The Years When I Rushed About for the Sake of My Daughter | The church of Almighty God

                                            Yang Yuqing    Japan

I was born in a small mountain village in China, and led an ordinary and simple life there. At the age of 16, I, after graduation from junior high school, went to a big city to work because my family was poor. At the age of 17, I met my former husband, who was twelve years older than I. At that time, he looked after me like a father and cared for and loved me like a brother. I felt very fortunate and happy to have met him. Once, his mother came specially to take a look at me. I had thought that she would be very happy after seeing me. But unexpectedly, when she saw that I was beautiful and was many years younger than her son, she suspected that I had ulterior motives. So she asked her son before me, “Aren’t you afraid that she has ulterior motives?” Her words really hurt me. Just when I didn’t know what to say, he said to his mother in anger, “Mother, if you want to separate us, you go now!” I was shocked at his words. He was always mild, but at that moment he got angry with his mother. I was greatly touched, and I believed that his love for me was true and felt that I had found the true love. So I gave birth to a daughter for him despite his parents’ objection. But unexpectedly, a few years later, he became a totally different man. He began to go drinking, gambling, and whoring. He not only gambled away our hard-earned savings for a few years, but also got into debt. There was nothing I could do about it, so I resigned my daughter to the care of my mother-in-law and went out to work. I worked with all my might to earn money, but my husband gambled like mad. No matter how much money I made, he squandered it all. We began to quarrel every day. In the end, I really couldn’t bear that anymore, so I moved out. I wanted to leave that heartbreaking place with my daughter, but my husband said that he would not allow me to take her away unless I gave him 200,000 yuan.

I agreed to give him 200,000 yuan because I was afraid that if he married another woman, my daughter would be mistreated by her, and I also wanted my daughter to have a good education and future. But I had not worked for a few years and didn’t have this amount of money. So I began to work hard to make money. Just at that time, my mother and elder sister accepted God’s work of the last days, and they asked me to believe in God and rely on Him with them, but I had no heart to believe in God at all, for I only wanted to make 200,000 yuan to get my daughter back. So I refused the help of the brothers and sisters again and again and was fully bent on making money. But against all expectations, when I had earned 200,000 yuan at last by hard toil, my husband still refused to give me my daughter, and he found many other excuses to demand that I give him 500,000 yuan.

As I couldn’t get my daughter back, I tried to dispel my melancholy by drinks every day, living as one who was not quite a human and not quite a ghost either. And meanwhile I began to strive for the goal of earning 500,000 yuan, for I thought I would be able to leave there with my daughter when I achieved it. I became a slave of money body and soul, busying myself making money day and night. Later, I met my present husband when I worked in a Japanese restaurant. At that time, the hurt caused by my former husband had made me never wish to get married again, but my present husband was gentle and considerate toward me and didn’t despise my daughter and me, so I married him, and then came to live in Japan with him. After I came to Japan, my daughter thought that I had abandoned her, and she called me up every day, tearfully accusing me of being an unworthy mother, and she also told me she hated me. Her words pierced my heart, and I thought, “Why does she not understand my heart? It is not that I have abandoned her, but that my former husband has never allowed me to take her with me, whose purpose is to demand money from me.” At that time, I swore that I would get my child back. I then began to work like mad in Japan. My mind was occupied with nothing but money and my daughter. I thought that I would be able to bring her to Japan when I had 500,000 yuan. But when I asked my former husband to give me his bank account so as to transfer the money into it, he demanded that I give him 1,000,000 yuan. He had cheated me again and again; this hurt me terribly and plunged me into misery. I had worked like mad for those years in order to get my daughter back, but what I got in the end was nothing but cheat and pain. Finally I burnt myself out and had to rest at home. At the time, I was full of complaints: How bitter a fate is mine, and what a hard life I have!

During that period, my mother and elder sister tried again to persuade me to believe in God and rely on Him, but I still had no heart to do so. In 2015, I still didn’t get my child back. When I was back in China, my mother advised me earnestly again to believe in God and rely on Him and stop struggling against my fate. She said, “The fate of man is controlled by God’s hands. You have been disobeying God and trying to control your fate by your own hands. This has only plunged you into deeper misery. God’s salvation came to you as early as when you first suffered the frustration in your marriage, but you have always relied on yourself. You thought that your daughter would come back to you after you gave him the money, but have you got her? It is not that you haven’t seen through the fact that he refuses to give you your daughter for the sake of money. Obviously you have been allowing him to harm you. You have thought too much about your fate in the future! Which of your wishes has been fulfilled through your struggle in these years? You should think it over: Is man’s fate really in his own hands? Believe in God and rely on Him! Only God can save you! Let us read a passage of Almighty God’s words. Almighty God says: ‘If one’s attitude toward God’s sovereignty over human fate is active, then when one looks back upon one’s journey, when one truly comes to grips with God’s sovereignty, one will more earnestly desire to submit to everything that God has arranged, will have more of the determination and confidence to let God orchestrate one’s fate, to stop rebelling against God. For one sees that when one does not comprehend fate, when one does not understand God’s sovereignty, when one gropes forward willfully, staggering and tottering, through the fog, the journey is too difficult, too heartbreaking. So when people recognize God’s sovereignty over human fate, the smart ones choose to know it and accept it, to bid farewell to the painful days when they tried to build a good life with their own two hands, instead of continuing to struggle against fate and pursue their so-called life goals in their own manner. When one has no God, when one cannot see Him, when one cannot clearly recognize God’s sovereignty, every day is meaningless, worthless, miserable. Wherever one is, whatever one’s job is, one’s means of living and the pursuit of one’s goals bring one nothing but endless heartbreak and irrelievable suffering, such that one cannot bear to look back. Only when one accepts the Creator’s sovereignty, submits to His orchestrations and arrangements, and seeks true human life, will one gradually break free from all heartbreak and suffering, shake off all the emptiness of life’” (“God Himself, the Unique III” of Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words touched my heart, and I felt sad and also felt that God really searches the hearts and minds, for I had groped forward like that for several years, and the journey was heartbreaking and painful, such that I couldn’t bear to look back. Every word of Almighty God was aimed at me, and I saw that God knew me so well. “Have I really been struggling against my fate? Should I stop striving and struggling by relying on myself and calm down to seek the will of God and see what exactly I should do? Where is my real harbor?” While I was thinking about this, my mother said, “Let us watch the movie Caught the Last Train. My child, this is the final age, and there is only one train left. Your elder sister and I have preached the gospel to you many times during these years, but you have always been busy, with the result that you are still suffering unbearably and have gained nothing. Only if you come to God will there be hope in your life!” At her words, I began to watch the movie carefully, in which the work God has done is communicated. Surprisingly, I could understand what it showed though I hadn’t contacted many things of belief in God. The process of the protagonist’s change from opposing God’s work of the last days to accepting it touched me the most. His reflections and realization deeply affected me as if I had experienced it myself, and I was moved to tears in remorse. I was also a rebellious child like the protagonist! I had refused to accept God’s salvation time and again. I had dragged out an ignoble existence by myself in this world for the past years and never enjoyed any true peace and joy. I regretted not having accepted God’s work of the last days earlier, and decided to catch the last train and follow Almighty God and rely on Him and never again struggle with my own hands, for the failures in the past years had left me exhausted. Not long after I returned to Japan, I began to have the church life. When I saw that there were so many brothers and sisters on the website and in the videos of the Church of Almighty God, I was astonished and more certain that I had caught the last train. God’s kingdom gospel was spreading to all nations and regions. Not only were there so many people who believed in Almighty God in Japan, but the Church of Almighty God had also been built up in many other countries such as Canada, America, South Korea, and so on. I was grateful to God that He hadn’t punished or eliminated me though I had disobeyed Him again and again. I felt that I was unworthy to be graced by God so greatly, and I was determined to follow Him forever. 

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Through having meetings and reading the words of God, I was more clear about God’s kind and thoughtful intention in saving man and saw more clearly how Satan has harmed man. I read these words of God: “Most people live in the foul place of Satan, and suffer its derision; it teases them this way and that till they are half alive, enduring every vicissitude, every hardship in the human world. After toying with them, Satan puts an end to their destiny. And so people go through their whole lives in a daze of confusion, never once enjoying the good things that God has prepared for them, but instead being damaged by Satan and left in tatters. Today they have become so enervated and listless that they simply have no inclination to take notice of God’s work” (“Work and Entry (1)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “A person cannot choose the people or factors under whose edification and influence he or she grows up. One cannot choose what knowledge or skills one acquires, what habits one forms. One has no say in who one’s parents and relatives are, what kind of environment one grows up in; one’s relationships with the people, events, and things in one’s surroundings, and how they influence one’s development, are all beyond one’s control. Who decides these things, then? Who arranges them? Since people have no choice in the matter, since they cannot decide these things for themselves, and since they obviously do not take shape naturally, it goes without saying that the formation of all this rests in the hands of the Creator. Just as the Creator arranges the particular circumstances of every person’s birth, He also arranges the specific circumstances under which one grows up, needless to say. If a person’s birth brings changes to the people, events, and things around him or her, then that person’s growth and development will necessarily affect them as well. For example, some people are born into poor families, but grow up surrounded by wealth; others are born into affluent families but cause their families’ fortunes to decline, such that they grow up in poor environments. No one’s birth is governed by a fixed rule, and no one grows up under an inevitable, fixed set of circumstances. These are not things that a person can imagine or control; they are the products of one’s fate, and are determined by one’s fate. Of course, the bottom line is that they are predestined for a person’s fate by the Creator, they are determined by the Creator’s sovereignty over, and His plans for, that person’s fate” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh).

“Thank God! His words are so practical! The fate of every person is in God’s hands, and it is also in God’s hands whether my daughter will form bad habits or not under the care of my former husband. A person’s birth, the environments he or she grows up in, and his or her ultimate fate are indeed beyond his or her control. I am a case in point. I thought that I had found the true love and could live happily with my husband all my life, but an unexpected thing happened. From God’s words I know that man’s sufferings and wrong views on pursuit all result from Satan. I was fully bent on earning money simply because I wanted to change the fate of my daughter. I always thought that as my former husband went drinking, gambling, and whoring, my daughter, under his care, would be influenced by him, and that I would not allow my daughter to suffer any longer, and I must let her receive a good education, have good qualities, and become a cultured and knowledgeable person with good habits. Now, through reading God’s words I know the fact that a person’s fate cannot be changed by himself or herself, nor can it be changed by his or her parents.” In the past years, I agreed to all the unreasonable demands of my former husband, but I haven’t got my daughter back. Now she is 15 years old. My struggle has not changed her fate, and she has not become like my former husband either, but instead she becomes ever more sensible. In fact, my daughter is my daughter regardless of whether she can come back to me or not. It is in God’s hands what future there is for her, and it is also in God’s hands whether she can come to Japan. And I also no longer hate my former husband. As my views about these things changed, my daughter became very close to me, and she stopped asking me for money, and began to care for me every now and then. I also often spoke my mind to her while chatting with her, and she said she understood my difficulty. When I gave her money, she said, “Don’t give me too much money, for I am still a child and have no self-control. When I have no money, I will let you know. You should take care of your health. I have grown up. Don’t worry about me.” Her understanding of me is the greatest happiness to me. I know it is God who has been warming my heart with His love, for He knows that my daughter is the only one I cannot keep myself from worrying about. I thank God for looking after and keeping me so tenderly. When I preached the gospel to my present husband, he became clear about God’s work of saving man and accepted God’s work in the last days and began to have the church life. Now, under the leading and guidance of God, we live a happy and joyful life. I thank Almighty God for saving me! In my heart is deeply engraved the hymn of life experience “O God, My Dear God”: “O God, O God, my dear God! You’ve raised me on Your words of life, showing me how to walk and teaching me how to experience Your words. Thanks to Your mercy and keeping, I am walking on the way to Your kingdom. O God, O God, my dear God! You’ve saved me from the world, and I’ve returned to Your family, returned to Your family. O God, O God, my dear God! You always worry about my life, and hope that I will grow up soon and be transformed in life disposition earlier so that I can fulfill my duty faithfully and satisfy Your heart soon. O God, O God, my dear God! Your love inspires me, and I will follow You forever. O God, O God, my dear God! Your love inspires me, and I will follow You forever and serve You all my life, serve You all my life.” 

                Source ：" The Years When I Rushed About for the Sake of My Daughter"

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