blood from running out. My father held my hand and spoke in my ear, “Xiaoying, can you hear me? We will pray for you, and you should also immediately pray to the Lord to repent. You are suddenly sick because you have strayed away from the Lord. You only focus on making money and even stop attending gatherings. Illness results from sin. You should properly confess your sins. If you are not fated to die, the Lord will make you better; if your life is destined to end this way, the Lord will take your spirit. However, if you don’t confess properly, the Lord won’t want you, for He is a jealous, righteous and holy God.” After that, my father prayed, “O the Lord Jesus Christ, Xiaoying’s illness is caused by her being distant from You and afflicted by Satan. There must be Your will behind this situation. Please guide her to repent to You, for what You want is man’s heart of repentance and faith. The woman with an issue of blood relied on her faith to touch Your garment, and then recovered. Today, we will entrust Xiaoying to Your hands. We believe You are the mighty God. We are willing to rely on You in our faith, because You are a righteous and miraculous God. …” Every time after my father prayed one sentence, I would say in my heart, “Amen!” Having heard my father’s prayer, I gained great faith. Then I said a silent prayer to the Lord in my heart, “O Lord, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have distanced myself from You. I’m willing to repent to You. I believe that nothing is impossible for You. Whether I live or die is in Your hands. I wish only to rely on You.” All the way, my relatives all knelt in the tractor and prayed for me. Unknowingly, my body suddenly became warm, feeling came back to my limbs, my tongue could move, and gradually my eyes were not blurred.
It was 2 o’clock in the morning when we arrived at the hospital. When my sister-in-law was about to help me get off the tractor, I actually got up by myself and jumped off it. I felt my entire body was full of strength, which was completely different from my former condition. We went to the emergency room to find a doctor. Seeing all of us were fine, the doctor asked in surprise, “Who is ill?” I responded at once, and then sat down opposite to him. He took my temperature, and it was normal. Then he took my pulse and blood pressure, listened to my heartbeat, and then said, “Everything is normal.” Hearing this, my father said excitedly, “God has answered our prayers. Xiaoying, the Lord has cured you. Thank the Lord! Glory be to the Lord Jesus!” I also happily prayed and thanked the Lord in silence. I thought about how I spat out blood: At that time, I was barely breathing and only my brain was conscious. However, when I repented to the Lord and my family members also prayed and relied on the Lord, the Lord pulled me back from the edge of death with His mighty hand, and allowed me to see His deeds like the woman with an issue of blood. I felt the Lord’s love and mercy for me were so great, and I kept thanking the Lord in my heart.
When we were about to go home, my husband was still a little worried and said to my brother, “You can’t take her home. You haven’t seen the situation when she spat out blood. There was a large pool of blood on the ground and the blood foam was four centimeters deep. We’d better have her examined. …” Hearing this, the doctor asked my husband about what happened. Hearing my husband’s description, the doctor asked me to be admitted to the hospital. The third morning, six doctors consulted together, each of whom gave me examinations, and the results still showed that everything was OK. They were still worried, however, so they asked me to stay in the hospital for monitoring. During the following eight days, my test results still showed there was nothing wrong. Finally, at my family’s request, the doctors let me be discharged.
Afterward, when I had a peace and thanksgiving meeting with my church brothers and sisters, I talked about my experience to them, and they were all taken aback by it and couldn’t help but thank and praise the Lord. We also read two verses, “Go to now, you that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away” (James 4:13–14). Integrating these verses, I thought of my experience: I had planned to take more students to make more money, and I had never expected I would suddenly get that illness. Through this experience, I started seeing money as less important, and I truly experienced the Lord Jesus’ words, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Thank the Lord for not remembering my transgressions and for curing my illness. The Lord Jesus’ tolerance and forgiveness toward me enabled me to deeply appreciate how great His love for me was.
From then on, I began to wholeheartedly devote myself to serving in the church to repay the Lord’s grace. Thank the Lord! Glory be to the Lord!
