By Xiaotu, China
It was early morning, just after a rain, and thin mist shrouded the village at the foot of the mountain. The village was only sometimes visible through the fog, like a fairyland on earth. In a warm, ordinary-looking farmhouse, Molian brought a muddy hoe to the gate, and urged her daughter-in-law inside the house, “Xiaoqing, hurry up, if we plant just after the spring rain, the seedlings are sure to grow up strong!”
“Coming!”
Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law walked across the brown soil into the fields …
A creaking bicycle raced toward them and suddenly stopped in front of them. “Are you relatives of Zhihui?” anxiously gasped a flat-headed young man as he brushed sweat from his forehead. Molian nodded lightly, but before she could answer, he said frantically, “Hurry! Your son was hurt, and he’s lying in the hospital!” Molian immediately felt nervous: Lying in the hospital? Was the injury serious? Before they could think further, Molian and her daughter-in-law quickly found a taxi and rushed to the town hospital.
On the second floor of the hospital, more than a dozen people stood around the bed in a narrow hospital room. Molian rushed into the room and pushed her way to the front of the crowd followed closely by Xiaoqing. Molian’s gaze was immediately drawn to a bright red trail of blood on the floor. The unmoving Zhihui lay on a blood-soaked stretcher, surrounded by doctors who were bandaging his wounds to stop the bleeding. Molian was shocked by what she saw. Her hands trembled, her heart felt as if it would leap from her chest, and her mind was blank. As Molian slowly recovered her senses, she asked with a shaky voice, “What happened to my son?” “Doctor, please, tell us, what happened to him?” asked Xiaoqing next to her as she tried to hold back tears. One of the men nearby quickly answered, “The three of us were sitting on stools by the side of the road waiting, when suddenly a big red cargo truck raced by and sent about a 5kg stone slamming into a nearby power line pole. It bounced off the pole and flew straight into your son’s head, and he collapsed on the ground. There was a huge gash next to his right eye, and blood was streaming out, so we tried to stop the bleeding with our clothes, and then brought him to the hospital.” When the man finished speaking, the doctor sighed and continued, “Your son’s heartbeat is very weak, and he is only breathing with difficulty. We don’t have any way to save him. Get him to the city hospital as soon as you can!” Molian’s legs went weak, and she nearly collapsed on the floor. Her face was pale, and with the trace of a sob in her voice, she said, “The city hospital? It’s more than two hours from the town hospital to there, and his heartbeat is already weak. Will he be able to make it to the city hospital? Will he die on the way? If my son dies, what will we do?” But the equipment and skills of the doctors at the town hospital really weren’t up to the task of saving her son, so Molian had no choice but to transfer him.
Outside the hospital, as the red and blue lights of the ambulance flashed, several doctors carried the unconscious Zhihui into the vehicle, followed by the teary-eyed Xiaoqing, after which the doctors helped Molian in as well. Molian sat next to Zhihui as she grasped his hand which was pale from blood loss, not letting go for even a moment, terrified that if she did, he would leave her. Molian’s forehead was scrunched together, her eyes were red, and her face was filled with fear and helplessness. She desperately hoped that someone could save her son.
Suddenly, Molian thought of God, “That’s right! God is there for people to rely on at any time. How could I forget God?” So, Molian quietly called out to God, “God! My son is hurt very badly, and I don’t know whether he will make it. God! I’m very worried, and I don’t know what to do. Please help me and guide me.” After she prayed, Molian remembered the story of Job recorded in the Bible: When trials came to Job, he lost his herds of cows and sheep, his vast wealth, his ten children were crushed by a falling roof and died, and boils covered his body, causing him to bear both physical and spiritual misery. Yet despite these circumstances, Job never uttered a word of blame against God. Instead, he believed that all things were orchestrated by God, that all things were granted and taken away by God, and no matter whether blessings or disaster come to us, people should praise God’s holy name. So, he fell to the ground and accepted and obeyed all that came to him, and through his faith, obedience, and fear for God, he stood firm and testified for God before Satan. In the end, Job received God’s blessings and praise. Molian understood from Job’s experiences that God had allowed this trial to come to her in the hope that she would have Job’s faith in His mastery, and no matter whether God granted or took away, obey God’s orchestrations and arrangements and rely on her faith in God to stand firm and testify for Him. When Molian realized this, she offered up a prayer to God, “God! I wish to offer up my son’s life into Your hands. If he survives, I will praise Your grace in gratitude, but if he leaves me, I wish to obey You and not blame You. No matter what the result, I will obey Your orchestrations and arrangements.” After she prayed, the great anxiety in her heart lessened greatly.
Two hours later, the ambulance arrived at the city hospital, and Molian’s son was delivered to the emergency room in a rush of footsteps. A doctor rolled up his sleeves and went to Zhihui. He lifted Zhihui’s eyelids and examined the man’s eyes, then regretfully shook his head and looked at Molian, saying, “Your son may not make it. We can’t accept him!” These simple words stunned everyone who had followed them into the emergency room. Molian nearly fainted and fell to the ground. As she leaned against the wall, her body trembling, her face pale, and her eyes filled with tears, she muttered to herself: “Is it true? Is there really no way to save Zhihui? He was perfectly healthy when he left the house this morning. It took almost no time at all to put him in this condition. Is this really how he’s going to leave us? And if he dies, how will the rest of our family survive?” Xiaoqing quickly moved to support Molian and began crying as she embraced her. She was in deep torment as tears flowed down her cheeks. She couldn’t help but cry out to God, “God! Although I am determined to obey You, hearing the news that my son can’t be saved is still very painful. God! What should I do?” After she prayed, a passage of God’s words emerged in her mind, “Like all things, man is quietly and unknowingly nourished by the sweetness and rain and dew from God; like all things, man unknowingly lives beneath the orchestration of God’s hand. Man’s heart and spirit are held in the hand of God, everything of his life is beheld in the eyes of God. Regardless of whether or not you believe this, any and all things, whether living or dead, will shift, change, renew, and disappear in accordance with God’s thoughts. Such is the way in which God presides over all things” (“God Is the Source of Man’s Life”). “Almighty God is an all-powerful physician! … So long as you still have one breath, God will not let you die” (“Chapter 6” of Utterances of Christ in the Beginning). Molian was shocked by the authority of God’s words. She suddenly awakened from her shock and remembered that God is omnipotent. Whether her son would survive was orchestrated and arranged by God, just like when a person is born and leaves our world is also in God’s hands. These are things no human can control, because God’s authority and ability are eternally supreme and unique. As she thought of this, Molian silently said to herself, “The God I believe in is omnipotent, He is the Creator who rules over the universe, and the source of all life. My son’s life was granted by God, and his life and death are in God’s hands, so whether he survives isn’t up to the doctor. I must have faith in God.” The enlightenment and guidance of God’s words came to her at just the right time, greatly reducing the pain in Molian’s heart. She couldn’t help but feel guilty for the behavior caused by her lack of faith. Even though she admitted in theory that God presides over all things, she still lacked true faith in God, and when she heard the doctor say that her son couldn’t be saved, her heart immediately felt like it had been emptied, and she was trapped in the grief of losing her son. Her spiritual stature was truly too small. So, Molian once again prayed to God, “God! I said with my mouth that my son’s life and death are in Your hands, but my heart isn’t certain, and I still believe that the doctors can decide the life and death of my son. This is because I still lack true understanding of Your omnipotence and mastery and lack sincere faith. God! I wish to experience Your work. No matter how things develop, I will maintain a fearful and obedient heart before You to deal with whatever circumstances come to me.”
At that moment, Molian’s brother slapped his forehead and said loudly, “I just remembered, my friend from the army is the director of this hospital!” Then he ran out of the emergency room. A few minutes later, Molian’s brother rushed back to the emergency room with the hospital director. The hospital director felt Zhihui’s pulse and said, “Because he’s my friend from the army, we’ll have to take the risk and try to save your son, but with the size of the wound on his head, even if we can save him with an operation, he might suffer brain death. You need to be mentally prepared for that.” The hospital director spoke with a grave look, then when he finished, immediately ordered the other doctors to prepare for surgery. As Molian watched Zhihui be pushed into the operating room, the anxiety in her heart lessened, and at the same time she felt gratitude toward God. She knew that her brother’s sudden recollection that his friend from the army was the hospital director, and the director’s agreement to give her son surgery were God’s arrangements. As she thought of this, Molian silently offered a prayer of thanks to God.
The seconds ticked by on the clock on the wall as Molian’s family waited anxiously outside the operating room. Molian sat on the bench and called constantly to God, her heart not daring to leave God for even a moment. Suddenly, with a ding, the red light on the operating room door stopped flashing, and the people waiting outside looked at the door nervously, some frowning, some with clenched fists, and Molian with a grave expression …
“The operation was a success! He should be awake in a few days.” The doctor came out and told everyone the good news. Everyone looked at each other with happy expressions on their faces. But then, the doctor continued, “But, even though we’ve saved his life, the wound is about ten centimeters long and very deep, which means blood might build up inside it. If the accumulated blood obstructs the blood vessels, he could suffer brain death.”
“What? He might be braindead?”
“If that happens, then our lives in the future will….”
While the other family members around her were anxious and worried about Zhihui’s future, Molian was very calm. She thought of how, from her son’s accident, to his treatment, to the success of the operation, God had shown His authority and power, and she had witnessed it personally. Without God’s salvation, her son might not have survived the night, but when humans had assumed saving him was impossible, God had used the people, matters, and things around him to heal him and allowed him to safely leave the operating table. Wasn’t all of this God’s miraculous work? The more Molian thought of it, the more she was filled with faith in God. She believed that whether her son would be braindead was in God’s hands, but no matter what the result, she was ready to obey God’s orchestrations and arrangements without complaint.
At this moment, a faint call came from the hospital room. The eyes of Molian and everyone else turned toward it. Zhihui, who had been predicted to awaken a few days later, was miraculously already conscious! When she saw this, tears flowed from Molian’s eyes. She was so moved that she didn’t know what to say. She could only express her thanks to God in her heart. “It’s a miracle! In so many of these operations, we’ve never seen anything like this. Patients who undergo such major surgery never wake up so soon,” said the surprised doctor who was looking at the electrocardiogram. Everyone present looked amazed, and couldn’t help but marvel at what they’d seen. “He’s so lucky! …” But Molian clearly knew in her heart that it wasn’t luck or the doctor’s medical skills, it was God’s protection and miraculous work. God’s authority and power cannot be measured by science, they supersede all strength, and break through all impossibilities. Anything can be accomplished in God. Just as God’s words say, “The heavens and earth and all things are established and made complete by the words I utter, and with Me, anything can be accomplished” (“Chapter 60” of Utterances of Christ in the Beginning). Molian, grateful for again being allowed to witness one of God’s miracles, was filled with gratitude. She smiled contentedly as she looked at her son on the sickbed. She couldn’t help but think back on this short yet traumatic journey. She realized deeply that she was guided on every step she took by God Himself. When Molian felt fear, sorrow, and helplessness, the enlightenment in God’s words led her to understand God’s will, gave her heart something to rely on, and taught her how to experience her circumstances. When her son was “sentenced to death,” Molian again fell into despair, and it was God’s words that gave her faith, and led her out of despair step by step. When Molian experienced her circumstances through faith, she witnessed God’s miraculous works time and again, and finally saw her son emerge safely from the crisis. Molian felt God’s unique authority and power, she realized that doctors cannot decide people’s life and death, that advanced scientific equipment can’t extend people’s lives, and that people’s life and death are in God’s hands, orchestrated and arranged by God. Her faith in God had increased greatly, and this experience became a valuable treasure on her journey of belief in God.
28 days later …
After cleaning her house, Molian walked out to her courtyard gate and looked into the distance. She said softly to herself, “Today Zhihui should get out of the hospital. That he recovered so quickly truly is God’s protection!” Not long after, when Molian saw Zhihui walking toward the house, she couldn’t help but offer thanks and praise to God in her heart!