By Jin’gen, China

I was born into a peasant family in the 1960s. My parents got up before dawn and worked into the night to earn money so my older brother could build a house and get married. They were so exhausted. Under the conditioning effect and influence of my parents, I believed that it was a parent’s responsibility to handle their children’s marriages. My husband and I had a son after we were married. I said to my husband, “Let’s make some money while we’re still young. At the very least, we’ve got to buy a house for him.” Later, my husband accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days. Afterward, he was arrested by the police for going to gatherings and doing his duty. He was forced to leave home and flee. Two years later, I also accepted God’s work of the last days. Because the director of the Women’s Federation constantly came to my house to ask about my husband’s whereabouts, I couldn’t believe in God or do my duty at home. Left with no choice, I also left home. From then on, my husband and I were uprooted from our hometown and started our lives in exile, unable to return home.

The days flew past. In a flash, my son was already in his twenties. He was of marriageable age. In February 2013, my husband and I took advantage of a coincidental opportunity to return home secretly. Our son mentioned his marriage to us, saying he had found a partner. His partner’s parents were anxious to get the marriage settled. They said to my son, “We know that your family has no money. We don’t want a bride price, but at least you have to buy a house! Without a house, how will you two live?” When I heard about this from my son, I was very worried. Because my husband and I were being hunted by the CCP, we had been away from home on the run for years doing our duty, and couldn’t go out and work to earn money. We simply had no way to find the money to buy a house. When I saw my son sigh and groan, I also got worried and worked up, thinking, “If my son’s marriage doesn’t come off because we can’t find the money, won’t he complain about me?” When other people’s children got married, their parents all saved up to buy them cars and houses, while I couldn’t get the money together, and felt like I hadn’t fulfilled a mother’s responsibility. How could I explain this to my son? I felt like I couldn’t hold my head high in front of him, and couldn’t justify myself. The more I thought, the more worried I got. What would I do about my son’s marriage? Once, my mother-in-law told me and my husband, “You have to think about your son. Look at our neighbor’s son getting married. They bought a house for their son and gave the bride’s family a bride price of tens of thousands of yuan. Then look at your cousin. When her son got married, she bought him a house and paid a bride price of over one hundred thousand yuan. The family of the partner your son found is really considerate. They don’t want our family to pay a bride price, and just to make a down payment on a house. Her family can’t raise a beautiful daughter for nothing, can they? Besides, the two of them are quite a match. If your son’s marriage didn’t come off because we can’t get the money together, wouldn’t that be such a shame? And people would laugh at us!” After listening to my mother-in-law’s speech, I felt distressed, as if stabbed to the heart. Tears flowed uncontrollably down my face. I remembered when my son was 8 months old, his father left home because the CCP was hunting him, and he never got to enjoy the love of his father. Later, I had to leave my home too because of safety risks, so we had been away from our son more than we’d been with him. I hadn’t seen him at all since he was thirteen. In all these years, he had been dependent on his grandparents. Now, he needed money to get married, but I couldn’t scrape it together. I hadn’t fulfilled any of my responsibilities. The more I thought, the more I felt like I had let my son down. As a mother, I was incompetent at my job. My son was too pitiful for having been born into our family. If it hadn’t been for the CCP’s arrests and persecution, we wouldn’t have needed to hide away, and some way or another we would have been able to earn some money for our child. I thought about borrowing money from my older brother and sister, so I could make a down payment to buy a house and avoid being gossiped about by my mother-in-law, relatives, and friends. But then I thought it over again. Once I borrowed the money, I would have to work to repay it, and I wouldn’t be able to do my duty. I was responsible for the work of many churches. If I were to abandon my duty to earn money, wouldn’t that be a betrayal of God? But my son still needed money to get married. Where could I get so much money? I was living in a state of dilemma. In anguish, I came before God to pray, “Dear God. Faced with my son’s marriage, I really don’t know what to do. I know I cannot give up my duty. I cannot betray You to earn money for my son so he can get married. But my stature is too small. I am constrained by his marriage. I am willing to entrust it to You and look up to You about it. Dear God, please help me so that I do not betray You over my son’s marriage.” After praying, my heart settled down a lot.

I returned to the place where I was doing my duty. On the outside, I was busy every day handling the work of the church. But as soon as I thought of my son’s marriage I felt tormented in my heart. I was afraid that my son’s marriage wouldn’t come off because I didn’t have any money. I felt so anguished and miserable. I felt like I owed my son. During that period of time, I couldn’t eat or sleep properly. I was anxious and upset, my teeth ached, and my throat was sore. Sometimes, my mind would even wander at gatherings and would involuntarily start thinking about what I was going to do regarding my son’s marriage. I always felt drowsy, unable to lift my spirits. The sister I was partnered with saw that my state wasn’t good, and that I wasn’t bearing a burden in my duty like I had before. She fellowshipped with me about how her experience with her son had been. She also said that when she was away from home, her son had learned to live independently, and had also found a partner. All this is within God’s sovereignty. After listening to my sister’s fellowship, I thought, “That’s because your son has found a good partner.” Afterward, I would still feel constrained from time to time. If my son’s marriage didn’t come off, my heart wouldn’t be able to rest easy for the rest of my life. I constantly lived amidst pain and torment. My heart felt as if it were being crushed by a rock. At this time, I read a passage of God’s words, and I felt liberated in my heart. God says: “Marriage is an important juncture in a person’s life. It is the product of a person’s fate and a crucial link in one’s fate; it is not founded on any person’s individual volition or preferences, and is not influenced by any external factors, but completely determined by the fates of the two parties, by the Creator’s arrangements and predeterminations for the fates of both members of the couple” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique III). From God’s words I understood that the destiny of a person’s life has been arranged by God long ago. It is even more the case that marriage is also ordained by God, and is not affected by any external conditions. If God has ordained that my son and his partner should be one family, then nothing will be able to break them apart. If they are not to be one family, then in the end, the marriage will not succeed. Whether it succeeds or not is in God’s hands and not on how much money I spend. In the past, I knew that marriage was ordained by God in a doctrinal way. But when my son’s marriage came upon me, I thought that without money he would not be able to marry his partner. When the sister I was cooperating with fellowshipped her experience and God’s sovereignty with me, in my heart, I didn’t believe it. I thought that it was because her son had good luck. My son, on the other hand, couldn’t get married without money. In particular, when I saw more and more children from poor families in today’s society who couldn’t find a wife, I even more thought one simply couldn’t get married without money. I was so stressed by my son’s marriage that I couldn’t eat or sleep well, and I didn’t even have any motivation to do my duty. My heart was only enlightened after reading God’s words. I realized that marriage is all ordained by God. Take my older sister as an example. She has plenty of money, but her grandson was simply unable to find a wife no matter what he did. In addition, a family I knew had several boys. They didn’t have any money, but all the boys found a wife. This happens a lot. God’s words are absolutely true. Marriage is ordained by God. It is not determined by money. I believed in God but did not view things in accordance with God’s words, did not believe in God’s sovereignty, and even followed the trends of the nonbelievers, without any hint of belief in God. Is this not the outlook of a disbeliever? Marriage is ordained by God. It has nothing to do with the family environment or external factors. It is not how I thought, that with money, my son’s marriage would succeed, and without money, it wouldn’t. When I understood this, my heart suddenly felt clear and bright. I was also able to let go of my son’s marriage somewhat.

Afterward, I pondered: Why did I constantly feel I had let my son down, and was uneasy at heart? I read these words of God: “People who live in this real society have been deeply corrupted by Satan. Regardless of whether they’re educated or not, a lot of traditional culture is ingrained in people’s thoughts and views. In particular, women are required to attend to their husbands and raise their children, to be a good wife and loving mother, devoting their whole lives to their husbands and children and living for them, making sure the family has three square meals a day, and doing the washing, cleaning, and all other housework well. This is the accepted standard of being a good wife and loving mother. Every woman also thinks this is the way things should be done, and that if she doesn’t then she’s not a good woman, and has violated conscience and the standards of morality. Violating these moral standards will weigh heavily on some people’s conscience; they’ll feel they’ve let their husbands and children down, and that they’re not a good woman. But after you believe in God, have read a lot of His words, understood some truths, and seen through some matters, you’ll think, ‘I am a created being and should perform my duty as such, and expend myself for God.’ At this time, is there a conflict between being a good wife and loving mother, and doing your duty as a created being? If you want to be a good wife and loving mother, then you cannot do your duty full time, but if you want to do your duty full time then you cannot be a good wife and loving mother. What do you do now? If you choose to do your duty well and be responsible for the work of the church, loyal to God, then you must give up being a good wife and loving mother. What would you think now? What sort of discord would arise in your mind? Would you feel like you’ve let down your children, your husband? Where does this feeling of guilt and unease come from? When you don’t fulfill the duty of a created being, do you feel like you’ve let God down? You have no sense of guilt or blame because, in your heart and mind, there isn’t the slightest hint of the truth. So, what do you understand? Traditional culture and being a good wife and loving mother. Thus the notion of ‘If I’m not a good wife and loving mother, then I’m not a good or decent woman’ will arise in your mind. You’ll be bound and fettered by this notion from then on, and will remain so by these kinds of notions even after you believe in God and do your duty. When there is a conflict between doing your duty and being a good wife and loving mother, while you may reluctantly choose to do your duty, possessing perhaps a little loyalty to God, there’ll still be a feeling of unease and blame in your heart. Therefore, when you have some spare time while doing your duty, you’ll look for chances to take care of your children and husband, wanting to make it up to them even more, and think it’s fine even if you have to suffer more, as long as you have peace of mind. Is this not brought about by the influence of traditional culture’s ideas and theories about being a good wife and loving mother?” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Recognizing One’s Own Misguided Views Can One Truly Transform). God’s words have exposed the mistaken thought and view of “being a good wife and a loving mother” to us. Traditional culture demanded that women must “attend to their husbands and raise their children, and be a good wife and loving mother,” and that they must sacrifice everything for their husbands and children. Everyone thought that this was the standard for being a qualified woman. Otherwise, they were not a good woman or a good mother. When I was young, I saw how my parents had gotten up before dawn and worked into the night to earn money so my older brother could marry a wife. No matter how great they suffered or exhausted themselves, they still had to bear this burden. I believed that as parents we had to raise our children into adults, see them married and help them establish their careers. Only in this way could we fulfill our parental responsibility, and be worthy of being called good parents. Living by this thought and view, I felt that I was not a qualified mother. When my son was young, I had to flee the persecution of the great red dragon, and couldn’t be with him and look after him. When my son grew up and was getting married and needed to buy a house, as a mother, I couldn’t get the money together or help in the slightest, so I felt indebted to my son. I even thought about letting go of my duty to earn money so that my family and friends wouldn’t laugh at me and my son wouldn’t complain about me. The view of “being a good wife and loving mother” was controlling my thoughts and guiding my behavior. I felt anguished because I couldn’t satisfy my son, and even complained about God and misunderstood God in my heart. I was caught up in and constrained by my son’s marriage, suffering unspeakably. I couldn’t even do my duty with a peaceful mind. I saw that the traditional cultural idea of “being a good wife and loving mother” was actually a shackle that binds people. It can only cause people to shun God and betray God. After I had some understanding of my own view, I continued to seek in God’s words.

One day, I read these words of God: “That we can believe in God is an opportunity given by Him; it is ordained by Him and is His grace. There is therefore no need for you to fulfill your obligation or responsibility to anyone else; you should only fulfill your duty to God as a created being. This is what people must do above anything else, the main thing that should be done as the primary affair of one’s life. If you do not fulfill your duty well, you are not a qualified created being. In the eyes of others, you may be a good wife and loving mother, an excellent housewife, a filial child, and an upstanding member of society, but before God you are one who rebels against Him, one who has not fulfilled their obligation or duty at all, one who accepted yet did not complete God’s commission, one who gave up halfway. Can someone like this gain God’s approval? People like this are worthless” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Recognizing One’s Own Misguided Views Can One Truly Transform). “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. And so, no one’s parents can assist one in accomplishing one’s mission in life, and likewise, no one’s relatives can help one assume one’s role in life. How one accomplishes one’s mission and in what kind of living environment one performs one’s role are entirely determined by one’s fate in life. In other words, no other objective conditions can influence a person’s mission, which is predestined by the Creator. All people become mature in the particular environments in which they grow up; then gradually, step by step, they set off down their own roads in life and fulfill the destinies planned for them by the Creator. Naturally, involuntarily, they enter the vast sea of humanity and assume their own posts in life, where they begin to fulfill their responsibilities as created beings for the sake of the Creator’s predestination, for the sake of His sovereignty” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique III). From God’s words I understood that the fact I am able to believe in God and do duties is an opportunity given to me by God. It is also God’s grace. Fulfilling the duty of a created being is the top priority in a person’s life. It is more important than anything else. If I only fulfill my responsibilities as a mother in order to satisfy my son, though others will see me as a good wife and loving mother, if I do not fulfill the duties of a created being, this shows no loyalty to God; this is being someone who rebels against God. I also understood that every person has their own mission, and everyone’s destiny is independent. Although I gave birth to my son, what his destiny is like is in the hands of God. Parents have no effect on this at all. Nobody can change how much suffering or blessings each person will experience in their life, what environment they will grow up in, or what they will experience. Parents are even less able to change this. It is all ordained by God. When I understood this, I was able to let go of my son’s marriage, and didn’t feel like I had let my son down anymore. I was able to let things take their course. Later, I told my son, “Marriage is ordained by God, and its success or failure is in God’s hands. It doesn’t matter how much money you give them. Don’t think so much about marriage. When the time comes to get married, we cannot foresee how God will arrange it. We must learn to wait for God’s time. As the saying goes, ‘If it’s yours, other people can’t take it from you. If it’s not yours, you won’t be able to take it from others.’” After a time, my son was not as worked up as he was before, and he stopped mentioning the matter of us buying a house. I wasn’t as worried about his marriage anymore, and I was able to quiet my heart when doing my duties. My heart felt much more liberated.

Several months later, my son gave me a phone call, and happily said to me, “Mom, it’s amazing, I bought a house. I didn’t have to make a down payment. My colleague was in urgent need of money because he’s been transferred to work in the south, so he sold it to me for 300,000 yuan. I borrowed 400,000 yuan from the bank, which is even enough to decorate the house. I’ll pay back just over 1,000 yuan each month. So my problem with the house was solved really smoothly, just like that!” When I heard this news, I was overjoyed. I constantly thanked God. One year later, my son and his partner arranged their wedding using money they had saved up from work. We didn’t have to worry or spend a cent. My son also gave us a bit of spending money to resolve the difficulties we had in doing our duties. What I least expected was that my son also started to believe in Almighty God! Through this experience, I saw God’s wonderful deeds, and saw how a person’s marriage, heart, and spirit are all in God’s hands.

Later, I read another passage of God’s words, and understood how parents should treat their adult children. Almighty God says: “Each person’s destiny is determined by God; therefore, how much blessing or suffering they experience in life, what kind of family, marriage, and children they have, what experiences they go through in society, and what events they experience in life, they themselves cannot foresee or change such things, and parents have even less of an ability to change them. Therefore, if children encounter any difficulties, parents should help positively and proactively if they have the ability to do so. If not, it is best for parents to relax and view these matters from the perspective of created beings, treating their children equally as created beings. The suffering you experience, they must also experience; the life you live, they must also live; the process you have gone through of raising young children, they will also go through; the twists and turns, fraud and deception you experience in society and among people, the emotional entanglements, and interpersonal conflicts, and every similar thing you have experienced, they will experience it too. They, like you, are all corrupted human beings, all carried away by the currents of evil, corrupted by Satan; you cannot escape it, and neither can they. Therefore, wanting to help them avoid all suffering and enjoy all the blessings in the world is a silly delusion and a foolish idea. No matter how vast the wings of an eagle may be, they cannot protect the young eaglet throughout its entire life. The young eaglet will eventually reach a point when it must grow up and fly alone. When the young eaglet chooses to fly alone, no one knows where its stretch of sky may be, or where it will choose to fly. Therefore, the most rational attitude for parents after their children grow up is to let go, to let them experience life on their own, to let them live independently, and face, handle, and resolve the various challenges in life independently. If they seek help from you and you have the ability and conditions to do so, of course you can lend a helping hand and provide necessary aid. However, the prerequisite is that, no matter what help you provide, whether it’s financial or psychological, it can only be temporary and cannot change any substantial issues. They must navigate their own path in life, and you have no obligation to shoulder any of their affairs or consequences. This is the attitude parents should have toward their adult children” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (19)). God’s words made me understand that after parents give birth to children and raise them to adulthood, their responsibilities have been fulfilled. Then, they should let go and allow their children to forge their own way in the world, walking their own path through life. They should let their children experience life on their own, and face and resolve the various problems they encounter in life independently. When children have difficulties, if the parents have the conditions and the capability, they can extend a hand to help their children resolve real difficulties. If the parents don’t have the right conditions, they should let things take their course. Everyone walks on the trajectory ordained by God, and parents cannot influence the destiny of their children at all. As for my son’s marriage, even if I had given him money to get married, it would only have resolved a temporary issue for him. It could not have resolved the issue of whether his marriage was successful or not. However big an eagle’s wings are, it can’t protect its eaglets for life. When children reach adulthood, they perform their mission in accordance with God’s sovereignty and ordination. Nobody can change the suffering and tempering they are to experience in their lives. I also understood that everyone, whether parents or children, has their own mission. They should all pursue the truth and pursue salvation. Within the limited time that they have, they should use their time and effort on their duty, and complete their mission. This is the only thing that is valuable and meaningful. If, merely in order to meet the expectations and demands of their children, parents are worried and anxious about them, or tirelessly work hard as a slave to their children, abandoning their own duties, then this is a life without meaning or value. However much they do this, they cannot be remembered by God and they cannot change their children’s destiny. After reading the words of God, my heart felt very bright. I now knew how to treat my son. I would help him if I could when he had difficulties, and let go if I couldn’t. I would let him experience his life by himself. I must fulfill my duty to the extent that I was able to, and repay God’s love. This is the responsibility I should fulfill.

I was influenced and bound by traditional culture, and I suffered a lot in the pursuit of being a good wife and a loving mother. It was God’s words that released me from my pain, and helped me to find a direction and path of practice. I now have principles by which to treat my son, and my life is liberated and free. Thank God!