By Zhou Min
Since my childhood, I had never gained the favor of my grandparents. My mom said that my father was their eldest son, so my grandparents hoped their first grandchild would be a boy. However, as the firstborn child, I was a girl, so they didn’t love me. When I was 1 or 2 years old, my father was always at work, and my mother needed to do farm work, having no time to care for me. So, they let my grandmother look after me. But every time when my mother picked me up after work, she found that after I had always wet my pants, the urine made my buttocks red because my grandmother would never change me into a clean pair of pants. My mother felt sad for me, so she quarreled with my grandmother due to this. In the following days, she had no choice but to leave me alone at home. At that time, I was only 4 years old. Whenever she finished the farm work and got home, I had been asleep on a chair. After my little brother was born, I found my grandparents cared much about him, but to me, they got colder and colder in manner. So my heart was full of complaints. I thought they showed partiality to my brother and were overly unfair to me.
When I was 8 years old, on the Mid-Autumn Festival, I went to my grandparents’ house. They were cooking in the kitchen, and I had fun alone in the courtyard. When the lunch was almost ready, my brother came here and then we got into the kitchen together. Seeing my brother coming, my grandmother said to my grandfather directly, “Hurry! Take out the moon cakes in the cupboard for him.” I thought: I have been there for a long time, but you didn’t give me any moon cakes. The moment he arrives, you give moon cakes to him. Immediately, a great grievance appeared on my face, tears of indignation flowing out of control. Then I ran home crying. In the daily life, as long as they spoke with me, my grandparents would show an unpleasant expression; they either roared at me, or said to me peevishly. On the Chinese New Year, our whole family gathered at their home for a dinner. When it was time to eat, my grandmother would speak familiarly of my brother with a soft tone, “Darling, come to dinner.” But she would shout at me, with a stern face, “Go to eat, quickly!” Sometimes my grandparents would hold my little brother in their arms and play with him yet they never treated me like that. In my memory, they never showed me a kindly smile, instead, each with an impassive and strange face. Gradually, in my young heart, I bore a hatred against them.
At that time, my father had an accident at work and since then he had been bedridden. The burden of my family completely fell on my mother’s shoulders. To cure my father’s illness, all my family’s savings were used up and yet it was of no avail. In such a case, my grandparents still didn’t give us any help. My grandfather kept an ox but he never helped us to plough our land with it. My mother could only employ others to help us do the farm work, and she even couldn’t offer enough money for my brother’s and my schooling. Until she could do nothing about it, my mother didn’t go to ask for my grandparents’ help. When the day of my attending junior middle school was nearing, my grandfather promised that they would pay our costs for future schooling and my mother needed to offer our living expenses. However, a piece of grievous news came unexpectedly. In the year of my graduating from the primary school, my father suddenly passed away in that summer holiday. The matter happening later especially deepened my resentment to my grandparents. Before my registering for school, my mother asked me to take my school fees from my grandfather. When I arrived at his house, he was leisurely smoking a long-stemmed Chinese pipe at the doorstep. I said, “Grandpa, I need to enroll in my school. I’m coming to get my school expenses.” He smoked the pipe, gazing into the distance blankly. “My son has been gone. Why should I look after his children?” said he. His words stuck as a sharp knife at my heart. At that moment, I stood there silently with tears in my eyes. But he still didn’t give me money. With tears of grievance flowing quickly, I returned home in a huff. I hated him in my heart, thinking: How cruel you are! Dad has left, and yet you even cast off us! Holding a grudge against him, I vowed to myself: Humph! From this day on, you are not my grandpa. Even if you die, I will never shed any tears for you! From that time onward, I didn’t recognize them as my grandparents and I never went to their home again. When someone asked me about them, I always replied impassively, “I have no grandparents.” After I got a job, I returned home during my annual leave. While I was playing badminton with my friend in front of her house, my grandfather walked here. I felt resentful at once and I didn’t want to pay any attention to him, so I went inside with my friend. Later, I heard that my grandparents moved to another house, but I still didn’t pay a visit to their new house. In this way, my hatred of them kept lingering in my heart.
Afterward, my mother believed in God. One day, she had a heart-to-heart talk with me, “Min, I always complained to your grandparents before you in the past, so that you hated them also. Actually, regardless of their preferring sons to daughters or how they treated us, we should not hate them.” Her words surprised me. I thought: Mom always disliked my grandparents, but why, today, does she change her mind and even speak something good for them? I looked at her, puzzled. Mom continued, “Do you know, from God’s words, I finally understand that we humans all unwittingly live in our corrupt disposition after being corrupted by Satan, which results in strife, grudges and fights. The reason why your grandparents treated us in such a way is just because they lived in the satanic disposition and had no command over themselves due to the corruption of Satan. That we have a hatred of them is also caused by corrupt satanic disposition. Now, through reading God’s words, I understand some truths, so I’d like to let go of my hatred of them, understand and forgive them.” Hearing her words, I thought: But it is a fact that they didn’t treat us well. If they treat us kindly, will I dislike them? Anyhow, I don’t think there is anything wrong with hating them. Nonetheless, after believing in God, my mom should get such a big change in her attitude to my grandparents, which indeed surprised me and also left a favorable impression of faith in God in my heart. Afterward, my mother witnessed God’s work in the last days to me and gave me a copy of Selections of the Records of the Three Stages of God’s Work. Through reading it carefully, I saw that God comes to earth to express the truth and do the work of salvation, which is true love for us mankind, so I accepted God’s kingdom gospel with pleasure. After believing in God, I knew that it was God who created this world in the beginning and prepared the comfortable living environment and various foods for us humans. And originally, our ancestors, Adam and Eve, lived a happy life in the Garden of Eden. However, because of the enticements of the serpent, they betrayed God, and then they were driven out of the Garden of Eden, losing their happy life. But God has never abandoned us mankind, and instead, He keeps working to save us in silence, in order to restore our beautiful life in the beginning. I felt joyful, for I had the fortune to accept God’s work of the last days and get the chance to be saved by God. From this time on, I began to attend gatherings with my brothers and sisters.
One day, I told a sister that I still couldn’t get rid of the resentment toward my grandparents, and then she found a passage of God’s words for me, “In the past, when the words of God have not become people’s lives, it was Satan’s nature that took charge and dominated within them. What specific things were within that nature? For example, why are you selfish? Why must you protect your own position? Why are your emotions so strong? Why do you love those unjust things, and why do you love those evils? What is the root of these things? Where do they come from? Why are you so happy to accept these things? Right now you all have understood that this is mainly because of Satan’s poison contained within. What Satan’s poison is can be fully expressed with words. For example, if you ask some evildoers: ‘Why do you do that?’ They will answer: ‘Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost.’ This one phrase expresses the root of the problem: The logic of Satan has become people’s lives, and no matter what they do, whether it’s for some purpose or other, they are only doing it for themselves. People all think that ‘Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost,’ that this is just the way it is, so everyone should live only for themselves” (“How to Take the Path of Peter”). The sister fellowshiped, “Through what God’s words reveal, we can see that after we mankind were corrupted by Satan, Satan’s poison has become the basis of our existence. For example, after the thought, ‘Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost,’ was instilled in our hearts, no matter what we do, we all live to benefit ourselves and for our own interests, becoming really selfish. Besides, our assessment of others’ character is also based on whether they are profitable to us. Therefore, your hatred of your grandparents because of their treating you badly is totally dominated and controlled by Satan’s poison, ‘Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost,’ which results in there being no true love and tolerance between you. It is Satan’s poison that twists our minds, so that we lose our conscience and sense, and don’t know what the right way to live and act as men is.” Through the revelation of God’s words and the sister’s fellowship, I was suddenly enlightened: As it turns out, the reason why there is no true love and toleration between us is because we have been corrupted by Satan, to the point that we don’t have a bit of human likeness left. All of us live in our corrupt disposition, becoming more and more selfish, base and self-seeking. Thinking of this, I couldn’t help sighing with emotion, “Actually, my grandparents are also victims; it is also because of Satan’s corruption that they become like this. The revelation in God’s words makes me know that my hatred of my grandparents is also caused by the harm of Satan’s poison ‘Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost.’ I am unwilling to be deceived and fooled by Satan any more, and I will depend on God to put my hatred of them aside.”
Afterward, I saw God’s words, “The emotions of mankind are selfish and belong to the world of darkness. They do not exist for the sake of the will, much less for the plan of God, and so man and God can never be spoken of in the same breath. God is forever supreme and ever honorable, while man is forever base, forever worthless. This is because God is forever making sacrifices and devoting Himself to mankind; man, however, forever takes and strives only for himself. God is forever taking pains for mankind’s survival, yet man never contributes anything for the sake of the light or for righteousness. Even if man makes an effort for a time, it is so weak that it cannot withstand a single blow, for the effort of man is always for his own sake and not for others. Man is always selfish, while God is forever selfless” (“It Is Very Important to Understand God’s Disposition”). God’s word is real. Only God has been paying for mankind’s survival silently and selflessly, while we mankind are forever selfish and live only to satisfy our own preferences and desires. God selflessly prepared the beautiful Garden of Eden for our ancestors Adam and Eve so that they could live there happily; even after we mankind were corrupted by Satan, God has never stopped His salvation for us. At the same time as He bestows us with abundant materials to provide our necessities in life, He expresses the truth and does His work to save us, with the result that our lives can be nourished and shepherded and we can live in God’s care and protection. Yet since we were corrupted by Satan, we have lived to satisfy ourselves in everything. Compared with God’s love for us, I felt too ashamed to show my face.
One day, I saw God’s words, “Knowledge of several thousand years of ancient culture and history has closed off the thinking and concepts and mental outlook of man so tightly as to be impenetrable and nondegradable. Man lives in the eighteenth level of hell, as if they have been banished by God into the dungeons, never to see the light. Feudal thinking has oppressed man such that man can barely breathe and is suffocating. They have not the slightest strength to resist and just quietly endure and endure…. Never has any dared to fight or stand up for righteousness and justice; they simply live a life, no better than an animal’s, under the abuse and assault of feudal lords, year after year, day after day. Man has never thought to seek God to enjoy happiness on earth. It is as if man has been beaten down, like the fallen leaves of autumn, withered and browned. Man has long lost their memory and helplessly lives in the hell by the name of the human world …” (“Work and Entry (7)”). From God’s words I realized why my grandparents preferred sons to daughters. It was because they were influenced by feudal thinking. These satanic poisons have become our human ideas and viewpoints, such as “marry a daughter, throw out the water,” “family prestige,” “continuing the family lineage,” and “no son, no perpetual family name”; then we people begin to live by these poisons, thus having the thought of preferring sons to daughters. Satan really is too abominable. I realized when we don’t have truths, and can’t see through Satan’s schemes, we can only live in the bounds and shackles of feudal thinking and be fooled and trampled upon by Satan. At this time, I could treat my grandparents appropriately. I saw clearly that it was Satan that continued to corrupt and harm us, and sowed dissension among us, which resulted in our former happy life losing harmony. I thought: In fact, my grandparents also are victims; if, one day, I go back to my hometown, I will witness God’s work of the last days to my grandparents, allowing them to get rid of Satan’s corruption and harm.
Afterward, a sister also told me her experience. In her childhood, her father was not as capable as her uncle was, so her grandmother was unkind to her family, and kept snacks secretly only for her cousins. Therefore, she hated her grandmother, but afterward Almighty God’s words dissolved her grudges. Then she began to spread the gospel to her grandmother. When her grandmother understood the truth of her being corrupted by Satan through attending gatherings and reading God’s words, to the sister’s surprise, her grandmother apologized to her actively. At that moment, they were moved to tears by God’s love, which made their family warm and peaceful since then. After listening to this, I also melted into tears for what she experienced was what I would experience. I thanked God from the bottom of my heart for His love and salvation.
Thank God for allowing me to know my satanic corrupt disposition, see God’s love and salvation for us mankind, and understand that only God’s word is the basis of our existence and the light guiding our path of life. Only by living by God’s words, can we have true happiness and joy, thoroughly keep away from Satan’s corruption and harm, and live in the light. I am willing to treasure God’s words.
