By Laochen
Out of the Blue I Nearly Become a Vegetable
One morning around eight o’clock, my wife and I took our 7-year-old granddaughter to help collect firewood and haul it back to the house in our hand-pulled cart. We packed the cart full of wood that was a few inches thick, and then at about ten my wife and I were hauling it back when we came upon a downward slope, where we started pushing back on the cart to keep it moving slowly. But the road was very steep and the cart was really gaining momentum, starting to career down; my wife and I were trying with all our might to bring it to a halt. I was so afraid that it felt like my heart was about to jump out of my chest, thinking of our granddaughter still on the cart—I hoped with all my might it wouldn’t overturn! If it were to keep on hurtling down and turn over, we might all be done for. The cart was going too quickly and my wife couldn’t run fast enough; she lost hold of the handle and had to get out of the way, and I was trapped between the handles and couldn’t get free. I was then forced down, pressed underneath the cart and was being dragged along with it. My wife was right behind chasing the cart while yelling, “God, save my husband and granddaughter….” I was dragged for about 20 meters before the cart suddenly overturned at a roadside pile of firewood. My granddaughter was thrown to the side of the pile, and luckily it stopped her from falling into a ditch of water below. She just had a bit of a scrape at the side of her mouth that bled a little bit. However, I had been dragged underneath the cart and badly crushed. I was rolled up into a ball with my head and legs right up against each other. I was really suffering. I wanted to lift my head, but I couldn’t move my neck at all, and my back was completely immobilized. I was in unbearable pain, so much so that I couldn’t even move.
My wife rushed up to check on our granddaughter and just heard her crying and saying, “Grandma, I’m fine, please go check on Grandpa.” I feebly said, “It feels like every bone in my body has been broken. I’m really not feeling well—try to move my head.” Seeing that I could still speak, my wife cried while straightening out my head. Our granddaughter also ran over, crying while calling out for me, but I was too weak and in pain to respond. I was having a hard time breathing. I was praying out to God in my heart, “Oh God, I’m in incredible pain right now and I won’t be able to hold on much longer. I don’t know how much longer I’ll last. Am I going to die?” I then thought of these words from God, “Almighty God, the Head of all things, wields His kingly power from His throne. He rules over the universe and all things, and He is in the act of guiding us on the whole earth. We shall at every moment be close to Him…. So long as you still have one breath, God will not let you die.” God’s words gave me faith and strength; the entire universe and all things are within His grasp, so isn’t my own life also within God’s hands? I could then rely on God and have hope from within my heart. I was taken to the hospital after that, and my son and his wife came. The doctor told my family members, “The patient is very seriously injured. There are over 20 fractures in his ribs, cervical spine, and lumbar spine. He’ll either suffer from paralysis or become a vegetable, and there’s even a risk of death. You should prepare yourselves.”
That evening my wife told me what the doctor had said. This was very upsetting, and I thought, “If I really turned out to be paralyzed or I became a vegetable, wouldn’t it just be a life of suffering? Would life still have any meaning?” I couldn’t help but cry and cry when I thought of this. In that moment, feeling the desperation in my heart coupled with the pain in my body, I felt I would be better of dead—my suffering reached a critical point. Just then I prayed out to God: “God, I’m really in pain now. What the doctor said has left me feeling so afraid. God, please guide me to have faith and courage to face all of this.” That night, my suffering hovered over me like a dark cloud, and I couldn’t get any sleep. Then far into the night I thought of these words from God: “Of everything that occurs in the universe, there is nothing in which I do not have the final say. Is there anything that is not in My hands?” “Who of the whole of mankind is not cared for in the eyes of the Almighty? Who does not live in the midst of the Almighty’s predestination? Does man’s life and death happen by his own choice? Does man control his own fate?” These words from God unveil a mystery. The entire universe and all things are all under God’s rule and our lives are within God’s hands. Regardless of whether I become paralyzed or a vegetable, regardless of whether I live or die, it is all managed by God. God’s words gave me faith and strength and gave me something to lean on in my heart.
Sleeping in the hospital bed, my entire body was wrapped with bandages and I had an IV in my arm. I couldn’t move around at all. My wife was at my bedside taking care of me day and night, giving me medication and feeding me. When she saw that I was having a hard time, she’d have me pray to God and rely on Him; I was constantly praying day in and day out. One day I thought of the trials that Job underwent. He lost so many livestock as well as his own children, and his body was covered with boils. He sat in the ashes scraping off his boils with a ceramic shard. Even when suffering both physical and psychological blows at the same time, he still didn’t lose faith or reject God. That was such a resounding testimony. As the word of God states: “The preciousness of Job lay in how, when he was tempted, and even when his whole body was covered with sore boils, when he endured the utmost torment…, To put it in another way, in his heart he believed that, no matter what temptations, or however grievous the tribulations or torment, even if death was to come upon him, he would not renounce God or spurn the way of fearing God and shunning evil. You see, then, that God held the most important place in his heart, and that there was only God in his heart.” I then quietly resolved within my heart that I wished to follow Job’s example. No matter what I faced with my health in the future, as long as I had another breath to take, I would rely on God’s words in my life. From then on I focused on quieting myself before God and pondering God’s words every single day; I frequently prayed to God about my condition and handed it over to Him. I was willing to lean on God, and submit to His rule and arrangements.
Discharged After 28 Days by a Miracle
Once I entrusted all of this to God, a miracle occurred. Around 9 a.m. on the eighth day after the accident, some doctors and nurses came for a consultation and asked me, “How are you feeling?” I said, “I’m not in quite as much pain, and I can eat again.” They felt it was pretty odd, so one doctor said, “Sir, we never imagined you’d recover so well. We’ve had patients like you before, none of which have pulled through, but your condition has been gradually improving. This is unbelievable! Based on your current condition, none the three possibilities we mentioned before [paralysis, being a vegetable, or death] are likely to occur!” I couldn’t help but cry when I heard the doctor say this. I felt gratitude, guilt, and joy. I prayed to God from my heart, “God, I give thanks to You. It’s You who have cared for and protected me. If it weren’t for Your wondrous deeds, with my bones broken in 20 places, based on what the doctors said I should have either been paralyzed, a vegetable, or worst-case scenario, dead. But none of that has happened. If it weren’t for Your mercy, how could I even go on living? I offer up my genuine thanks and praise to You—You’ve given me a second chance at life. Oh God, I give thanks to You and praise You.”
After prayer, I thought of God’s words: “When the waters swallow humans whole, I save them from those stagnant waters and give them a chance to live anew. When people lose their confidence to live, I pull them up from the brink of death, granting them the courage to go on so that they can use Me as a foundation for their existence. … So many times people have seen My hand, so many times they have witnessed My kind countenance and smiling face…, Though humans have never known Me, I do not seize upon their weaknesses as opportunities for being deliberately provocative. Experiencing humanity’s hardships has enabled Me to sympathize with human weakness.” From these words of God, I realized that God’s essence is love. When I was suffering and weak, God gave me faith and courage, and it was God’s hand that wondrously protected me, allowing me to go on living. Thinking back on when the cart overturned, if it had careened down into the ditch, which was about a meter deep, who knows how badly my little granddaughter would have been injured, and that could have even been the end of me. However, the cart overturned right by some firewood that a neighbor had stacked up, and thanks to that stack of wood being in the way, my granddaughter wasn’t thrown into the ditch. Plus, I wasn’t dragged along under the cart for too long, bounced along like a rubber ball—otherwise, I really wouldn’t have survived. It was God’s loving hand that allowed us, me and my granddaughter, to escape this brush with death, and I was deeply moved within my heart. I also felt an incredible debt to God. It occurred to me that I had never taken my faith seriously, thinking that as long as I held God within my heart, that was enough. I had felt that going to gatherings would take time away from work and making money, so I rarely went. Brothers and sisters shared fellowship with me many times, urging me not to place too much importance on money, that I should be content with food on the table and clothes on my back, and to focus on faith and seeking the truth. However, I didn’t listen to what they had to say. I still kept doing things my own way and kept trying to earn more money. But when I was in critical danger, God didn’t deal with me according to my rebellious behavior. Instead, He protected me and allowed me to dodge that bullet. I couldn’t possibly give enough thanks for God’s love for me. This also made me realize that when faced with calamity, money can never save me—only God can save me.
The ninth day after the accident, the doctor removed all my bandages, and my pain was lessening each and every day. At 9 a.m. on the twentieth day, over ten doctors and nurses came to see me, and one of the doctors said, “You’re in much better spirits, and your complexion is looking a lot better, too. It’s really a miracle that you’ve been able to recover so quickly and so well, that you’ve been able to survive after such serious injuries. You can be discharged at any time. Go back home and recuperate well.” However, my children insisted that I should stay in the hospital longer, so I stayed eight more days, and then on the 28th day I handled the discharge procedures. Not long after I had gotten back home some brothers and sisters came to see me. They shared fellowship on the truth with me and asked me to read God’s words more, to establish a proper relationship with God, to pray to God and rely on God in all things, and to really practice my faith. I gave thanks for God’s love that this fellowship from my brothers and sisters allowed me to better understand God’s love and mercy. From then on, I convalesced at home and also attended gatherings; I started leading a normal life of the church.
One day, I read these words of God: “And then there are the majority of people, who find spiritual sustenance in God.” “If people keep holding onto such forms of belief, what consequences will they face? With such forms of belief, will they be able to draw ever closer to fulfilling God’s requirements? (No, they will not.) On the contrary, because of their notions and imaginings, they will stray ever farther from God’s way, for the direction they seek is the opposite of the direction God requires them to take. … You will only gain from your faith in God if you approach it as the greatest thing in your life, more important than even food, clothes, or anything else!” What these words from God revealed left me with a feeling of shame and guilt—I was exactly the sort of person being exposed in God’s words. I was treating faith in God as something to meet my own spiritual needs, so when I was in need I would seek out God, but when I wasn’t in need I would just put God aside, taking Him for granted like the very air I breathe. That kind of perspective on faith wasn’t belief in a practical God, but was belief in a vague God. Ultimately, I never would have gained the truth with that kind of faith. This experience really transformed my incorrect perspective on faith that I had held for years; I no longer took my faith in God as something to give me spiritual support and I was no longer bound by money. I became willing to follow God’s directives and to treat my faith as the most important thing in my life going forward, taking more time to read God’s words, practice my faith, and seek the truth. As long as I have food on the table and clothes on my back, I am content. Now I’m even able to walk around, and when the neighbors see me they all say things like, “You were so badly hurt, I never imagined you’d make it through. The Old Man in the Sky really helped you out!” Some people also said that I was extremely fortunate, but in my heart I knew that it was God protecting me, allowing me to go on living. That’s the only reason I’m here today.